Are we unnaturally strong people?
Posted by Extra_Loquat_5599@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 73 comments
In my gym back in Serbia, I frequently meet people from all around ex-Yugoslavia. Recently, I went to visit a friend in Munich and we went for a trial day at a McFit, just to work out a bit.
I noticed that everyone was lifting... not that much weight. They weren't small either, they were all fit and muscular, lots of huge people, but everyone was lifting so much less than what I’m used to seeing back home.
Now, let me say, I don't want to shame anyone here. People doing something for their health is great and I support everyone who works on themselves. Maybe it was just a weird day in that specific spot, but it got me thinking... are we all just naturally beefcakes?
casual_philosopher02@reddit
I am damn strong for a woman but I did help around my mom's store since a kid aaaaand I gather olives (for our own oil) so it depends on the lifestyle
OnePalmOne@reddit
I like how different yet similar we are. Here we don’t have olive trees, so we gather plum for homemade rakija 🤷♂️
casual_philosopher02@reddit
I volunteer to help as long as I get a percentage of the production
RegionSignificant977@reddit
Don't you make homemade tsipuro?
casual_philosopher02@reddit
we used to, wine too, back when grandpa was alcoholic. It has negative conotations so now we don't either
RegionSignificant977@reddit
Sorry about that. Is it common in Greece people to make their own tsipuro, though?
casual_philosopher02@reddit
it used to be, nowadays no one stays long enough in the village to
Sekalino@reddit
Do you accept volunteers?
You can thank me with some of the product 👉👈
RegionSignificant977@reddit
There is a lot of vineyards in Bulgaria near the border. You can't drink that much. Grape rakia is better for me at least.
TightAd1489@reddit
What's the point when you're shit person
casual_philosopher02@reddit
Who hurt you?
marul_cosmic_crisp@reddit
I think he wanted to flirt, Balkan style.
casual_philosopher02@reddit
Nah I know him, he's mad at me and thought I don't remember his alt
ConclusionRegular103@reddit
No they are just pussies.
turkish_wifey_izmir@reddit
Balkan men like to show off to ladies :)
Lonely_Mud_3672@reddit
yenge yanlış anlama da sen biraz zengin arap düşürmeye çalışıyor gibisin
turkish_wifey_izmir@reddit
Balkan subreddit de mi? Bu bence komplo teorisi iste.
Lonely_Mud_3672@reddit
yo genel
turkish_wifey_izmir@reddit
Yok oyle amacim kuzum :)
Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL@reddit
My jaws are very strong. I can chew all day long. 🫡😁🐑🐖🐄🐟
Mirdclawer@reddit
Of course it's a Serb
Idk look up stats or strongmen competition or lifting competition
pcmtx@reddit
I'm just a westoid, but a few times I've helped my Albanian friends move restaurant equipment. I was probably more just in the way, I've never seen 3 middle aged guys smoking cigarettes move a thousand pound pizza oven before.
Extra_Loquat_5599@reddit (OP)
Thats just dad/uncle strength, every country has these legends.
Leshkarenzi@reddit
This.
Saw a video of a small mexican dad/uncle carrying a huge ass fridge on his back and perform a dance routine lol
Sepetcioglu@reddit
They were smoking as they were carrying it too, weren't day lmao. Flair up.
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
We're naturally show-offs who will injure muscle and tendon just to show others
The entire balcan culture can be summed up in this quote:
"What will people say?"
Sekalino@reddit
Add a woman to this and boom.
It’s like back in the school days when you carried 3 chairs at once to show off. Women just can’t keep their hands off a man who can carry 3 chairs that’s how I was born .. probably
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
With a woman in this equation, I'd leave my arms behind in the biceps machine
Sekalino@reddit
Why are we like this 😂
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
Because we are utterly backwa....ehm I mean the most glorious part of the entire world! Hospitality/Masculinity/Sun/lovely Grandmas/We invented cow milk!!!1!!!1!11!!
casual_philosopher02@reddit
New hobby unlocked, I'll look at guys to see if they will try to impress me, you gave me great idea
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
Why don't I just shut up? Sorry brothers! 😂
casual_philosopher02@reddit
We're getting some guy's biceps with this one
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
If a woman looks at me in the gym tomorrow, I'll behave like the feeblest weakling, to restore cosmic balance
quintocarlos3@reddit
“What will people say” explains the comparison with Hispanics and Latin Americans…..”el que dirán”
WorldlinessRadiant77@reddit
There is the Bulgarian strongman training from the Cold War.
