"I've dug a fair number of holes and dug up some dead bodies and I've studied the bones of the dead." - This is probably my absolute favorite out of context Matt Easton quote.

I grew up in a small village in on of the poorest countries of Europe, and I can confirm what you say about the type of body you see in rural areas. People who work physically are wiry, thin, they have very functional bodies. They have curved backs, they're often lop shouldered, they have small biceps and pectorals, big forearms and neck muscles. It alwasy surprises me how strong they are, given their looks.

The idea that ancient people were supermen has, ironically enough, been around since ancient times. There are many examples, but here's one from Rome: In the final fight between Aeneas and Turnus in the Aeneid, Vergil describes Turnus casually lifting and tossing a boulder "that twenty men of the type the world *now* produces wouldn't be able to move". It's clearly hyperbole, to give a magical sense of badassery to the villain, but when hyperbole is repeated often enough it becomes culturally engrained.

I think that when people talk about how knights and the such were stronger and more fit than us, by "us" they usually mean the average, out of shape, middle class city dweller from a western country, whose job doesn't include any significant physical activity, and whose idea of strenuous exercise amounts to occasional light jogging in the park, or a casual visit to the gym once every so often. Compared to him, an ancient warrior really might look superhuman, but then again, so would any athlete

I live in a village in a developing country, my grandparents (just like most of my neighbours) are farmers and I can concur that the last point you made is absolutely true. My grandfather, for example, had a kinda weird shape - he was very skinny, but incredibly strong for his size. He died at the age of 70, but he spent the last years of his life struggling with multiple health issues which were a result of doing hard labour pretty much his entire life. It is also interesting that in my street alone, as far as old couples are concerned, there are some 15-20 houses in which men are dead and women still alive yet only one or two in which it is the other way around - I guess because it is men that do most of physically demanding work.

I was a construction worker for 14 years and I've now been a student for almost 2 years. Is it really a strange concept to some people when I say I am alot weaker today than I was two years ago? Or if I should reverse my decision, that I would again be alot stronger in mere months? We humans are eager to shape the world around us to our liking, but apparently we seem to forget that we are in turn shaped by the tools we use. If your king asks you to shoot an arrow to the moon, you get a heavier bow and practice until you grow stronger. The concept is quite simple, really. And rather timeless.

Really like that you adressed those things, especially the part about training I think that most often misconception like that comes from the idea that in earlier times some people were "born to be warriors", to handle the sword from the day they take a first step (which you pointed out as a myth) The thing why I like you adressed it is that some people tend to ask themselves "should I do it?" "am I not too old for this?" when it comes to starting a new activity, because there is that mindset which says "if you didn't start doing it in you teens, then you can't master it". I had the same problem myself with thinking about doing first step into HEMA - aint I to old for that? (and Im only 26), I wont be able to catch up to those guys who started few years ago and etc. But as someone smart said "If the perfect time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next perfect time to do that is today" And your video, even tho it's about soething else also have encouragement in it (especialy that part about heavy longbows) :)

I'll never forget the time when I went on vacation to Lexington and Concord (first battle of the American Revolution) I walked into their restoration houses and all their ceilings were lower than normal. I asked why and of course they said it was because they were shorter in the 1700s. It blew my mind. lol

very interesting, kind of like how everyone thinks the vikings were 6'5 across the board

lots of people live a rural lifestyle and theyre not exactly giants.

I'm impressed with this man's knowledge.

I've never heard the claim that historical people had superhuman strength or toughess. They were far more rough hide than we are today on average for sure, but certainly nothing "unobtaineable" for us, if we had a mind to give up our comforts and put ourselves through the resulting hardships. I would assume that people who make claims of our ancestors being "superhuman" are probably looking at the ancient Spartans and the myth of their near invincibility on the battlefield.

The way I see it the only major advantage that your average medieval person has over modern man is their mental toughness over us (speaking about the western world) Living was much tougher back then and you didn't complain and lose your shit for if you had to travel few miles on foot or your dinner wasn't perfectly cooked. Living has become much easier since the middle ages and we expect much more and therefore are more easily disappointed.

