Old timers hand, strength, size, grip

[Panda]

I was at a family gathering with people I haven’t seen for many many years. There were some older retired men, prob early 70’s, Shaking their hands left me feeling like a 12 yr old girl ! What’s going on?, my 450 DL seems to have done me no favor in this regard. Yes they all worked various hard manual labor type jobs day in day out, is it just purely a conditioning adaptation? Im curious as to the mechanism, as I assume there would have been little progresssive overload? just same shit every day over and over. I guess I’m just jealous of their true man hands!

[Mark Rippetoe]

I think you're just impressed with normal men, since there are so few of them to interact with. It's good that you noticed.

[mkm5]

I think you're just impressed with normal men, since there are so few of them to interact with. It's good that you noticed.

Yes, i remember working for a brick mason when I was a skinny teenager back in the '70s.

Carrying two sets of brick tongs 40 pounds each up a two story ladder on a hot summer day wasn't much fun, but watching the old man do it taught me an important lesson. Hard work is just a part of everyday life...

That nice old man is my neighbor again now, near 90 years old, walks miles every day and has a respectable garden. Last time I shook his hand, he still has an iron grip.

[Steve Cox]

At my church, everytime we pass around for a handshake, we have quite a few older women, some into their 80's with a handshake that put many men's handshakes to shame. Most grew up as kids after the depression and WWII, working hard and most on farms. Until he passed a couple years ago, we had one male member who still worked horses and taught riding and competition to kids, and his handshake was stronger than a lot of men - at 97yo.

[Maybach]

It is worth mentioning: no amount of an increase in grip strength will make another person's strong grip somehow feel less strong.

[Ryan Arnold]

I think a lot of old timers over do handshakes on purpose. Because they know conversations like this may occur afterwords

[SouthernLifter]

Not sure of have got well your post, but you can try to ask them to pull 450 and see what happens.