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"Men" are weaker nowadays...


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Yep, I'm not surprised. I've posted several times of my disappointment in the "males" out there now a days, who can barely do handiwork, landscaping, etc.

 

http://http://www.menshealth.com.au/article/fitness/grip-strength-weaker-today

 

While I think the changes in labor have to do with it, still, people - men and women alike - are too lazy to get physical and workout to make up for us not having labor intensive jobs and/or need to work the land/farming.

 

Lazy and weak is what we have now a days :(

 

I was watching the Spartan competitions on NBC and a family of farmers, with pops having broken leg drama and mom being 50s, were able to run the course like wow...goes to show how physical activity is necessary for vitality.

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thefooloftheyear

Absolutely....

 

Let me say this...

 

In the 80s when I was a kid, I belonged to a gym where, if you didn't have a 315 lb bench press.you didn't set foot in the place..Same for squats ...If you didn't squat 405, you were not really considered "strong"

 

I belong to 2 separate gyms...At almost 52, I am one of the strongest guys in either place..The other stronger guys are actually older guys like me...I mean, I still go very heavy, but am careful not to sustain injury...

 

I tell this story to younger guys, they don't believe it, bit its 100% true...

 

When I was a kid and working out at home, I had a bench setup with 250#..My uncle was visiting and he decided to poke fun at me and tell me I wasn't about shyt. Well, he proceeded to get under that 250 and banged out like 5 or 6 clean reps!! Now mind you, this guy was strong, but didn't train in a gym and prob hadn't lifted weights for years...he was in his early 60's at the time, smoked like crazy and had a gut...You get the picture...But with what he was able to do, he could have walked into either gym I go to and embarrassed most of the 20 somethings there..Almost none can even do 250..

 

I know evolutionary changes take a long time and many generations, but it sure seems like guys got smaller/weaker very fast..

 

The other thing I have noticed is most guys actually are ectomorphs..Some endomorphs, but very rare are mesomorphs..>As a mesomorph myself, we have almost become extinct...

 

Don't really know..its a mystery I guess..

 

TFY.

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Society as a whole is going downhill physically, not just men.

 

Yes, I do dips daily and pull-ups several times in the week, but am slacking with the push-ups. I'm smacking myself as we speak.

Edited by a LoveShack.org Moderator
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Absolutely....

 

Let me say this...

 

In the 80s when I was a kid, I belonged to a gym where, if you didn't have a 315 lb bench press.you didn't set foot in the place..Same for squats ...If you didn't squat 405, you were not really considered "strong"

 

I belong to 2 separate gyms...At almost 52, I am one of the strongest guys in either place..The other stronger guys are actually older guys like me...I mean, I still go very heavy, but am careful not to sustain injury...

 

I tell this story to younger guys, they don't believe it, bit its 100% true...

 

When I was a kid and working out at home, I had a bench setup with 250#..My uncle was visiting and he decided to poke fun at me and tell me I wasn't about shyt. Well, he proceeded to get under that 250 and banged out like 5 or 6 clean reps!! Now mind you, this guy was strong, but didn't train in a gym and prob hadn't lifted weights for years...he was in his early 60's at the time, smoked like crazy and had a gut...You get the picture...But with what he was able to do, he could have walked into either gym I go to and embarrassed most of the 20 somethings there..Almost none can even do 250..

 

I know evolutionary changes take a long time and many generations, but it sure seems like guys got smaller/weaker very fast..

 

The other thing I have noticed is most guys actually are ectomorphs..Some endomorphs, but very rare are mesomorphs..>As a mesomorph myself, we have almost become extinct...

 

Don't really know..its a mystery I guess..

 

TFY.

 

And "evolution" is my fear. Saw a 60 Minutes about a girl who mountain climbed from youth and her hands/fingers literally changed cuz of the climbing...

 

So I'm not looking forward to the "devolution" of men into girls or guts with toes :(

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I agree too.

 

Like in some not-so-old movie from some time back.. I was amused at a maths professor telling the gym coach in school : "Nowadays we need brains, not muscle".

 

Thing is, I dont know if we are actually really becoming smarter. We are weaker, lazier, probably fatter too.

