Human Strength

[Polar]

In the year of 1983 when my dad was 18, military service was mandatory in Soviet-dominated Bulgaria. On one of the occasions on which he would go out and grab railroad tracks in order to upgrade the official Bulgarian National Railway (the country needed it for further military equipment deployment), he and his military friend struggled with the an end track of one of the railway pathways.

For those who don't know what an end track is, it is basically a larger section of railroad track designated to either switch a train's direction or help stop the train's course over a longer distance. Now keep in mind, these particular tracks individually weighed in at 250-380 kilograms (depending on the size and shape of the particular train) and were usually between 2 to 4 meters in length. The one my dad and his friend carried was approximately 260 kilograms and 2.5 meters in length (573 pounds and 8'3" in length in our terms).

Suddenly, a man slowly walked from the neighboring woods (railways in the Soviet countries were, and still are, extremely isolated within landscape environments). According to what my dad stated, the man was two inches taller than him (dad was 6'0" at the time), had shaggy and brown hair, looked to be quite fit and well-proportioned for a human, and came at him with a dazed sort-of look. The man asked my dad and friend (in a weird, non-local sounding voice, but still in minor Bulgarian) if they needed any help, and my dad's friend responded yes.


Both picked up the end track on either ends up to hip level (with some minor grunting: they were strong guys), and my dad remembers the strange man slowly picking up the whole, 260-kilogram track like it was a lightweight toy (no grunting/struggle sound was emitted during this) from them up to shoulder level, with only one arm. The man then smiled at my dad (both dad and his friend stared at the man in awe-struck fear) and proceeded to walk towards the track-marks (places designated for the track to be placed) and slowly let it down upon the track-marks. The man slowly walked back to the duo, and the latter proceeded to introduce themselves to the former.

The man talked in an almost non-human fashion: speech was slurred, words were commonly mispronounced, and mouth movements were wildly exaggerated for his words (as if he was yelling quietly while speaking normally). My dad made the mistake of asking if the man really was that strong for his build: the man simply allowed my dad to squeeze his upper arm muscles. To this day, my dad never squeezed anything harder than those man's muscles: simply put, only the toughest stone is comparable in hardness. The man then stated that no one in particular knew him, with the exception of my dad, my dad's military pal, and his "wild relatives". The day then went on as usual.

The day after, both my dad and his friend went to the general and asked him about the strange man. Apparently, the general knew about the strange man because he saw him on some of his duties and area sweeps. He recounted to my dad and his friend about how he once saw the man "conversing" with a medium-sized brown bear while licking the bear's snout (general estimated it 220-280 kg), and making these strange snorting and low-grumbling sounds towards the bear and vice versa. This particular event was in one of the general's evening area sweeps in the surrounding vast mountains. 

The general thought the bear had actually raised the man, and by then, my dad and his friend stared at each other in fear and agreed for their life. It turned out that the man was another case of a wildman. He also seemed to have some sort of mental condition which made him quite refined in his movements, but nearly brain-dead in critical thinking or socialization.

After hearing my dad recount that story a year ago, I thought of all the strongman competitions I went to, all of the WSM competitions I've watched, all of the powerlifting records I saw broken in both plain sight and in videos, all of the odd gimmicks some new "old-time strongmen" professed, and my own maximal abilities. 

Only some of these so-called "World's Strongest Men" could lift 500-700 pounds to their chest height with both arms, given a good struggle and a great amount of time. But this wildman did 570 pounds without interruption, leg-bending, or any sign of struggle, and with only one arm out at the side. Some of these powerlifters could deadlift 900+ pounds, but this wildman can possibly deadlift much, much more than 900 if he really wanted to. Me? I am only able to lift 350 pounds to my chest with extreme struggle and very noticeable leg-bending. Even a 250-pound dumbbell needs two hands from a strongman to even lift that object to shoulder height.

Just shows you how much physically-able modern humans are willing to call themselves physically best, and how, when competing against a man of nature or across a wide variety of wild animals, they don't compare. Reply