One repetition, twice a day, ridiculous weight. Wrecked many people, but those that survived dominated weightlifting.
GrgaPrticRomanul@reddit
"What will people say" is the philosophy of all Romanian villagers...
Lord_Gobbledygook@reddit
And of the Greeks
Broad-Lobster7470@reddit
monkeysultan@reddit
Youre right that egolifters are dumb, but frankly ive seen that my gains are much better when i workout heavyweight until complete failure. Maybe Balkan people are true Mike Mentzer school lifters 🤔🤔🤔
shko-der@reddit
But at least we look cool,also it takes 3 minutes to get up from the couch cos back is fucked.
NOTExETON@reddit
This is the answer
Cool_Election7606@reddit
True
PaperSweet9983@reddit
Pretty much this
Substratas@reddit
https://i.redd.it/uwa1ee3duq0h1.gif
mylazah@reddit
LOL. perfect quote, precisely describes it.
Infamous-Cat-9805@reddit
Yeah, serbs are just incredibly strong for whatever reason.
TesticleSandwiches@reddit
If you take a look at sports, no you arent. Most Balkan people actually perform a little below northern/central/western europeans. Everyone plays football and Greeks aren't considerably better or worse at it than other people,if anything Turkey and Greece underperform a little in the athletic department. Despite big wrestling cultures Turkey and Greece also don't do very well at combat sports.
And it also depends on which Balkans.
Serbs and Croats are tall, athletic etc, very good athletes, I personally wouldn't group these in with Greeks/Turks.
When you see the physiques from people from the far eastern med, the men are a lot shorter on average than in the UK and tend to have a bit less muscle. 'Dad bod' is fairly common even amongst the younger guys. Compared to Swedes and certain regions in Germany you are really small.
I've read that Mediterranean men have something like on average 3-6kg less lean muscle mass than northern European counterparts, although again this is a generalisation and can't be applied to everyone, because Serbs tend to be big.
It is weird though because with Turkish guys, they are either built like a long stick or look like they have a barrel chest. There seems to be no in the middle.
Sekalino@reddit
I read somewhere that people living in colder climates tend to have shorter limbs which shortens the “lever” action your limbs perform and therefore affords more strength with similar muscle ratios.
Also me and my ginormous and oddly barrel shaped chest are offended at your comment.
TesticleSandwiches@reddit
Barrel is good. Barrel is strong.
I think Asians tend to have shorter limbs, I don't think you can actually distinguish say a Greek skeleton from a German one though. Caucasian is Caucasian. We have shorter limbs than a lot of West Africans but longer than east Asians.
Btw you don't really get stronger in general, yes it's easier to lift weights, but you are also lifting the weight a shorter distance at an easier angle.
Longer limbs actually allow you to generate more power, but they also require more energy/muscle to move them, so it's sort of a double edged sword.
Sekalino@reddit
Yeah that makes sense although the total muscle mass a short limbed person would have to build would be less than a longer limbed person so they’d get better at lifting faster than the long Bois.
I’m not an anthropologist so I don’t know much about determining race from skeletons but body and facial structure in European, North African and west Asian people looks very similar to me. Like you can see some clear structural differences between these people, Africans and Asians but between European, North African and west Asian people it’s really mostly just melanin as far as I can tell, and even that isn’t that huge of a difference, plenty of Italians or Spanish people could easily be mistaken for Turks or Arabs.
Independent_Lime3621@reddit
95% of turks would never pass for native central/north European even if they dye their hair blonde. Facial structure is different. And in sports you can clearly see the difference, gifted southern europeans and east Med. almost never reach the power of gifted germanic/slavic athletes. Only people from Caucasus region match the power of Northern Europeans
TesticleSandwiches@reddit
Because they are Caucasian. North Africans of course have some sub Saharan admix, as do Arabs, but they are still mostly Caucasian, Indians too.