 

The hard labor has been replaced by machines. Every of our movement is a lot easier than a hundred years ago. Want to hear the story of my great grandma? Oh, walking to the next town is quick.. It's near by! Yes, barely 5 miles.. Who walks 5 miles these days to visit someone from the next town.

 

Maybe we are making generalizations. I know a couple early 20s hard worker guys and gals.. At least in their professions.

 

Maybe the man is something that shall be overcome.. As some notorious philosopher once wrote.

Edited by Shanex
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I guess it all boils down to working smarter not harder. I do believe in women's equal rights so I wouldn't mind my future woman taking out the trash, cutting the grass, moving furniture around just like I would. It's actually very sexy and a turn on. ;)

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It does not only apply just to men but to women as well. It depends of your background. More and more people are born in cities so nothing is passed down anymore.

 

I was born and raised on a dairy farm. We are 1 girl and 3 boys. We are all very handy. All of my brothers can fix a car, put hardwood floors down, fix plumbing, etc. I cook, bake, sew, knit, I can fix anything in a home or yard. I did everything in my home from curtains to cushions to bedding, name it. None of my city friends know how to sew a button.

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RecentChange

I agree regarding the back ground part.

 

I had a unique mix because I went to school "in the city" an hour away from where I lived - which was in the country, little town of 500 out in the mountains.

 

Us kids out there were active, strong and independent. Kids worked on their family ranch, played outside, swam in rivers, hauled logs to build forts, I was riding and training horses from a young age. I tell ya wrestling with a rank colt can really build some core strength.

 

Despite never "working out" I was as strong as guys on the football team - I used to love to challenge a jock to an arm wrestle.

 

And people from that area are still much the same today. We joke about being "country strong". A life that is closely tied to the outdoors is active and builds strength.

 

Hell, just last week two guys were struggling trying to move a copy machine in my office. I told them to step aside and moved it while wearing heels hahahaha.

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There is sth odd about being able to overpower or 'beat up' some guys ....more than really should be accounted for. I get the impression there's a psych element involved too, like pain threshold/tolerance and that sort of thing.

 

It'd be interesting if it really was evolutionary but I kinda doubt that. More likely just being a product of the times IMO. (But then maybe that is evolution.)

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Actually I think there are two trends in today's society. Though people's average strength and fitness is going down, there are also more people than ever working out, going for the "six pack" and so on.

 

I mean if you compare the typical attractive man during the 1960's and now, today's ideal for men is much more muscular. So I would say that the gap between those who do work out and those who don't is much wider today than it was before.

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Mysteryman9110

I lived with a few roommates in college that were juice heads. They were massive guys, but some of the most vein and insecure people I have ever met in my life. One of the guys openly admitted he was doing massive amounts of roids and jacking up his endocrine system just for some extra beach muscles, but the other one kept wanting to say he is " all natural " just to make himself look more tough. They spent more time in the mirror than any women I have met. The point is that there are so many men out there that try to look the part, but it's all a massive facade. They were not even training for a purpose, but more or less so they could post selfies and look good. Women in men's bodies.

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I think there was a better balance in the past, whereas nowadays people are split into two extreme camps. Previously people did do more manual labour and processed food didn't exist to such an extent, so obesity was uncommon. But there also wasn't such a 'body sculpting fad' (barring oddities like the corsets in the Victorian era of Western cultures) and people typically did not have the time to spend hours a day just to 'look good' - so the bodies of today's male/female fitness models were very unusual also.

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major_merrick

I think ideals have changed, and I think the purpose of fitness has changed. And not just for men either.

 

As another poster mentioned, the "ideal man" of today looks more muscular than the decades ago. But what are those muscles actually used for? I see guys who lift and work out to look good, but beyond that do they do any REAL work? I have a good friend who works on his land in the country. He's not the "ideal" and never really was. No six-pack there. But he's outdoors working every day, slinging sacks of feed, fixing stuff, and just generally being manly. As a teenager when we were together, he could certainly hold his own in a fight and I'm sure he still can. So I think health and fitness ought to be defined more about capability and less about looks.

