[c7b]

One thing I always found a bit of a puzzle: it's widely understood, and scientifically backed up afaik, that strength training is healthy and good for longevity. Yet, if you look at people whose everyday jobs look a lot like functional strength training, eg construction workers, my general impression is that their bodies (age 50+) are in worse condition than the average population (who's not in great shape already), and far worse than people with sedentary jobs who do fitness training.

I get that there can be too much of a good thing etc, but I still find it curious. If it's generally said to be good for you, shouldn't the effects be a bit more robust than that?

[chrystalkey]

Well the answer here is: other factors. Safe, supervised strength training is great, but construction workers do not have that luxury, but instead heavy stuff to carry in (unhealthy)positions dictated by the task itself rather than your training regimen.

Then there are toxic chemicals on site they are exposed to, which attack lung, skin, bones, muscles. Then there is dust everywhere all the time, wood dust, stone dust, plastic particles, metal particles. All not great for your lungs, skin an eyes. So the strength training alone would be great, and many construction workers do have a lot of muscle mass, but the rest ist just poisoned.

[shipman05]

I worked construction during the summers in college. There's quite a bit of sedentary work on a job site. In my experience, the guys who worked on their feet and did hours of physical labor were in pretty good shape. They burned a lot of calories and consumed a lot of calories: fast food, sweet tea, gatorade, beer at night. The more senior folks often ran heavy equipment like track hoes and bulldozers. Those guys were seated all day long, but their eating and drinking habits didn't change. Every one of the machine operators I worked with was overweight and had various health problems. Heavy smoking and drinking surely didn't help.

[sharadov]

It depends - construction workers in the US especially look like shit, given the crap that they eat - fast food, sodas and then beers after the job.

Go look at construction workers elsewhere, especially Asia, they're ripped. Because the food they eat is most likely home cooked and not the fast food garbage we get here. Even the food at kiosks is pretty good, since it's freshly cooked.

[Qem]

> it's widely understood, and scientifically backed up afaik, that strength training is healthy and good for longevity. Yet, if you look at people whose everyday jobs look a lot like functional strength training, eg construction workers, my general impression is that their bodies (age 50+) are in worse condition than the average population...

When it's a work, you're expected to show up and do it consistently every day. So you can't afford alternate days to get adequate rest and recovery time. Your body is gradually wasted away by the job. When it's more of a leisure activity, you can afford just not to do it and rest, when you don't feel well, so the combination of workouts and recovery time can be net-positive, health-wise.

[kingstnap]

You can have confounding effects. Specifically note Cochrane’s Aphorism.

"The correlation between any variable and smoking is likely to be higher than the correlation between that variable and the disease."

If you aren't controlling for substance uses (which anyone who has walked by a construction site would know.) You are going to misread an effect. Smoking in particular is actually just that bad for you.

[sjducb]

The confounding variable is probably wealth. Being rich is very important for longevity. The effect size for wealth is likely bigger than the effect size for strength training. So construction workers age badly because they are poor, despite all the strength training.

[rhplus]

Nutrition too. Not to paint everyone in the construction industry with the same brush, but there’s often a lot of cheap, high calorie, fast food and sugary drinks on site and in work trucks. This is manageable for younger workers, but by a certain age, the job responsibilities become less physically demanding, the metabolism slows down, and the eating habits remain.

[d_runs_far]

Although it has been a couple decades since I've worked on construction sites, the underlying factor is that of the culture - this was northern Alberta - you had to be 'tough' and that meant eating steak, drinking hard and ignoring basic safety protocols like dust protection masks, eye guards, etc.

I was in my early 20's and worked with guys only a few years older than me that were already bordering on obese. The physical nature was typically repetitive and while sometimes requiring raw strength, had very little cardio/endurance aspects.

Of course there were exceptions, like the wiry 'old guy' who could take two bundles of shingles up a ladder over his shoulder and slam three beers for lunch.

