What nation has the strongest men?

[Madmick]

Millennial men aren't much stronger than Baby Boomer or GenX women in terms of grip strength. Why? No manufacturing, no manual labor in the US anymore. They also tend to grow inside and be sedentary (smartphone) media consumers.

So I think everyone is going about this wrong: from the fitness/athlete angle. China would probably be much higher than most would estimate just because they maintain a mobilized manual labor workforce. The thing is that larger men have an innate advantage, so the Chinese are naturally at a disadvantage. Scandinavian fishing/timber/outdoorsman industries married to their naturally large/Viking bodies is among the reasons they have so many feared specimens.

Iceland has a Crossfit obsession, apparently it's a borderline cultural religion in that country (which ironically doesn't subscribe much to organized religion) and considering their genetic talent for this, along with other nations already mentioned like Tsonga and American Samoa, I'd probably favor them.

But I'm not confident in that. I'd be interested to see which nations have the highest percentage of men in fields of manual labor, and who are also genetically large, with first world nutrition and ready access to animal protein sources.

 

[BisexualMMA]

Iceland has a Crossfit obsession, apparently it's a borderline cultural religion in that country (which ironically doesn't subscribe much to organized religion) and considering their genetic talent for this, along with other nations already mentioned like Tsonga and American Samoa, I'd probably favor them.

Sven Thorsen laughs at crossfit.

 

[flashNsmash]

 

[Amerikuracana]

Japan.

 

[Zazen]

Millennial men aren't much stronger than Baby Boomer or GenX women in terms of grip strength. Why? No manufacturing, no manual labor in the US anymore. They also tend to grow inside and be sedentary (smartphone) media consumers.

So I think everyone is going about this wrong: from the fitness/athlete angle. China would probably be much higher than most would estimate just because they maintain a mobilized manual labor workforce. The thing is that larger men have an innate advantage, so the Chinese are naturally at a disadvantage. Scandinavian fishing/timber/outdoorsman industries married to their naturally large/Viking bodies is among the reasons they have so many feared specimens.

Iceland has a Crossfit obsession, apparently it's a borderline cultural religion in that country (which ironically doesn't subscribe much to organized religion) and considering their genetic talent for this, along with other nations already mentioned like Tsonga and American Samoa, I'd probably favor them.

But I'm not confident in that. I'd be interested to see which nations have the highest percentage of men in fields of manual labor, and who are also genetically large, with first world nutrition and ready access to animal protein sources.

China???? They are skinny as all heck and have no strength. They are even more addicted to phones and computers than Americans are. Where are you getting this from?

 

[Madmick]

China???? They are skinny as all heck and have no strength. They are even more addicted to phones and computers than Americans are. Where are you getting this from?

Rates of industrialized workers.

I'm not oblivious to the rising "middle class" first world problems in China. I even watched an hour documentary recently on the "fat camps" that have sprung up in China where parents send their kids to get back down to a socially acceptable weight; because China is retaining the lick of sense to stigmatize obesity that the West is losing. Know what this means? It means you're going to start seeing more large Chinese men. A big part of their stunted growth historically is derived from widespread malnutrition in the rural regions.

Furthermore, everyone in here is throwing around countries with famous strongmen: Iceland is known for powerlifters and strongmen while American Samoa and Tsonga are known for professional NFL linemen. Bulgaria is known for Olympic lifting, so why not China? China is absolutely dominating the lower ranks of weightlifting, now, too. It's not like Iran is known for large men. But they have an obesity problem and a penchant for Olympic lifting, so they have a strong tradition, there.

Otherwise, the USSR and now Russia/Ukraine have dominated the Olympic lifting HW categories for so long it's an insult not to include them alongside countries like Iceland or Samoa.

Really, the point of my post was summed up in my post itself. A diminished manual labor workforce in the USA, along with the rise of smartphone culture, has given rise to the physically weakest generation of Americans in history, and particularly American men: Millennials. This is reflected in their terrible grip strength. Chopping wood, hauling scrap, pulling chain, digging ditches...that stuff builds muscles. Hell, just standing on your feet all day makes a major difference in tracked health metrics.