Thank you for the interesting information. I'm into in martial arts, history and anthropology: this channel is just what I was looking for. What I really enjoy are the considerations about the context, whose importance we tend to forget when looking back in the past or far away at very different cultures. Thank you again!

"London, for whatever reason, has a slightly lower average (height) than the country as a whole." Made me chortle.

Looking at military bunks is another good example the bunk the US Army bought to put in my room it is 80" long. The bunks in the 1840's to 1860's Fort Knox, Maine are about 70" long.

Dear Don Fanto, Yes, I second that which our intelligent host has said. I have lived in rural Africa and seen children who only eat organic food. It makes be cry but when there is not enough of this good food their beautiful black hair goes blonde, not enough protein to make hair pigment. This also stunts their growth in times of normal growth spurts. In PA, USA where I grew up we are over nourished (over weight) We get more than enough carbohydrates and more than enough protein and more than enough sugar. We can also eat fruit in the dead of winter and vitamin and mineral supplements. So While I would agree that having enough organic food is better our diet is much better than starving (in the bad times) on European watery gruel with no vegetables and no meat to provide protein or vitamins. Interesting enough members poor families in Southern Africa tend to be shorter than members of rich families. My Grandfather starved (several days with out food) even on a farm in the US during the 20s and 30s in bad years and hard times. Other than my time in Africa, I have never had to go without food for more than 12 hours. Also I am vaccinated against polio, mumps, measles, rabies, Hepatitis, an can get powerful anti-malarial drugs. Nobody tries to bleed me out if I get sick. My life expectancy while living in the US exceeds 80 years (Prudent use of DDT eliminated Malaria in my country). In Mozambique the life expectancy is on 37. (Mozambique is enjoying a long relative peace these are early deaths from tropical diseases and AIDS not conflict. On average our medicine and Agricultural technology is making life more robust. It is up to you to make good use of your time and strength.

good show and I like your channel, I have been a soldier since I was 17 and have grown bored with mordern warfare. I have started studing medeivel warfare and other older types. bravo to you keep it up

Everything you said is true. I would like to clarify a point about people being tougher or hardier in the past. Doing hard physical labor does toughen you up - bones get stronger, your more conditioned to pain. Your fine when your young but as you get older it really takes its toll. Average joes back then compared to now there is a difference. But its nothing you can't get from training. Oh, and the only superman I know of in History is Conan the Barbarian. I know, because I saw the movie. ;) lol

I know how you feel. Someone watched testing on Aztec atlatl spear throwing at Conquistador breastplate armor to test and see if it could be pierced. A group of the best-known modern atlatl competition users were gathered to try (using flint and stone tips), and they tried even from as close as a few feet away. Some of these guys were huge men too. I think with your expertise you can figure out how that went. But some nutcase actually stated, "Well the tests are inconclusive because ancient people were many times stronger than modern humans so who is to say?"

I'm not sure about people being stronger or healthier "back then" (whatever "back then" means to you), but I do believe that they were tougher. They lived in with death meaning more to them, sickness, starvation, etc. I've been to the Third world, and people are, at least mentally, tougher. They know how to do without. They complain less. They experience catastrophe, and even when they're literally and figuratively dying, they generally strive to persevere.

I will probably never swing a sword but I could watch your channel all day. Very educational. Thank you

I love your videos. High on content (with references, no less) and low on flash.

I think the developing world analogy is a fantastic one. Hadn't thought much about it before. Kudos.

I very much enjoyed your program. Look forward to seeing more.

This problem exists since the times of the romans, Vergil laments in his Aeneid that men lost their old strenght and valor.