 

Overall, I think both men and women have less capability than they did years ago. We have a sedentary lifestyle, and with our processed diet it seems to take more work to stay fit than it used to. I know my GF's work out at least an hour a day every day to stay thin. I can't do this due to my work schedule and energy level, and so I'm not at my best.

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Maybe we are making generalizations.

 

Hmmmm, you think?

 

My parents encouraged me to strengthen the nerve in my head and not the muscles in my arms used to do b*tch labor. My grandfather would roll over in his grave if he heard me complaining that I'd rather go back to busting my ass in the field. He'd feel like a failure. Didn't your parents encourage you all to try to work smarter not harder? What did they work so hard to send you to college for?

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Hmmmm, you think?

 

My parents encouraged me to strengthen the nerve in my head and not the muscles in my arms used to do b*tch labor. My grandfather would roll over in his grave if he heard me complaining that I'd rather go back to busting my ass in the field. He'd feel like a failure. Didn't your parents encourage you all to try to work smarter not harder? What did they work so hard to send you to college for?

 

I am all for 'working smart' (and you would be hard-pressed to find a job more cerebral and sedentary than mine), but it is unfortunately a fact that the human body needs SOME physical activity to stay healthy. It's just the way it has evolved. And no, we will never evolve to accommodate technology, because natural selection has largely stopped due to modern medicine (not saying that's a bad thing, but again, fact). So we HAVE to put in some time to exercise and move around even if technology exists to make it unnecessary.

 

Don't look at me, I didn't invent our bodies, it's just the way things are.

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major_merrick
Hmmmm, you think?

 

My parents encouraged me to strengthen the nerve in my head and not the muscles in my arms used to do b*tch labor. My grandfather would roll over in his grave if he heard me complaining that I'd rather go back to busting my ass in the field. He'd feel like a failure. Didn't your parents encourage you all to try to work smarter not harder? What did they work so hard to send you to college for?

 

Working smarter is fine. I like smart. But I think people ought to be well-rounded. If a person is in the prime of life and has a BMI of 30 for no reason beyond laziness and a sedentary job, that's just unacceptable in my opinion. What happens when the copy machine at the office needs to be moved, or the car needs a tire change, or something else goes wrong? It's not only about appearance, it is about capability. In the same vein, I find it unacceptable for people to take on a brute force, manual labor type job and let their brains go to waste. We have both body and mind for a reason.

 

As for my parents, dad drank the money and mom stripped. I would rather they had busted their butts in the field - it probably would have done them good. There's lots of worse things than a little manual labor. :cool:

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thefooloftheyear

I have always been a believer that a human body needs to be used(and sometimes even abused) physically to lead a healthy and long life..Understand I am not talking about abuse by way of drugs, alcohol, poor eating etc...

 

I love weight training, but that alone does not necessarily make someone strong...Even though I own my own company, the type of business I am in requires that I lift and move heavy items(up to 200#+) regularly..Additionally. we work in cramped conditions at times that force us to do odd movements in weird positions..And I have been doing it this way for decades..Heck, take a typical 200 + lb gym guy and he wont be able to do some of the stuff me and my guys do...and most of my guys don't exercise outside of work..

 

Without this type of repetitive movement and daily work, the body starts breaking down...Loss of muscle, inter connective tissues and cartilage deteriorates and there are even circulatory problems...For men, its also well documented that a sedentary life will erode testosterone levels...Which has a variety of physical problems associated,. more than the obvious limp dick...

 

My hands are like tools...When I go to the gym, even stronger guys are amazed at how I can take 45# plates and handle them like CD's....For me, its not about vanity at all...I like being strong...I like knowing that my body is powerful and it gives me a feeling of great inner confidence..And I know the benefits as get to experience it on a daily basis..

 

The problem is likely to even get worse as time goes by...It wont affect me and I dont have any sons...so...

 

TFY

Edited by thefooloftheyear
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I am all for 'working smart' (and you would be hard-pressed to find a job more cerebral and sedentary than mine), but it is unfortunately a fact that the human body needs SOME physical activity to stay healthy. It's just the way it has evolved. And no, we will never evolve to accommodate technology, because natural selection has largely stopped due to modern medicine (not saying that's a bad thing, but again, fact). So we HAVE to put in some time to exercise and move around even if technology exists to make it unnecessary.

