Humourous story (for me). For most of my life I was a human stick. 6'4" 165lbs. Got teased a fair bit for being skinny. But I also grew up working on farms.

At the end of every year in college we were required to unbunk any beds in the dorms. A bodybuilder's roommate had already left for the summer so he asked me to help him unbunk his bed. They were pretty heavy and awkward and for whatever reason he couldn't get a proper hold to lift his end, so being annoyed I put the whole thing on my shoulders and did it by myself while he watched confused.

I was definitely not stronger, but a life spent doing actual physical work had unsurprisingly better prepared me to do actual physical work.

That being said I am now a dough boy who could stand to get back to doing manual labor.

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Yeah, it's hard to substitute #realwork with #fakework. Fakework is what you do to prepare for realwork or to maintain a certain level of fitness between bouts of realwork (such as when you're snowed in, on a submarine, or stuck working overtime at a desk job).

If you're _only_ doing fakework, but that regularly, you should at least consider rebalancing. Unless you're in training for a weightlifting competition, or undergoing rehabilitation, or something.

It's not that fakework is worthless, but we should always remember that it is merely the means to some productive end.

One thing I've really noticed, lately, is the importance of a strong grip. Holding bars or pulling on handles or lifting blocks or bells doesn't seem to develop the muscles in the hands and arms anywhere near as efficiently, as realwork. Especially because realwork tends to constantly switch between different activities, and fine/coarse movements.

It's like the difference between typing and writing with an ink pen.

It's like the finer development of each particular muscle can create excess lift. Perhaps it's a question of muscular control or application. Or, I suspect, heavier bones. All of the strong men I know have very strong bones. That's why you can't easily tell how strong they are, by appearance alone. It's things like tendons and calcification, gracefulness, or the coordination between mind and body. Simply often knowing _how_ to do the thing most neatly and efficiently.

Lol. That was also fun in college. Young men when meeting sometimes turn handshakes into grip contests. I'd let them think they were beating the skinny guy with tiny wrists then crunch their metacarpals.

That is gone now as well. Don't match grips with a farmer.

I don't think real work exercises grip more efficiently, it is just that you have to keep going for hours even after your hands and forearms have fatigued out. In a weight room you don't choose to endure that kind of pain. You don't choose it in the field or garage either. You just get the work done or you don't and don't isn't an option, so you push yourself so far past the breaking point that you can barely pick up a fork in the evening. Then you wake up a 5AM and do it again. There is no leg day.

Yeah, like in the military, or renovation.

Moving day is moving day and basta. Pick up your hammer and keep going. There is no rest for the weary and there is no crying in construction.

It was like that, in the bakery. Be ready to literally just fall over and it's like... 23 boards to go. Spend 4 hours scrubbing the floors and walls and realize you only have 6 more hours to go. 😭

I'd come home from night shift, simply unable to speak.

I think that's why I like cross-country running and hiking. It doesn't matter how terrible you feel, you still have to hobble all. the. way. home.

Like the village's yearly pilgrimage over the hills, for 50 km, by foot. The last 5 km or so, you literally are in a trance and can easily trip over small stones on the path because you can barely raise your feet. And it just seems to go on and on and occasionally someone just faints right away.

Your village has a yearly pilgrimage?! I must know more!

There are multiple pilgrimages. Some just to the next field chapel or cross (they dot the countryside), some to the next larger town (circa 14 km round-trip), and then the one very far away, that they've been making since the medieval ages, either on foot or by bicycle (there are two groups). They've never missed a year.

The one on foot leaves at 5 am and arrives for Vespers. 10 hours of marching and praying, with some breaks.

Back in the day, they would actually march there, sleep in the barn, and then march back the next day, but we're all soft now, and take a bus home. 😂

Pilgrimages are common here. The famous Jacob's Route to Santiago de Compostela goes past.

At any rate, people don't realize what an advanced-level I'm working on, physically and mentally. But I'm constantly pushing my own boundaries and eventually I hit some wall.

What I always always always notice, is that the men around me invariably take longer to reach that wall and they recover much faster from the collision.

Men are simply and _obviously_ superior at many things and I am too competitive to deny it. I would never be able to advance, in my own way and at my own pace, without acknowledging this, and I'd be doomed to whinging that the men must not be playing fair.

But, I learned at a young age that life is inherently unfair. This is not Heaven. Thankfully. This would be a dimestore Heaven, for sure.