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> people used to get strong naturally because they had to do physical labor I think that's a bit of a myth. The Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing

> people used to get strong naturally because they had to do physical labor I think that's a bit of a myth. The Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms, but no forklifts. Many of the most renowned Romans in the original form of the Olympics and in Boxing were Roman Senators with the wealth and free time to lift weights and box and wrestle. One of the things that we know about the famous philosopher Plato was that Plato was essentially a nickname from wrestling (meaning "Broad") as a first career (somewhat like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, which adds a fun twist to reading Socratic Dialogs or thinking about relationships as "platonic"). Arguably the "meritocratic ideal" of the Gladiator arena was that even "blue collar" Romans could compete and maybe survive. But even the stories that survive of that, few did. There may be a lesson in that myth, too, that the people that succeed in some sports often aren't the people doing physical labor because they must do physical labor (for a job), they are the ones intentionally practicing it in the ways to do well in sports.

port11 9mo ago
I can’t attest to the entire past, but my ancestors on both sides were farmers or construction workers. They were fit. Heck, my dad has a beer gut at 65 but still has arm muscles that’ll put me to shame — someone lifting weights once a week. I’ve had to do construction for a summer and everyone there was in good shape. They don’t go to the gym, they don’t have the energy; the job shapes you. More or less the same for the farmers in the family. Perhaps this was less so in the industrial era because of poor nutrition (source: Bill Bryson, hopefully well researched). Hunter gatherer cultures that we still study today have tremendous fitness (Daniel Lieberman).
- hn_acc1 9mo ago
  My dad was a machinist, apprenticed in Germany after WW2. Always somewhat overweight (5'9", 225 lbs during his "peak" years), but he could lift guys up by their belt with one arm, and pick up and move 200+ lb metal billets when he got too impatient to wheel the crane over. Even at 85 now, he's probably stronger in his arms than most 60 year olds. But I'm also not saying ALL of his co-workers were that strong, either.
  - foobarchu 9mo ago
    Takes mass to move mass. Most of the strongest people in the world look "fat" and usually have a hefty gut. Strong and jacked are orthogonal characteristics.
    - concats 9mo ago
      Food is anabolic. It's significantly easier to build muscle if you're willing to also put on fat.
    - jedwards1211 9mo ago
      I know what you mean, but from a physics perspective, no, it just takes force to move mass. More mass will generate more downward force due to gravity, and more force in other directions due to momentum once it’s moving, but there’s more to generating force than just mass. I’m not a kinesiologist but I would think how much force muscles generate depends on the amount and size of the fibers (mass) but also on their contractive efficiency and the amount of energy they can obtain and employ to contract (not necessarily proportional to mass, involves cardiovascular fitness)
      - AdelaideSimone 9mo ago
        Very overweight people, ironically, have good muscle development -- if they are ambulatory. Having to move all of that weight around builds muscle.
thaumasiotes 9mo ago
> I think that's a bit of a myth. Why do you think that? It's definitely true. You can observe it today if you want to visit a country where peasants are still common. From Bret Devereaux's recent series on Greek hoplites: > Now traditionally, the zeugitai were regarded as the ‘hoplite class’ and that is sometimes supposed to be the source of their name > but what van Wees is working out is that although the zeugitai are supposed to be the core of the citizen polity (the thetes have limited political participation) there simply cannot be that many of them because the minimum farm necessary to produce 200 medimnoi of grain is going to be around 7.5 ha or roughly 18 acres which is – by peasant standards – an enormous farm, well into ‘rich peasant’ territory. > Of course with such large farms there can’t be all that many zeugitai and indeed there don’t seem to have been. In van Wees’ model, the zeugitai-and-up classes never supply even half of the number of hoplites we see Athens deploy > Instead, under most conditions the majority of hoplites are thetes, pulled from the wealthiest stratum of that class (van Wees figures these fellows probably have farms in the range of ~3 ha or so, so c. 7.5 acres). Those thetes make up the majority of hoplites on the field but do not enjoy the political privileges of the ‘hoplite class.’ > And pushing against the ‘polis-of-rentier-elites’ model, we often also find Greek sources remarking that these fellows, “wiry and sunburnt” (Plato Republic 556cd, trans. van Wees), make the best soldiers because they’re more physically fit and more inured to hardship – because unlike the wealthy hoplites they actually have to work. ( https://acoup.blog/2026/01/09/collections-hoplite-wars-part-iva-the-status-of-hoplites/ https://acoup.blog/2026/01/09/collections-hoplite-wars-part-... ) --- > Many of the most renowned Romans in the original form of the Olympics and in Boxing were Roman Senators In the original form of the Olympics, a Roman senator would have been ineligible to compete, since the Olympics was open only to Greeks.
- Terr_ 9mo ago
  Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett: > The ability of skinny old ladies to carry huge loads is phenomenal. Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.
- tracerbulletx 9mo ago
  I think he was saying upper classes that didn't do much physical labor have existed since at least classical era and needed to do some kind of physical training to maintain strength?
spondyl 9mo ago
> The Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms, but no forklifts. We may not have any evidence that they had forklifts but we also can't rule out the possibility entirely :)
hn_throwaway_99 9mo ago
The fact that Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms for their athletes in no way makes it a "bit of a myth" that people used to get strong naturally by doing physical labor. For example, average grip strength of people under age 30 in the US has declined markedly just since 1985.