 

Don't look at me, I didn't invent our bodies, it's just the way things are.

 

I'm not saying that the body doesn't need physical activity. I'm in better shape than the vast majority of people. I used to be a personal trainer, so I'm not arguing with importance of being in shape. My body fat percentage is about 10-12%. I'm beyond satisfied with my bench press and my physique.

 

I'm responding to the article, and the conclusion the OP is trying to draw from it. Because the muscles used to grip hand tools in the general population are generally weaker, society is going to hell in a hand basket. A real man breaks down his joints overloading them with the same repitious movements, but he has strong hands.

 

Conclusions that Chicken Little would draw aren't appealing to me. Because in my experience, they fundamentally aren't true. We're overall healthier and stronger than we've ever been. The average person didn't even see 60 one hundred years ago. Now, the average person lives into his/her 80s. So we, on average, have added 25 years to our lives in only 100 years time. As a whole, our species will continue to advance and make improvements over previous generations.

 

Anyone ever see "No Country For Old Men?" The world's not getting worse; it's always been bad. We're just getting older.

Edited by OneLov
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I'm not saying that the body doesn't need physical activity. I'm in better shape than the vast majority of people. I used to be a personal trainer, so I'm not arguing with importance of being in shape. My body fat percentage is about 10-12%. I'm beyond satisfied with my bench press and my physique.

 

I'm responding to the article, and the conclusion the OP is trying to draw from it. Because the muscles used to grip hand tools in the general population are generally weaker, society is going to hell in a hand basket. A real man breaks down his joints overloading them with the same repitious movements, but he has strong hands.

 

Conclusions that Chicken Little would draw aren't appealing to me. Because in my experience, they fundamentally aren't true. We're overall healthier and stronger than we've ever been. The average person didn't even see 60 one hundred years ago. Now, the average person lives into his/her 80s. So we, on average, have added 25 years to our lives in only 100 years time. As a whole, our species will continue to advance and make improvements over previous generations.

 

Anyone ever see "No Country For Old Men?" The world's not getting worse; it's always been bad. We're just getting older.

 

I both agree and disagree with you. I agree that the OP is making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill re: the hand tools, and I agree that people are living longer on average. But they are living longer not because they are healthier - it is because cures or at least treatment exists for many things that would have otherwise killed a person quite quickly "in the good ol' days" (and also a host of other non-health related reasons, like it being, quite rightly so, illegal to order a bunch of peasants beheaded because they didn't produce sufficient goods). I think in terms of 'health' we have been quite stagnant for a long time. We aren't exactly poisoning ourselves with plumbum or going weeks without bathing on a regular basis anymore, but obesity really is a medical issue.

Edited by Elswyth
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thefooloftheyear
I both agree and disagree with you. I agree that the OP is making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill re: the hand tools, and I agree that people are living longer on average. But they are living longer not because they are healthier - it is because cures or at least treatment exists for many things that would have otherwise killed a person quite quickly "in the good ol' days" (and also a host of other non-health related reasons, like it being, quite rightly so, illegal to order a bunch of peasants beheaded because they didn't produce sufficient goods). I think in terms of 'health' we have been quite stagnant for a long time. We aren't exactly poisoning ourselves with plumbum or going weeks without bathing on a regular basis anymore, but obesity really is a medical issue.

 

And we really haven't seen yet what the quality of life will be for some of these folks as they age...My guess is that they will be spending a good deal of their adult lives in doctor's office's, having joint replacements, and a variety of other ailments..

 

I say use it..... or lose it....

 

TFY

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but obesity really is a medical issue.

 

But that's only in the US. Let's look at underdeveloped countries. Access to clean drinking water and better nutrition has allowed people to work more. If someone is healthier and not coming down with/recovering from "x" illness, he/she has more opportunity to work and provide for his/her family.