A point also to consider with our just general better food sources and nutrition is that alot of people now regularly go to gyms and train, which coupled with the fact we know so much more about how the body works and how to get the most effective work out on certain areas means we can match or exceed those people who had hard working lives with a lot less of the health issue that you mentioned. I've probably worded this quite badly, but i think the gist of my point is easy to extrapolate

Thanks for this video it's one of my pet peeves in HEMA how people think all these warriors from these time periods were completely infallible demigods or something.(especially since what interests me is not only historical revival of such styles of swordsmanship/polearmsmanship but also experimentation and expansion on what these styles could achieve, how they would do when matched up against certain other weapons, what advantages and disadvantages they have etc.)

When it comes to the medieval period, it seems to me like it's often either "people were constantly on the brink of starvation and you were considered old if you hit 30" or "people were a lot thougher back then when you had to toil hard and there were no tv/computers/video games" This video reminds me of a bit from an article by fantasy author K.J. Parker about testing if helmets could be cut through like in the Morgan bible. A prime example of the "supermen": subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2011/cutting_edge_technology_by_k._j_parker _Mr Loades is one of the most skilled swordsmen currently alive, but he’s a 21st century weakling. They were stronger back then. They could shoot bows that we can’t draw. They could till an acre a day with an ox-drawn plough-we know they could, because that’s the original definition of an acre, but you try it and see how far you get. They could fight all day in heavy armour, which exhausts us in a matter of minutes. Medieval noblemen trained intensively with weapons from childhood. The fact that we can’t do it is no proof that it can’t be done_

There are a hell of a lot more people today that can't handle gathering water, hunting food, and chopping wood as compared to back then. Sure there were people back then that also couldn't handle that, but most millennials highest exercise is clicking keys on a pc or using a smartphone(though exercise related to smart phones has exploded several hundred times now thanks to everyone walking around playing pokemon getting several miles/km worth of walking done) back then it was a bit more likely you'd die if you were lazy/week, or dumb. Our quality of life has gone up drastically.

Your information is so good. Could you reconsider the sound and light quality of your posts? A little lighting; a little sound direction? I'll keep watching anyway but if you want to "break out" of the purely geek and into the intellectually curios, better presentation will help

With respect to the question on bows, I recall reading somewhere that they found a load of skeletons with deformed backs and shoulders that were consistent both with mediaeval artwork of longbowmen and also with the sorts of strain someone would be put under if they were using a very high poundage bow from a young age

When I, and my wife, went to Italy we visited a museum in Venice. There were many suits of armor on display and my wife who is 5'4'' could probably have fit in most of them.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the misconception that strength and looking like a body builder is synonymous. The majority of body builder bulk is nonfunctional muscle. Which you covered in part there. Thanks, I will redirect people to this video when they have those misconceptions.

The comments on this video are interesting. They show our conflicted relationship with the past and how we have a tendency to romanticize it in light of our anxieties about the present - even in an area such as physical health, one of the most obvious and massive areas of improvement in our lives over the past.

I love your longer videos. Hell, I love all your videos. Keep up the informative awesomeness, :)

I will say that I agree 99% with this video and with what it is trying to establish but the general strength of people who do agricultural and similar labor is still fucking absurd provided food is abundant. If you look at populations who eat very well (unlike in the third world) like American Amish lumber mill workers and farmers they are fucking freaks. 12 year old to 60 year olds have rippling 6 packs and arms as thick as my thighs. A very physical fit rock climber I know went to one and was laughed at by the children there because he couldn't move about their huge multi-hundred pound lumber bundles which they could do all day with ease. Farming work results in very high functional body strength with factors into combat much more heavily than specific athletic training does.

Hi Matt, all of the points that you have made in the video are valid. On average, people (in Europe) were not as big/physically developed (arguably - for me functional strength is still the primary metric). Rightly so, as you yourself mentioned for nobility and warrior class malnutrition was less of an issue. The top warriors of the melee combat period (I would combine bronze age, iron age, and medieval times) did not look as Arnold Schwarzenegger, did not take steroids, and they primarily focused on developing functional strength. The picture on the link below illustrates (subject to argument) the apex physical development of hoplite (heavy infantry warrior) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discobolus. As one might conclude from observing those historical sculptures, the focus of training for professional warriors was not simply to gain muscular mass, but rather to develop functional strength. Also, as can be learned from Cyropaedia, for pro warriors the major part of training was the daily hunt. Also, in that source as in many other literary sources the warriors started their training as early as age 7