They were being paid crazy amounts (for their age and the rest of their peers) and it was spent on rye and weed.

[cpursley]

They weren’t obese from the steak. It’s the beer and simple carbs.

[pengaru]

My father worked concrete construction and stayed relatively fit from all the activity, but his skin was trashed from all the UV and he smoked into his 50s. I've never met a person with more wrecked hands since. It was like shaking hands with 40grit paper.

Construction workers are not known for taking care of themselves, and it's a notoriously machismo culture. Sun screen? ok dandy.

[CalRobert]

After going bald I appreciated just how damn practical the sombrero is. Now I wear a wide brimmed hat (Tilly or Panama hat or big straw farmers hat or, if I’m feeling flamboyant, a sombrero) almost any time I’m outside. Goofy maybe, but I think my skin is better for it.

I really wish hats were normalised again.

[globular-toast]

This is probably about extremes being bad. Having an extremely sedentary lifestyle is bad, but also having an extremely strenuous one is bad too.

I used to lift weights regularly. I'd go to the gym three times a week for an hour or two at a time. I'm pretty strong naturally and thought my training was going quite well being able to bench 1.5x my bodyweight, squat and deadlift more than 2x etc.

Then I paid some guys to move house for me. Actually, my job paid, I have still yet to pay for this service myself. They were lifting whole chests of drawers without even emptying them. It was crazy. I've since done plenty of this work myself (moved house three times by myself), but I do take the drawers out etc. Basically I work more intelligently and take more time.

What the moving guys were doing is harder, less safe, and they are doing this day in, day out. Add to that poor diets (both seemed to be fuelled on crisps, Coke and fags) and the differences become more clear.

So, like with anything, don't be too extreme. Too much heavy lifting will be just as bad for you as too little.

[acchow]

> I get that there can be too much of a good thing etc

Similarly, people that run 45 minutes a day are in great shape. But if you run a half marathon every day, you will age quickly

You’re exactly right, too much of a good thing. And for hard strength training, you can hit that tipping point very quickly. Probably within an hour a day if you’re going hard

[dragonelite]

For strength you can do a workout within like 25~35min that is taking it slow like browsing socials during pauses.

Talking about programs like rippetoe, 5x5, 531 etc. Unless you have elite genetics or are on juice you don't really need to go beyond those programs.

[cafard]

Elite distance runners are likely to be running farther than a half marathon every day. There used to be a notion that your weekly mileage ought to be triple the distance you are training for, which for a marathon is about 79 miles per week, eleven-plus miles per day. My body would not tolerate much more than 60 miles per week, and honestly I don't know what most other recreational runners did.

[ookblah]

imo they don't get a chance to recover. i don't think you can compare a whole day of back breaking work where you have to push thru any minor issues vs like a 1-2 hr workout session every day at your discretion.

[aucisson_masque]

Substance abuse and rest.

If you lift weights Monday and Friday, you give your body time to recover and get stronger.

People whose job is to lift weight, they don't lift things heavy enough and they don't give their body time to recover. They work everyday, whatever if their quads are hurting or not. It has very little benefits and only destroy the joints.

[duskdozer]

There's often a machismo culture in jobs like that, in which people neglect things like PPE or safety procedures. Or of course, abusive employer-employee conditions in which workers are exposed to hazards without their knowledge or ability to mitigate it. Obviously, not everyone participates, but it's widespread enough I think it could explain this somewhat.

[burnt-resistor]

Many blue collar professions tend wear out one or more essential body parts in some manner regardless of cardio or strength fitness. Maybe some are differently "easier" than others like HVAC or electrical, but they still take a toll on knees, necks, and backs that can render one incapable to perform the tasks. Some guys last longer than others but there's usually a decision point of retirement balancing enjoyment vs. additional income vs. retirement health.

My dad was a light duty mechanic with his own specialty shop until 1986. He blew out a cervical disc and exposed himself to a variety of carcinogenic chemicals, and that was the end of his career.