 

Why are people getting taller? I'm 6'4". My dad is 5'10" and my mom is 5'4". It's probably a combination of factors, but one of those factors is children have better access to nutrition when they're young. How did the Dutch become so tall in only a few generations? Cheese. Access to quality protein, and they, on average, spent less time sick when their bodies were growing.

 

So, yes, the US brings the individual average health/physical fitness down a bit. But the data from the rest of the world brings it up and off the chart.

 

We have to dispel the notion that skinnier always means healthier. A lot of skinny people who smoked and ate trans fats died from massive heart attacks before age 70. I agree obese is unhealthy but so is smoking and believing all fat is equal.

 

Cancer will soon overtake heart disease as no. 1 cause of death in US. Cancer is a disease of age. Think about the implications of that statistic.

Edited by OneLov
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I have been working out for a long time now. I know what you mean. I see some cut up fools in the gym, doing rep after rep with light azz weight, just because it makes their biceps look big. Comparatively, I look a bit out of shape, not so well defined, but I outlift most of the guys in my gym, all but the biggest steroid users, anyway. Those guys are in there working out to look pretty for the ladies. I started working out when I was young, because I was into martial arts and I wanted to build strength. I still lift for strength and not pretty muscles. Just makes more sense to me. To each their own.

 

I bought some furniture not long ago with my lady friend. The box it came in said "team lift" on it, and it was pretty big. When I went to lift it, my lady pointed out the team lift notification and asked if I needed help. Ha. I am my own team. I guess the more modern guy would have to ask his lady to help him carry stuff.

 

I'm not a fitness or weight-training guru by any stretch but if I'm not mistaken the basic premise of what you're talking about is core strength. I don't have big muscles (lol) but I do have a very strong core due to certain regular conditioning activity. ;) Bc of that, even w/out the muscles, I feel generally rather strong. And conversely I could see how someone who just pimps out a certain small muscle group in the arms or w/e could be generally weak while still having muscles. (I've actually run into those types before who have big arms like say Ryan Gosling but if you give them a good shove from the base up they go pinwheeling.)

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Men are weaker. With guns around, there is no real need to bulk up or train to combat a physical threat.

 

 

It's much more likely that I will be given a divorce petition/get sued/lose my job/car accident than it is that I would be placed into a physical altercation that truly threatened my life.

 

 

Based on the nature of the threat and potential negative impact on my life, preparing mentally to protect my family is more about financials and legalities than it is about spear-hunting wild boar to ensure the family had food.

 

 

But if we're looking at the average loss of muscle as a genetic trait passed down by generations, than I'd imagine that my kids will be a lot more astute as using computers/electronics based on my intense use of them and even physically weaker than I am (compared to my father). After all, the changes in environment that impact me on a genetic level that would prepare a future generation's adaption end at the day of procreation.

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But that's only in the US. Let's look at underdeveloped countries. Access to clean drinking water and better nutrition has allowed people to work more. If someone is healthier and not coming down with/recovering from "x" illness, he/she has more opportunity to work and provide for his/her family.

 

Why are people getting taller? I'm 6'4". My dad is 5'10" and my mom is 5'4". It's probably a combination of factors, but one of those factors is children have better access to nutrition when they're young. How did the Dutch become so tall in only a few generations? Cheese. Access to quality protein, and they, on average, spent less time sick when their bodies were growing.

 

So, yes, the US brings the individual average health/physical fitness down a bit. But the data from the rest of the world brings it up and off the chart.

 

We have to dispel the notion that skinnier always means healthier. A lot of skinny people who smoked and ate trans fats died from massive heart attacks before age 70. I agree obese is unhealthy but so is smoking and believing all fat is equal.

 

Cancer will soon overtake heart disease as no. 1 cause of death in US. Cancer is a disease of age. Think about the implications of that statistic.

 

Trust me, you're preaching to the choir here. :) I agree with most of the above, except that obesity is on the rise in most countries and not just the US (though the US does indisputably lead that chart). There are a multitude of reasons for this.

 

All I'm saying is that I don't think our longer life expectancy is due to healthier habits. IMO it's mainly due to medical and technological advancements, and increasing social equality (in many countries, not all).

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