Arkantos117 Yes there is a fair amount of difference. You can look at it in four main stages of development (although there are more). There is muscular development, bone density, development of muscle attachment points, and cardiovascular efficiency. While the quickest to develop (taking into account genetics) is Cardiovascular (CV), which can be built up as quickly as a few weeks - the slowest to develop is bone density and attachment points. Muscle mass will also develop relatively quickly, depending on which muscle groups are being stimulated, genetics, nutrition and rest - probably a couple of months give or take. It is the bone density and muscle attachments which can take many months, but usually a number of years to adequately develop. Then it comes down to specifics, if you are a jogger, yes you will have a high cardiovascular efficiency, and good development of lower limb muscular endurance, density, and attachment points - but you would not be very well rounded in terms of overall development around the entire body and in all of the areas. Anyway, hope that helped.

Also, Historical superman is like saying Usain Bolt can never surpass old standards. The difference is that nobody really gives a shit about sword fighting while people still give a crap about running and sports.

What an amazing channel, man. Subscribed.

Though the walls of Matts house are full of swords his cupboards are actually filled with bows. He keeps drawering them. Just teasing, love the videos :)

Visited my mother who was living near Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. Stopped by a food stand by the road where a couple of Amish boys were selling their veggies. These were the fittest kids I've ever seen. Made the kids from the surrounding suburbs look like Pillsbury dough boys.

I'm not sure what draw weight it was, but a very tough and strong friend of mine has tried to draw a replica of the Mary Rose longbows ... and could barely draw it. I tend to agree that yes, of course, there are very strong and tough people alive today, easily as tough and strong as anyone who has ever lived. And of course no one is a 'super man'. However, you only have to read what Roman Leionaries were expected to do every day to think 'wow, those guys were bloody hard'.

I mean, Vercingetorix was pretty hot. He's my superman

They were much stronger than most of us. They were putting hay on carts, lifting them into barns, putting crops into the ground by hand (dig a hole for a minute), moving lumber, moving stone, walking 10 miles to market, etc... they only lived till 40 for a reason: life was pig-f*ck*hard. A blacksmith (of the day) would beat the snot out of any city slicker currently in a nanosecond.

I love this Channel! I too have an Archaeology background and have just added HEMA to my Wing Chun skill set. Great Videos Matt. Please keep them coming Sir. Bravo! :)

I grew up as the son of an old-fashioned master carpenter and worked as such after school from 11 later full time. I was very strong, as were the old journeymen. But... Around the age of 30, you start to hurt, and hurt a lot, as your body wears down. That is a factor too.

You don't need to work from a very young age to be well fit. It only takes a couple of years to go from very unfit to being a super-trained monster if you really want to. And modern man have the luxury of having all the time and food they need for it without the risk of being crippled or dying from a random disease. We are also nowadays much less prone to get injured due to our lifestyles and knowledge about dangers. If someone train all their life at fighting then they are likely to have broken a bone more than once. With medieval medical care a broken bone seldom healed to perfection. If you were careful and lucky it would heal back to being almost as good as it was before. If you were unlucky a broken arm may make you unable effectively use a sword ever again.

What makes it great is story telling.

Really good enjoyable video,didn't think of it as a rant at all,very well constructed and thought out piece,no not supermen just hardy people,nice room to do your vids in liked the decor,sincerely well done,for me one of your best vid's so far,kindest regards.

These videos help me daydream more smartly.

I agree and disagree. I'm a tree surgeon and worked on a farm all my life. I'm over 16st of muscle and so are all my neighbours. In hill farms in Wales you live a very physical life. But I'm 41 and full of arthritis. My strength from working as I do makes me far stronger, less prone to illness and mor durable than any of my town dwelling friends.

too much hard work and hardship tears a person down, it does nt build them up.