[lawn]

Strength training demands proper rest. If you do too much training with too little rest you break down instead if building up.

It's not weird. Medicin works the same way: too much will be very bad for you.

[gadders]

I think for a lot of manual labour, the tasks are repetitive and so they experience greater wear and tear.

TBH, a lot of pro-athletes have wear and tear injuries after they retire as well.

[scott_w]

And, as others point out for manual workers, they don't fully recover. As it's their job, many professional athletes will perform while partially injured and exacerbate it. And it's not even professionals! One of the older men in my tri club has a permanent Achilles injury now in his 60s because of an injury sustained when he was younger. The doctor told him to rest for a month to let it properly heal. That weekend he was running a sub-30 10k at the local league competition!

[Tom1380]

I think it's because while on the job you cut corners and everything. You don't, and often can't, use proper technique. In the gym, barbells are perfectly symmetric and balanced. On the job, you might carry something that forces you into a horrible posture. That can't be good for you

[1970-01-01]

Look at it this way. Construction workers aren't strength training they are wearing themselves out via hard work that requires strength. Not the same thing.

[q-base]

There is use and there is overuse. What you are also seeing is lifestyle and socioeconomic influences. Construction workers are not necessarily in the highest income bracket, may not have the same access to healthcare or have the mental, physical or economical bandwidth to take extra good care of their body.

[lazide]

Construction workers don’t get rest days.

Every one I know described the first two weeks as complete hell, until their bodies just stopped complaining.

But it still takes it’s toll long term.

[chistev]

> Yet, if you look at people whose everyday jobs look a lot like functional strength training, eg construction workers, my general impression is that their bodies are in worse condition than the average population (who's not in great shape already), and far worse than people with sedentary jobs who do fitness training.

Really? That's not my observation.

[jamiecurle]

I wasn't in construction but I did spend three years working as an arborist / forester between 2022 and 2025 whilst taking a little break from tech after a long 20-year stint. I've been in good shape since I was 30 with strength training, cardio and even a little stint as a masters level competitive olympic weightlifter. A long way of saying, I know my body fairly well.

Two years into climbing trees in domestic settings and hand cutting in timber plantations, even three days a week and my body was hammered. Now maybe that's because I was in the 46–50 year old range, but it was clear it wasn't a viable long-term strategy for me. Speaking about the people I now know in that industry, it's commonplace for "climbers" to be done by their mid-thirties. Shoulders all mashed up from climbing and carrying heavy loads. It's not pretty.

On the positive side and injuries notwithstanding (I did get a shoulder issue just like everyone else) my bodyweight dropped 10kg and I did look (and feel) much nimbler. The core of the problem in this kind of work is that when the rubber hits the road "getting the job done" always comes before "correct techniques for doing X". And there's no liability claim to be had as at the start of each job you sign the risk assessment which states that you will get it done in a health-and-safety-compliant way. If you don't sign, you're not on the crew the next day and you're walking home from site. This is basically how it is in the UK for these kinds of jobs where salaries are between £24–34K annually.

[dijit]

I have the same observation, and I’ve often been curious about it.

I think truthfully, if we do anything for too long our bodies overoptimise for the task and we lose the benefits to fitness and other health issues also creep in.

Young construction workers are often extremely strong and fit, but nearly all the 40+ ones I know have a huge gut and sound like wheezing ICE engines.

There are a handful of exceptions of course, but as far as it goes the general rule is this.

It could also be that factors surrounding the culture of construction workers (lots of alcohol to wind down) are huge contributing factors in of themselves.

Too many variables.

[erfgh]

Unless you get all your information from movies construction work does not train strength that much.

[altmanaltman]

Because their jobs are not "functional strength training" at all and you're discounting all the negatives that come from that kind of work. It's borderline insulting to their jobs to make that comparison, to be frank.

[emptyfile]

Sounds like you never properly understood what "back-breaking work" really means.

Try doing bending down and picking heavy stuff up, for 8 hours a day, every working day.