I'm saying that what the majority of the country is doing for 8 hours of their day at work matters more than what a fraction of the country does for an hour or two at the gym after they get done.

 

[Zazen]

Rates of industrialized workers.

I'm not oblivious to the rising "middle class" first world problems in China. I even watched an hour documentary recently on the "fat camps" that have sprung up in China where parents send their kids to get back down to a socially acceptable weight; because China is retaining the lick of sense to stigmatize obesity that the West is losing. Know what this means? It means you're going to start seeing more large Chinese men. A big part of their stunted growth historically is derived from widespread malnutrition in the rural regions.

Furthermore, everyone in here is throwing around countries with famous strongmen: Iceland is known for powerlifters and strongmen while American Samoa and Tsonga are known for professional NFL linemen. Bulgaria is known for Olympic lifting, so why not China? China is absolutely dominating the lower ranks of weightlifting, now, too. It's not like Iran is known for large men. But they have an obesity problem and a penchant for Olympic lifting, so they have a strong tradition, there.

Otherwise, the USSR and now Russia/Ukraine have dominated the Olympic lifting HW categories for so long it's an insult not to include them alongside countries like Iceland or Samoa.

Really, the point of my post was summed up in my post itself. A diminished manual labor workforce in the USA, along with the rise of smartphone culture, has given rise to the physically weakest generation of Americans in history, and particularly American men: Millennials. This is reflected in their terrible grip strength. Chopping wood, hauling scrap, pulling chain, digging ditches...that stuff builds muscles. Hell, just standing on your feet all day makes a major difference in tracked health metrics.

I'm saying that what the majority of the country is doing for 8 hours of their day at work matters more than what a fraction of the country does for an hour or two at the gym after they get done.

Maybe the older generation but if we're comparing the youth of America vs China, America still wins hands down. There are plenty of gym rats in our nation and we have way more athletes that compete at a high level in our school system. China values education more and you don't see a lot of kids playing sports until they reach college. And even then it is only recreational and not competitive. Going to the gym to build muscles is not very popular in China. They spend more time playing games and going to KTV. I'm saying this after living there for 8 years and travelling around many cities.

Oh,and China has 1.4 billion people. Who cares about a few athletes winning medals in weightlifting. I think the thread is talking about your average joe.

 

[danny23]

Rates of industrialized workers.

I'm not oblivious to the rising "middle class" first world problems in China. I even watched an hour documentary recently on the "fat camps" that have sprung up in China where parents send their kids to get back down to a socially acceptable weight; because China is retaining the lick of sense to stigmatize obesity that the West is losing. Know what this means? It means you're going to start seeing more large Chinese men. A big part of their stunted growth historically is derived from widespread malnutrition in the rural regions.

Furthermore, everyone in here is throwing around countries with famous strongmen: Iceland is known for powerlifters and strongmen while American Samoa and Tsonga are known for professional NFL linemen. Bulgaria is known for Olympic lifting, so why not China? China is absolutely dominating the lower ranks of weightlifting, now, too. It's not like Iran is known for large men. But they have an obesity problem and a penchant for Olympic lifting, so they have a strong tradition, there.

Otherwise, the USSR and now Russia/Ukraine have dominated the Olympic lifting HW categories for so long it's an insult not to include them alongside countries like Iceland or Samoa.

Really, the point of my post was summed up in my post itself. A diminished manual labor workforce in the USA, along with the rise of smartphone culture, has given rise to the physically weakest generation of Americans in history, and particularly American men: Millennials. This is reflected in their terrible grip strength. Chopping wood, hauling scrap, pulling chain, digging ditches...that stuff builds muscles. Hell, just standing on your feet all day makes a major difference in tracked health metrics.

I'm saying that what the majority of the country is doing for 8 hours of their day at work matters more than what a fraction of the country does for an hour or two at the gym after they get done.

We're great with our fingers though

Also, it's brains over brawn. We millennials are the smartest generation.

 

[Fraz]

A fully grown Millenial can kill a Silverback Gorilla in unarmed combat.

 

[Zoolander]

A fully grown Millenial can kill a Silverback Gorilla in unarmed combat.