On the subject of bows, I would suggest that while high poundage bows were used as a common weapon of war, they were recognised as being military bows and of great power, draw weight. I would also suggest that these bows had quite specific draw techniques and if you're practising every weekend by law, well, no surprise they could handle it what seems to be a very heavy bow. A lot of exercise does not equal extreme fitness or health. I use to be a garbo, I was exceedingly fit, thankfully also healthy. Correlation does not equal causation. Not with vaccines and not here.

Something which should probably be taken into account is the all-important contemporary context. You mentioned near the start that in historical societies people exhibited a wider range (or perhaps a higher standard deviation from average) of physical characteristics. You also mentioned that social class had a bigger impact on things like nutrition (and consequently size and general health) than it does today. On the basis that a knight (or equivalent in other societies) was probably of a relatively high social class, it therefore seems likely that they would have a physical advantage over their lower-class contemporaries, and that the disparity on the whole would be more significant than we are likely to see today. So while a knight might not be bigger or stronger in absolute terms than people now can attain, in relative terms they might well have been "superhuman" relative to their contemporaries. This is something that probably should be factored in when looking at knightly feats: they will have been made to look better by the physical advantages they already enjoyed over non-knightly opponents. Filter through a few centuries of source interpretation and mythologising and you have your superhuman knight. I know that's not quite what the video was getting at, but I thought it worth bringing up.

What a refreshing video! I get so sick of all the ancestor worship talk that implies how modern society has degraded from old times.

I am an internet guy, but I have friends who don't even live 20 miles away who live on farms, I would never want to get in a fight with them. they would beat the crap out of me. I only stand on equelle standing with them because I look intimidating.

My sister started hard gymnastics when she was a preteen and she only grew to 4'1". She had to have two c-sections. Early gymnastics definitely stunted her growth. Otherwise, she probably would have grown to the height of my mother, who is 5'3". She married a 6'1" man (What is it with tall men and short women, and everyone in between getting together? Lol) and her young teen children are now like 5'6 and 5'7". So many young adolescents employed in hard labour would have definitely been stunted and a lot of women would have had pelvises too small for childbirth, and died as a result, back in the day.

I've seen in a few (probably non-scholarly) articles recently that prior to the medieval ages, around the turn of the first millennium, the average height was actually comparable to the current. I think the supposition is that height decreased into the middle of the 2nd millennium because of a combination of factors, primarily disease resulting from increased trade and urbanization, and lower agricultural production due to the mini-ice age. However, as I understand it there were quite a few different periods of both cooling and warming throughout the medieval ages, and local conditions varied far more in relation to other localities than they did to themselves over time. Also I don't really know what the trade situation was over those periods, though IIRC the silk trade increased during Mongol rule which would have brought more diseases into Europe, after which increased European trade would have been the primary vector.

Hearing this made me think how many societies have citizen-soldiers or people who are normally civilians until a war starts often fight cultures that are highly militarized, but the militarization doesn't always work in the favor of the warrior society. Any nation that trains or prepares well enough can defeat armies that have a warrior tradition.

I’d say if our ancestors were tougher than us, it would be that they probably had a more natural tolerance for discomfort than most of us in the modern, civilized world do. For example, I grew up in a rural setting in a very northern area (hence my screen name). In the summer, I spent many hours on an axe handle processing firewood. We heated with a wood stove. In the winter, I’d wake up to get ready for school and would have to walk through cold air across a cold floor to start a fire in the wood stove to heat the house. Most civilized people in the West don’t live like that. Our ancestors were used to discomfort and used to everything requiring time and work. They couldn’t go to the grocery store and buy a rotisserie chicken. They had to butcher and cook the chicken themselves. That’s what was more hearty about our ancestors as far as I can tell. Not heroes, just people who accepted discomfort and inconvenience and pushed through it.

Great video! The biggest differences nowadays and medieval times (let alone older ages), is that nowadays we have much better understanding of physique, health, nutrition (*extremely important*), etc. So, once again it all comes down to food (bacon). ;) Thumbs up on this video!

