I ask because I've been I've been trying to do a little research into human height/weight, and have only been able to find **** studies with very poor methodologies and sources of raw data. I figure military records would be ideal for our purposes -if only they can be accessed- and would go some distance in resolving this dispute. This obviously wouldn't be a random sample of the male population, but would be suitable a fortiori because the selection bias (for age and to a lesser extent fitness) would surely be much closer to that of professional boxers than the general population. So then, if anyone knows how these types of records for any military (going back as far as possible) might be publicly accessible, I'd be quite grateful if you could point me to where. Oddly enough, I came a across a study (or rather references to a study) performed by one Dr Benjamin Gould during the American Civil War in which he is said to have found, among other things, that the average recruit could dead lift 330 pounds. (?!?) This is why you have to be careful with secondary sources (I haven't been able to track down Gould's raw data yet) because there's just no damn way the average Union soldier could dead-lift 330. (Notice that I seriously doubt this even though it would really bolster the "classicist" case if true.) I mean, I know far more people performed regular hard labor in the nineteenth century, but that's considerably more than the average man of military age could lift today...
Interesting study, however I'm not military so I do not know. But I will say that I'm a firm believer that men are more often than not a product of the sign of the times. With the age of video games, cell phones, etc., time is spent indoor as opposed to outdoor and in the rough life of the streets as it was back in the day. I think Zivik describes it best growing up fighting with his brothers in the streets. He says, if you were outside the house you were fighting, I chose to go outside.
The 80 lb "individual combat equipment" carrying requirement has been around since the Roman Days. I.e. a shield, sword, personal armor, boots......to arrows, bow, armor, boots......to large rifle, ammo, grenades, food, knife, boots, etc. That would be what is on you before you have to start lifting chite in combat.
I had a quick look on google scholar, and jesus there's some trash getting published. I'll have another look later, but it's hard without access. The deadlift claim seems especially questionable, since I don't think barbells existed at that point.
I found "Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index, United States 1960–2002" "Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874)—the average man and indices of obesity" And the abstract to https://academic.oup.com/ndt/article/23/1/47/1923176 "Descriptive Epidemiology of Body Weight and Weight Change in U.S. Adults" http://annals.org/aim/article-abstr...emiology-body-weight-weight-change-u-s-adults
I know nothing about the deadlift claim. My son did 6 yrs in the USMC and I know for a fact that he would carry up to and sometimes over 120 lbs on his person
My son is in the Army (combat engineer), and had to do a 12 mile Ruck March w/70 lbs (although he says his weighed at 80) in less than 3 hours. They also do some 20 mile ones in the field to prepare them for deployment. I have not heard of him exceeding 80 lbs but will check with him when he gets back (16 days into a 30 day field training so I won’t hear from him for 2 weeks).
Fort off congrats to your son and yourself. Sounds like a good young man. I can see where he gets it from brother. Junior was a Mortarman and If memory serves me correct they broke that down between I think 3 men with the base being the heaviest. I believe he said depending on the assignment packs were between 80 to 120+ I know he said Marines always had to do things the hard way (tradition) I believe SF regularly carry 120 or more
This is not a very good source, but (bold type added): "Strength training and weightlifting experts, Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore, estimate that an average 198 pound male can lift 155 pounds even without training (i.e. untrained). After a couple of years of proper training, that same lifter should be able to deadlift 335 pounds (i.e. intermediate). " http://physicalliving.com/how-much-should-i-be-able-to-deadlift/ I don't trust this source any more than the article paraphrasing Gould, but the figure it gives is not even half Gould's figure -and for men who weigh nearly 200 pounds to boot. (The average man in the U.S. weighs a little over 170 pounds. ) The key word here is obviously "untrained," and according to these so-called strength training experts, with two years of targeted weight training the average 198 pound man can surpass the Gould average by 5 pounds. But the Average Civil War soldier was not 198 pounds, and whatever type of exercise he performed, it was not targeted weight training. I think it's fairly safe to say for now that at least one of these sources is blowing smoke, quite possibly both.
Yes, there is definitely a myriad of bad studies, which is why I'm interested in raw data from some primary source(s). I'm pretty sure military records would be close to ideal, if only they could be accessed. (I'm always more interested in people's methods than their conclusions.) As for the dead lift claim, that wasn't Gould's term, it was a modern writer summarizing his supposed results. I'm skeptical, but for reasons other than the use of the term "dead lift" in the modern article.
330lb deadlift is a lot for a man who spent his teenage years eating boneless chicken wings and sitting in front of a computer. Its not so much weight for a man who did hard labor for most of his life
As longhorn said, the ~80 pound figure seems to be remarkably constant across history. That's about how much a medieval soldier in full plate armor would have on him, though only a small percentage of soldiers either on foot or horseback would have full plate armor. (Fully armored knights and men-at arms were the medieval analogue of tanks.)
I’m former military. The information that the military uses is outdated. For example they believe an 18 year old kid who is 5ft9 should weigh 160lbs. So I would not put too much faith in their research