It's obviously more complicated as race isn't technically scientific, and we tend to lump certain ethnicities into certain races.
Of course it changes, and there isn't really definite lines where populations change from one ethnicity to another, except very isolated populations like Aborigines.
Remember there is more genetic diversity below the Sahara Desert than in the rest of the world combined. We all come from there originally.
Sekalino@reddit
Yeah the whole race science thing is super iffy and was used as a racial superiority justification in the past. Most people are mixed the f up like us Turks for example I bet my left cheek that if I did a 23andme I’d have all the colors of the rainbow in me.
The neat little factoid you added at the end is utterly fascinating thank you for that!
TinyAsianMachine@reddit
As someone involved in combat sports for a long time and someone who has trained in Greece/US/UK/ etc. The people from Greece are very soft, there is no push for "toughening up" boys. The only push is academic or for football/basketball, similar to Indians /w cricket, lol. Any wrestling culture we have comes from Pontic Greeks from the USSR.
Turkey actually has a very strong wrestling culture. It produces some good talent but Turkish/Kurdish food is extremely unhealthy, its true, you see a lot of very overweight boys from a young age, its the same in Greece mostly. They've produced incredible kickboxers too, it's really a matter of time until they have a champion I guess.
Don't know if you've been to Mexico but it has a very strong boxing/fighting culture and I agree with your point on weight classes.
My point is in combat sports the most important factor is how ingrained it is in the culture. I remember when people used to try to make this connection between the high altitude of Dagestan and how dominant they are at freestyle.
Black people have longer limbs and have that gene which makes them better at explosive movements. They aren't statistically better at things that don't favour long limbs (swimming, wrestling, weightlifting, lots of Olympic sports, powerlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics etc).
nikolapc@reddit
Dinaroids(a very specific subset of the Serbo Croatian(this includes Bosnians) population are great at sports). They're the white people equivalent of Black guy and can beat black guys(not at athletics though). Your Djokovic, Jokic, Divac, Doncic etc. We shorties are good at other sports, as the Mediterranean type can be small but stocky. Handball, sometimes football, depending on position.
yonk9@reddit
You can train hard, or you can train smart.
Inside_Employer5531@reddit
🙄
AogamiBunka@reddit
Farm strength > gym strength
Everyday.
Necessary-Bit4839@reddit
Well Bulgaria is the only balkan country in the top 15 of countries with most medals in weightlifting. So I wouldn’t say so if we use that as a measurement
Game_of_Tendies@reddit
When I was in Bulgaria, the amount of gear users there was on a scale I've never seen anywhere else.
RaidersGunz@reddit
All that gear.. no idea.
HighlanderAlien@reddit
Sam smo mrge, genetika nas ščiti, kakav mcdonalds, zrasli smo na piti - rap song
Koo-Vee@reddit
I don't know but based on this someone could make another conjecture.
Sepetcioglu@reddit
What kind of w*stoid talk is this? Is this the language of the G#rms? It is forbidden, mods take this guy to the gulag.
Senior-Profession711@reddit
Many Serbian men are obsessed with the gym and steroids and end up looking ugly, chunky. But in combat sports they don't exist.
Extra_Loquat_5599@reddit (OP)
The steroid thing i also don't get. Like ... whats the point? you look ugly as fuck, will die at 40 and have a massive amount of useless muscle.
Active_Unit_9498@reddit
No. Balkan people are not abnormally strong. Certainly not if you go by Olympic weightlifting, IPF powerlifting, or WSM achievements. But, historically at least in the part of Balkans I know best (ex-Yugo), I would say that team sports such as volleyball, basketball, handball, and water polo have been much more popular, along the with the king, soccer/football.
canyoubelieveitt@reddit
The answer is yes, we are.
Istar10n@reddit
I have no idea, I train at home with dumbbells.
Compared to some online influencers, I feel kinda weak, compared to the people I know that go to the gym, I'm considerably stronger.
autotunoid@reddit
i think you’re generalising a little bit too much
Sad_Philosopher_3163@reddit
No
_whatever_idc@reddit
Nah, we just break our backs and suffer in silence.