This really made me think about my rural Hoosier uncles and realize what mighty bow-hunters they are!

3:16 talking about all that food reminded me that I almost missed lunch =D You brought up the Spartans, and I don't think their advantage was so much regarding physical health as much as it was sheer ferocity. With a culture obsessed with war, naturally that is going to be a strong point. In that case it would be almost all, because if you weren't obsessed with warfare you weren't going to get very far in that society. I suppose there may have been those that kept their loathing of war secret, which is why I say almost all. I think warrior to warrior, it would really depend a lot on the society. I could see, given similar weapons and appropriate training (Spartan to modern or modern to Spartan, for example) that some societies would do better than the average warrior today, others would do worse. I doubt an average Carthaginian would fare well against US infantry, both given either ancient or modern weapons and appropriate training, but I think that the Chinese would be particularly adept compared to even to their modern counterparts.

A minor note. Assuming the same body proportions, the difference in relative mass would go as the cube of the relative difference in height. So 5'7" = 67 ", and 5'9" = 69 " . So the shorter guy masses about 100*(67/69)^2 = 91.5% of the taller person. For 5'10" versus 5'7", it would be 88%. That might be reflected in muscle mass, everything else being equal. However, soldiers might not be chosen at random. Recruiters would for strong and large people, and in any normal and fairly large population you could get soldiers as large as anyone, all things being equal.

there were no supermen but there were definitely crazy warriors in history that did some amazing shit. Viking at Stamford bridge comes to mind. and Sempronius Densus. even modern day warriors such as Audi Murphy or Simo Hayha. they may not literally by supermen, but they were definitely not your average men.

What about a comparation of a militar man, to a modern militar man. I think modern militar man has more training, healthy food and healtcare than ancient militars.

The notorious pirate Edward Teach got 5 gunshots and over 20 lethal sword wounds before he finally fell dead to Robert Maynard.... an insane fact from history

That was a great video. I love all your weapon videos. But id love to see more about just history and the archaeology you did.

The way I see it body building is a certain method of diet and training to make your muscles large and defined, not so much to be strong. That being said, walking everywhere and hard work is wonderful for becoming stronger. I would recommend knowing stretches and proper techniques so you don't get any injuries doing the work, but other than that I spend a couple months framing and chopping wood and I was in the best shape of my life.

We just like to romanticise the past. Make heights previously reached seem unattainable and often times seems to involve some amount of anxiety over how we don't think we can beat the past because they're such great figures with unmatched skills. When in reality these great figures likely faced problems we do now if not worse we're so busy with the hype we've forgotten they were people as are we.

in Else Roesdahl's book " the Vikings "...it is stated from factual measurement of skeletons was that the Vikings were only 2 to 3 inches taller than the English...

Outstanding points. I wish movie and TV producers would be more reaslistic.

With the amount of hard work needed to survive, I can see historical people having better cardio then your average person now. As for the rest though its all training, and I'd like to think that we've gotten better at the whole training thing. Actually I'd also like to put out that I think that modern MMA fighters are probably the best analog for what ancient profession soldiers would have been like physically ((after all they do make their living off of fighting and have to spend a massive amount of time in training.))

In regards to heavy bows. I could have someone drawing a 90 pound bow within 2 or 3 months. So 140 pounds would be 3-4 months training.

Wish people would realize this when it comes to to english longbow, bow poundages are generally exaggerated.

The exception being humans during hunter-gatherer periods, who were typically stronger and more capable of processing complex stimuli than modern humans, largely out of necessity ( less fit humans would die young ). The advent of agriculture reduced the general survival capabilities of the individual, mostly due to not having to do everything necessary to survive on your own.

I think we are just impress by the fact that they put their live on the line. Like we are about soldiers going in Afghanistan or Irak. Or the police fighting the mafia and cartels.

You only read of the “winners”. They never wrote stories, biographies, or made movies of ordinary peasant warriors that died of malnutrition and start on the war campaign. Instead, they tell tall tales of mythic and impossiblely handsome and strong warriors.

