Jump to content

The Navvies - 18th Century String Men!


Joey_grips

Recommended Posts

I was just watching a show on the 18th Century Navvies on the history channel. These guys built rail roads that stretched miles. Apparently these men were able to move some heavy tonnage of rock a day - up to 20! Their diets were beastly! They ate up to six times a day, they had steak up to 3 times a day, 1-2 pints of beer per meal.. Even with breakfast! Steak and beer for breakfast!

Its incredible what the human body can endure. These men wanted to earn a living, they had the hardest job enduring 24 hour days at times luging rock and stones all over the place. They kept going day in day out because their goal was to earn that living - no matter the hardship they had that goal of getting their pay to eat the next day and feed their families.

Moral of my post. Train hard and reach your goal. The only hardship is failure to work towards it! Keep plugging away at it, wether its to close that #3, lift that heavy ass blob or squat that new PB keep at it and you'll get it!

Peace!

Edited by Joey_grips
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

History always provides great inspiration.

Hell yeah it does. The strength these guys had is unbelievable. Just so mentally and physically tough! Men these days would cry like girls if they had to live that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow that's crazy. I wonder how they would go with grippers?

They'd have strong hands for sure, a lot stronger than the average bloke. But I was more intrigued with their overall physical and mental strength. I can hardly get through 3 hours in the garden, these guys are wheeling barrel after barrel filled with rocks all day and night. Their traps must have been huge lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was just watching a show on the 18th Century Navvies on the history channel. These guys built rail roads that stretched miles. Apparently these men were able to move some heavy tonnage of rock a day - up to 20! Their diets were beastly! They ate up to six times a day, they had steak up to 3 times a day, 1-2 pints of beer per meal.. Even with breakfast! Steak and beer for breakfast!

Its incredible what the human body can endure. These men wanted to earn a living, they had the hardest job enduring 24 hour days at times luging rock and stones all over the place. They kept going day in day out because their goal was to earn that living - no matter the hardship they had that goal of getting their pay to eat the next day and feed their families.

Moral of my post. Train hard and reach your goal. The only hardship is failure to work towards it! Keep plugging away at it, wether its to close that #3, lift that heavy ass blob or squat that new PB keep at it and you'll get it!

Peace!

Funny how different the British navvies were to their American counterparts! In Britain there was a far denser population than in America and so labour was a lot dearer. Rather than getting to eat meat every day (the historian in me is skeptical frankly, meat was still a luxury for the working classes in the 18th century, most people's diet consisted mainly of bread, but I know little about US history so I'll pipe down) from what I understandthe British navvies were renown for spending all their meagre pay on drink and falling back on meal tokens for soup and bread.

Doubtless there are some very strong people in the annals of history, Henry Noll for example:

"A Pennsylvanian steel worker who every day for weeks at a time int he winter of 1899, lifted and loaded 45 tons of pig iron on to railway trucks." (GWR)

Pretty incredible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy policies.