This is true. I don't think enough of you are taking this into consideration.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

I only know about strenght applied to combat sports, and in that context it's clearly Eastern Euros. Random Russians I think tend to be pretty strong. Caucasians like Chechens at the top of the chain in my experience.

Biased experience in my case, but I have met a few French Canadians that were retard strong, too.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Slavs are definitely underrated in sports.

Watching the NBA playoffs last night I noticed that there's yet another dude with an "-ic" last name in Nikola Mirotic.

The former Yugoslavian countries somehow produce a good number of NBA talent despite soccer being their undisputed #1 sport, despite them having a small population (Croatia- 4 million, Slovenia- 2 million, Montenegro- 600k) and despite being relatively poor. Oh, and they also produce lots of great soccer players.

 

[SowingSeason]

Samoans. P4P

 

[Armbars]

Northern European men like Icelandic and the older generation sweedes.

 

[Jack Handy jr]

Have to go with the Nordic peoples something about them at the highest level of strength competition separates them from everybody else.

just like sub Saharan Africans seem to excel at sports that involve running and jumping at the highest level they just seem to have and edge genetically

 

[Graves The Elder]

... dudes who are actually worthy of tribal tats and Tapout gear. Those guys don't fuck around

LOL, didn't know ppl actually did that. tools.

 

[Daveb]

Dagestan is the correct answer

 

[Judge]

Pretty sure there's no way of actually measuring this.

Although I have a feeling Iceland might do it. IIRC, they've had a bunch of the World Strongest Men come from there.

Although as the guy above me says, Tonga and Samoa probably have a pretty good shot too

But I feel outside the handful of strongmen, that Iceland is filled with soyboys.

LOL, didn't know ppl actually did that. tools.

What? Take pictures of themselves???? Nah, you cool, brah.

PS call the zoo coz some pythons done got loose

Sven Thorsen laughs at crossfit.

Does he laugh at Amy Schumer???

 

[Halge]

Manual labour is somewhat overrated as far as building strength goes. My dad, and certainly my grandfather, were both manual labourers. By they were more wiry than brawny. I can say without a doubt that I could outlift them by far in any conventional gym lift, and any strength-demanding lift in general that doesn't involve well-developed grip strength.

Of course, anything involving both strength and endurance, like say unloading roof tiles from the back of a truck (which is the kind of work my grandfather spend thirty years of his life doing daily), they'd wreck me.

So it comes down to the definition of what strength is.

Madmick's argument that countries where a substantial part of the population is still engaged in manual labour are likely to have the strongest men is perfectly valid if you broaden the definition past just measuring one-rep maxes, especially if you consider that most developed countries have a large percentage of the population that is simply all-round sedentary and don't even lift bro.

Furthermore, everyone in here is throwing around countries with famous strongmen: Iceland is known for powerlifters and strongmen while American Samoa and Tsonga are known for professional NFL linemen. Bulgaria is known for Olympic lifting, so why not China? China is absolutely dominating the lower ranks of weightlifting, now, too. It's not like Iran is known for large men. But they have an obesity problem and a penchant for Olympic lifting, so they have a strong tradition, there.

I don't think weightlifting is a popular pasttime in China. Their elite weightlifters are still a tiny, tiny selection of people, and not something that grows out of a culture where people in general spend much time lifting weights. So the Tian Taos and Lu Xiaojuns aren't representative of the population at large. Same goes for, say, Bulgaria. I listened to a podcast with Max Aita (an american weightlifting coach that used to train under Abadjiev) a while back, and he basically said that even during the time Bulgarian weightlifting was at its peak, the national coaches still had to make do with a comparatively small selection of prospective lifters- it wasn't in any way like strength training was a national pasttime. Bulgaria didn't suceed by having a large talent pool to pick from, but by having complete control over their lifters 24/7.

Neither is Hafthor Bjornsson representative of the average Icelander, but there's still a better correlation between him and the genpop. A western country doesn't produce that many strength athletes without having a large talent pool of people who are simply interested in that type of activity.

 

[BassAckwards]

We're great with our fingers though

Also, it's brains over brawn. We millennials are the smartest generation.

most educated yes. smartest? i dont think so.... raking in so much student loan debt for a useless degree doesnt equate to intelligence.