Miyamoto Musashi was certainly without equal

Another aspect is the modern athlete. While a lifetime of labor is one thing, modern people in the First World have universal access to specialized training. We have more fantastically fit people than ever before. And look at the Olympics. People are continually breaking boundaries and getting more impressive physically. We take for granted workouts like bench press, squats, clean and jerks, sprints off of blocks, burpees, etc. which are specialized, using specialized equipment, to maximize human potential.

Very informative.

Archaeologist? This is getting interesting. I recall a fascinating New Yorker article from 2003. It held that all of humanity would average the same stature if diet and lifestyle were the same. Also that we get exactly three growth spurts in adolescence and if one happens to be sick or starving when one comes on you miss out on it and you don't get it back. Also, that in Victorian England, the upper classes were a head taller than the malnourished lower classes (like North Koreans vs. South Koreans) so medieval nobles would be taller than peasants. So what interesting digs have you been on?

Athletes are also riddled with physical problems :D And I am speaking from personal experience here. Seriously, your average pro athlete has had at least as much wear and tear as someone who works physically for a living. The main difference being that they get under the good surgeon’s knife quicker and more often and can actually afford the luxury of well-structured rehab. But their skeleton will show it (just ask my surgeon). Your average ACL-tear might have resulted in a life-long limp back in the day and potentially been career-ending for your fighting career, while nowadays, it is a setback but nothing to get overly upset about. Actually, hard day jobs were often seen detrimental to athletic performance, since they would wear you out. We have several cases where Greek athletes were poked fun at, because they were “useless” for anything else, including warfare. According to several writers, while they may have been training hard, they were resting and eating the rest of the time. Also, I know of several cases where high-level athletes (wrestlers) who couldn’t make a living in their sport nowadays picked very “easy” jobs so they could train more and harder. One of them became a tailor, others got factory jobs by sponsors where they didn’t have to do much. The same goes for the pros - those who aren’t on a full payroll by a team usually make a living as officers for the police and the military, where their only job is to keep winning medals and turn in for workshops 2-4 weeks per year. As for physical size, that is only so much of an advantage. If we are talking war, it can actually be detrimental in terms of logistics- bigger guys need more supplies, heavier armor, heavier horses which in turn need more supplies etc. The US military might have the heaviest soldiers on average these days, and their supply demands are also among the very highest among all the armed forces. For tournaments, size can be an advantage (see William Marshal). Though on average, we have way too little data to know for sure. Also, we need to remember that Blossfechten as such is a tendency that seems to have surfaced a lot more prominent from the 16th century onwards. In armor, my hunch would be that the short stocky guy will usually prevail over the tall, lanky guy. One more word on the historical draw weights: 100-200 lbs is what people shot with, not the maximum they could pull. Joe Gibbs can pull over 200 lbs and also shoot it a couple times, but I am pretty sure he wouldn’t pick more than 180 lbs to go to work / war with. A couple people are in the same ballpark, but so far he is at the top. An archer who shoots 200 lbs for reps - say, 30+ aimed arrows in a row - should be able to pull around 230-250 lbs max imho. So what we can conclude is that the “density” of strong guys in the archers where they were considered of big importance - England, China, Korea, Mongolia etc. must have been very high through a strict selection process. I would compare this to, say, football or rugby players, where you also will struggle to find a weak guy. In short, I would not expect the average medieval teenager who picks up arms to be a superman of any kind. I would picture him as a fairly kid who had an active childhood, climbed trees and wrestled and played knights with his buddies. You will be able to find such kids today just as well (I have trained a few, and usually they will learn very quickly compared to your average HEMA beginner who needs half a year to learn how to fall down safely). But I would assume they were more common then than now.

