Sure body building makes you strong at lifting even dumbbells and barbells when you are on a stable surface, bench or have an even load of weight stacked on a barbell over your shoulders but how much does this really translate to real world strength? I had to do a ergonomic fitness test for a new job and I was stunned on how hard it was for me to pick up a crate off the floor in a deep squat that only weighed 75 pounds, stack it on a shelf over my head and take it back down to the floor for 7 reps. With a dumbbell or barbell I could easily bang out 30 reps with that weight.
I know traditional training helps build muscle size, stronger joints and tendons and it’s better than not doing any exercises at all but body building is not very functional when it comes to real work like being on a farm or working a labour job, carrying wood or doing anything that takes using your full body to move something. Body building gives us a false sense of strength. Sure I can bench press 225 but can you then pick up a pile of wood and walk up hill with it if you needed to. It’s a lot of show and not a lot of go.
Kettle bell clean and press would probably be the better way to go. Aside from a barbell when else do you ever lift something that is a straight thin bar with perfectly distributed weight on each end. It’s so easy to grip a barbell or dumbbell.
Say you can clean and press 120 pounds on a barbell then try to clean and press a 50 pound bag of gravel or a 50 pound uneven log. A 30 pound bag of dog food feels heavier than a 60 pound dumbbell.
Barbells and dumbbells and other weight training methods provide measurable progressive overload. Getting stronger on them carryover to other activities.
Outside of high school I worked at a lumber yard and it was a lot of loading concrete bags, roofing bundles, and other items. When I started working in the gym it made all of those tasks infinitely easier. If you can say deadlift 405 picking up a bag of quickcrete uneven or not will be a simple task.
Honestly most adults can’t do this sort of activity. The people where I work do a LOT of labor, all day long. The requirement is to be able to lift 25 -50 lbs. And not all the way over head nor for reps like that. Quite frankly it wouldn’t be ergonomic and would destroy most peoples bodies. The company wouldn’t want to have to pay for treatment or lawsuits for injuries. What in heck kind of work is this for?
The traditional sense of body building is useless. And most people doing it are not in very good shape. They go to the gym lay down do some bench press. take a 10 min break. Do some more. Go home and eat.
They don’t get their heart rate up, they don’t train functional strength.
The only thing that really matters is cardio and functional strength. This is why people who do calisthenics and sports like jiu jitsu and wrestling are in much better shape then everyone else. It’s hard but people don’t want hard workouts. They want to say they went to a gym thinking they did a workout. If you’ve been going to the gym for over a year and aren’t ripped you’re doing something wrong.
There’s a time and a place for isometric bodybuilding style lifts. I train bjj and wrestling 4-5 times a week and the only thing holding my body together at 40 is the couple of lifting sessions I get to do. Thankfully, the wrestling and bjj cover most of the functional movements, as well as mobility, so I can work isometric stuff just to keep muscle mass and tendon integrity. Some type of “functional” training is definitely better than just bro splits though, especially if you want “real” transferable strength. I guess it all depends on your goals. If you wanna body build you gotta do the bodybuilding protocol. If you wanna compete in an athletic sport or be able to keep up on the farm then those type of workouts won’t do anything to help you.
