Both tend to put stress on our bodies, why does one make us stronger and the other makes it weaker as we get older
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The premise is faulty. Both resistance training and manual labor will make people stronger, unless people get injured in a way that limits their strength (generally back or joint injuries).
Many older people who have worked manual labor will have bad backs, knees, etc. when they get older, but outside of that they’re also generally quite strong. I’ve met old farmers. I wouldn’t mess with them, and many of them would have been better at heavy farm labor than me at half their age.
Many people who have been serious weightlifters throughout their life also have injuries and accumulated wear and tear by the time they’re older, but again likely much stronger than the average person to the extent they can work around those.
The area where this will often come up is that elderly people put on a resistance training regime will (on average) see significant improvements in strength, balance, etc. and reduced falls, longer ability to live on their own, etc. These are generally fairly easy workout plans designed for elderly people and intended to be low injury risk, but for many people anything is an improvement.
Weightlifting done wrong will fuck up a body as fast As manual labor though. One big difference is as we train were much more in control of what lift were approaching, the resistance and how were going to do it, and if something feels balky we can stop.
Meanwhile if your in construction and you have to swing heavy hammers or pack shingles up on a roof for 30 years that’s going to wear on very specific fibers and tendons deteriorating them. Additionally were not nearly as good at prehab/rehabing until there’s already a problem
The premise is faulty. Both resistance training and manual labor will make people stronger, unless people get injured in a way that limits their strength (generally back or joint injuries).
Many older people who have worked manual labor will have bad backs, knees, etc. when they get older, but outside of that they’re also generally quite strong. I’ve met old farmers. I wouldn’t mess with them, and many of them would have been better at heavy farm labor than me at half their age.
Many people who have been serious weightlifters throughout their life also have injuries and accumulated wear and tear by the time they’re older, but again likely much stronger than the average person to the extent they can work around those.
The area where this will often come up is that elderly people put on a resistance training regime will (on average) see significant improvements in strength, balance, etc. and reduced falls, longer ability to live on their own, etc. These are generally fairly easy workout plans designed for elderly people and intended to be low injury risk, but for many people anything is an improvement.
Weightlifting done wrong will fuck up a body as fast As manual labor though. One big difference is as we train were much more in control of what lift were approaching, the resistance and how were going to do it, and if something feels balky we can stop.
Meanwhile if your in construction and you have to swing heavy hammers or pack shingles up on a roof for 30 years that’s going to wear on very specific fibers and tendons deteriorating them. Additionally were not nearly as good at prehab/rehabing until there’s already a problem
A proper weightlifting program uses progressive overloading, and rest and recovery periods.
Progressive overload means that over time, you increase the weights lifted, or lift the same weight for more reps / sets. This is one of the key distinctions between training and exercise. If an untrained person did 3 sets of 5 reps of bench press with a weight of 75 lbs., it would make them stronger, but if you kept doing that same workout for 6 months, you would not continue to get stronger. But if you add 5 lbs. to the bar each time you work out, you will keep getting stronger.
Rest and recovery periods are also needed—your muscles do not grow while you work out, the muscle fibers get slightly damaged with micro-tears by your workout (assuming progressive overload). It is during rest and recovery that the muscles repair themselves and grow.
Similarly, a job that involves hard labor will make a person stronger than a sedentary job, but only to a point. Your body will adapt to the workload you are doing, and then stop once it has adapted.
When you are constantly doing hard labor, you are putting a lot of strain not just on your muscles but also on your ligaments, tendons, and joints. These tissues do not grow as quickly as muscles, mostly because there is not as much blood flow. Overdoing it (either while lifting weights or doing hard labor) risks injury and wearing down your joints. Most of the time when someone is worn down or in pain after years of hard labor, it is their bones and joints that are injured, not their muscles.
If you are doing this labor 5 days in a row each week, you are also not getting enough rest in between for your body to fully recover. If you tried to do a bench press workout 5 days in a row every week, that would also not work well and you’d probably end up injured.
Becoming stronger through proper weightlifting can also help prevent injury from labor. One of the functions of muscles is to protect ligaments, tendons, and joints by stabilizing the spine, etc. and by taking the load that would otherwise get transferred to the joints and other tissues. Being stronger also means that each repetitive smaller load uses a lower percentage of your maximal strength, so it it easier than if you were fully exerting yourself all day.
A proper weightlifting program uses progressive overloading, and rest and recovery periods.
Progressive overload means that over time, you increase the weights lifted, or lift the same weight for more reps / sets. This is one of the key distinctions between training and exercise. If an untrained person did 3 sets of 5 reps of bench press with a weight of 75 lbs., it would make them stronger, but if you kept doing that same workout for 6 months, you would not continue to get stronger. But if you add 5 lbs. to the bar each time you work out, you will keep getting stronger.
Rest and recovery periods are also needed—your muscles do not grow while you work out, the muscle fibers get slightly damaged with micro-tears by your workout (assuming progressive overload). It is during rest and recovery that the muscles repair themselves and grow.
Similarly, a job that involves hard labor will make a person stronger than a sedentary job, but only to a point. Your body will adapt to the workload you are doing, and then stop once it has adapted.
When you are constantly doing hard labor, you are putting a lot of strain not just on your muscles but also on your ligaments, tendons, and joints. These tissues do not grow as quickly as muscles, mostly because there is not as much blood flow. Overdoing it (either while lifting weights or doing hard labor) risks injury and wearing down your joints. Most of the time when someone is worn down or in pain after years of hard labor, it is their bones and joints that are injured, not their muscles.
If you are doing this labor 5 days in a row each week, you are also not getting enough rest in between for your body to fully recover. If you tried to do a bench press workout 5 days in a row every week, that would also not work well and you’d probably end up injured.
Becoming stronger through proper weightlifting can also help prevent injury from labor. One of the functions of muscles is to protect ligaments, tendons, and joints by stabilizing the spine, etc. and by taking the load that would otherwise get transferred to the joints and other tissues. Being stronger also means that each repetitive smaller load uses a lower percentage of your maximal strength, so it it easier than if you were fully exerting yourself all day.
Any decent weightlifting program is structured in a way not to be harmful.
When you’re training, you’re lifting a balanced bar, you focus on good form, you pick the type and amount of exercises you do, you train your body in a more-or-less balanced way so every muscle gets similar amount of training, and you’re doing it for relatively short sessions (say, 3-4 times per week for an hour).
Manual labor, on the other hand, doesn’t have much structure, you’re lifting awkwardly shaped objects, certain muscles work much more than others, people generally aren’t mindful of good lifting form when at work, and they do it every day continually, 8 hours per day.
Any decent weightlifting program is structured in a way not to be harmful.
When you’re training, you’re lifting a balanced bar, you focus on good form, you pick the type and amount of exercises you do, you train your body in a more-or-less balanced way so every muscle gets similar amount of training, and you’re doing it for relatively short sessions (say, 3-4 times per week for an hour).
Manual labor, on the other hand, doesn’t have much structure, you’re lifting awkwardly shaped objects, certain muscles work much more than others, people generally aren’t mindful of good lifting form when at work, and they do it every day continually, 8 hours per day.
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