port11 9mo ago

I can’t attest to the entire past, but my ancestors on both sides were farmers or construction workers. They were fit. Heck, my dad has a beer gut at 65 but still has arm muscles that’ll put me to shame — someone lifting weights once a week. I’ve had to do construction for a summer and everyone there was in good shape. They don’t go to the gym, they don’t have the energy; the job shapes you. More or less the same for the farmers in the family. Perhaps this was less so in the industrial era because of poor nutrition (source: Bill Bryson, hopefully well researched). Hunter gatherer cultures that we still study today have tremendous fitness (Daniel Lieberman).

hn_acc1 9mo ago
My dad was a machinist, apprenticed in Germany after WW2. Always somewhat overweight (5'9", 225 lbs during his "peak" years), but he could lift guys up by their belt with one arm, and pick up and move 200+ lb metal billets when he got too impatient to wheel the crane over. Even at 85 now, he's probably stronger in his arms than most 60 year olds. But I'm also not saying ALL of his co-workers were that strong, either.
- foobarchu 9mo ago
  Takes mass to move mass. Most of the strongest people in the world look "fat" and usually have a hefty gut. Strong and jacked are orthogonal characteristics.
  - concats 9mo ago
    Food is anabolic. It's significantly easier to build muscle if you're willing to also put on fat.
  - jedwards1211 9mo ago
    I know what you mean, but from a physics perspective, no, it just takes force to move mass. More mass will generate more downward force due to gravity, and more force in other directions due to momentum once it’s moving, but there’s more to generating force than just mass. I’m not a kinesiologist but I would think how much force muscles generate depends on the amount and size of the fibers (mass) but also on their contractive efficiency and the amount of energy they can obtain and employ to contract (not necessarily proportional to mass, involves cardiovascular fitness)
    - AdelaideSimone 9mo ago
      Very overweight people, ironically, have good muscle development -- if they are ambulatory. Having to move all of that weight around builds muscle.

thaumasiotes 9mo ago

> I think that's a bit of a myth. Why do you think that? It's definitely true. You can observe it today if you want to visit a country where peasants are still common. From Bret Devereaux's recent series on Greek hoplites: > Now traditionally, the zeugitai were regarded as the ‘hoplite class’ and that is sometimes supposed to be the source of their name > but what van Wees is working out is that although the zeugitai are supposed to be the core of the citizen polity (the thetes have limited political participation) there simply cannot be that many of them because the minimum farm necessary to produce 200 medimnoi of grain is going to be around 7.5 ha or roughly 18 acres which is – by peasant standards – an enormous farm, well into ‘rich peasant’ territory. > Of course with such large farms there can’t be all that many zeugitai and indeed there don’t seem to have been. In van Wees’ model, the zeugitai-and-up classes never supply even half of the number of hoplites we see Athens deploy > Instead, under most conditions the majority of hoplites are thetes, pulled from the wealthiest stratum of that class (van Wees figures these fellows probably have farms in the range of ~3 ha or so, so c. 7.5 acres). Those thetes make up the majority of hoplites on the field but do not enjoy the political privileges of the ‘hoplite class.’ > And pushing against the ‘polis-of-rentier-elites’ model, we often also find Greek sources remarking that these fellows, “wiry and sunburnt” (Plato Republic 556cd, trans. van Wees), make the best soldiers because they’re more physically fit and more inured to hardship – because unlike the wealthy hoplites they actually have to work. ( https://acoup.blog/2026/01/09/collections-hoplite-wars-part-iva-the-status-of-hoplites/ https://acoup.blog/2026/01/09/collections-hoplite-wars-part-... ) --- > Many of the most renowned Romans in the original form of the Olympics and in Boxing were Roman Senators In the original form of the Olympics, a Roman senator would have been ineligible to compete, since the Olympics was open only to Greeks.

Terr_ 9mo ago
Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett: > The ability of skinny old ladies to carry huge loads is phenomenal. Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.
tracerbulletx 9mo ago
I think he was saying upper classes that didn't do much physical labor have existed since at least classical era and needed to do some kind of physical training to maintain strength?

spondyl 9mo ago

> The Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms, but no forklifts. We may not have any evidence that they had forklifts but we also can't rule out the possibility entirely :)

hn_throwaway_99 9mo ago

The fact that Greeks and Romans had weightlifting and boxing gyms for their athletes in no way makes it a "bit of a myth" that people used to get strong naturally by doing physical labor. For example, average grip strength of people under age 30 in the US has declined markedly just since 1985.