You don't even have to refer to developing world countries. A mason I knew in Canada's job was so gruelling that he had back surgery at 32 and retired at 51. He was able to retire because of smart real estate investments. He had arthritis and because of his 'typical working class lifestyle' (sorry to stereotype, but there is truth to it), smoked, drank and smoked pot for his pain and died of cancer at 64. Another man I knew, a roofer, was 55, nearing retirement (I hope), bitter af, resented the fact that I was going to university when the summer ended, swore constantly at me and everyone else under him, including people his own age, and walked hunched over from the damage. I did roofing occasionally at that job at age 20 and...ooff. I was SO glad to be done with it. Another man, about 45, more laid back, took his time on the job, told me without bitterness that he "wished I had an escape route" like I did. He had started working out at the gym and said that "five o'clock comes a lot easier to me now". People were not magically different and tougher back in the day, physically or psychologically. They had steeled themselves to lives of pain and that was that. But they weren't happy about it. Anything else is a b.s. modern 'culture war/wimpy modern people' myth. If life was so great back then, and they were so content with their lot, then *why did they change it?* Why the Industrial Revolution? Why this huge effort to improve their working conditions? Why did it happen? Because they didn't like their lives as they were! This is not rocket science, this is Psych 101!

You can't deny that people from our history were just slightly more thicker skinned. The idea of dueling to first blood for instance, people seemed just a little more willing to get injured. Death would have also been more of an everyday thing, whether it was illness, storms, war or famine, life expectancies were a lot lower and so Im sure people would have dealt with death in a slightly more casual way. I mean they used to have public decapitations, that shit would not fly today.

One of the situations where this discussion comes up is regarding the idea of whether or not historical archers in warfare could penetrate plate armor with arrows so as to be able to kill enemies wearing plate. Opinions vary. I've seen this tested in numerous videos and most people conclude that arrows could NOT penetrate quality plate armor except maybe to a very tiny degree, like half an inch or so. Others show arrows penetrating plate, but critics say the plate is too thin or not of good quality. Fans of plate mail would like to think that it makes the wearer invincible versus arrows and use these tests as proof. However I have some criticisms of these tests. 1st, as pointed out in this video, bows of up to 200 pounds of pull may have been used. Maybe it wasn't every single archer on the battlefield that could do this, but if I were a military leader and 10 of my 200 archers could do this, I might well tell those guys to concentrate on those of the enemy that were equipped with plate armor. In most armies, this was a very small percentage of the fighters who could afford plate armor, or at least full plate armor. Most of the time this testing flaw occurs because finding someone who can pull a 200 pound bow is difficult. However, if one could construct such a bow, it would not have to be pulled by a human being. It could be clamped in a vice and pulled by machine or with weights for testing purposes. 2nd, many tests for whatever reason attempt to penetrate armor with broad head points instead of bodkin points. That's just silly. 3rd, when they do use bodkin points, many testers don't put a needle sharp point on them, or they have a sharp point, but the bodkin tip is fat near the end instead of having a steep taper. I think this is because they don't want to have to sharpen their arrowhead or replace it every time the needle point is dulled or broken. However, when your goal is to kill the enemy, arrow heads become more disposable and the effort needed to maintain a needle point is worth your time. 4th, arrow heads, knives, swords, etc. back then were kept oiled because otherwise they would rust. I know that an oiled nail will penetrate wood very easily compared to a non-oiled nail. I suspect that an oiled bodkin point would penetrate plate more easily than a non-oiled point, but I think many people testing armor penetration use stainless points and it never occurs to them to oil the point. Or, because they do not carry their regular steel arrow heads around in battlefield conditions where rain, sweat, and blood might get on them, they just keep them dried and don't oil them. 5th, today we are fairly standardized in terms of arrow shaft length, diameter, weight, etc. A 200 pound bow might very well fire a heavier shaft. A heavier shaft should have more momentum with which to force an arrow head through armor. All the tests I've seen use fairly standard looking arrow shafts. This idea could be confirmed or debunked by archaeologists perhaps. 6th, if you could get the arrow to penetrate an inch into chest plate armor, that's not necessarily fatal. An inch of penetration through a helmet on the other hand could be quite deadly.

I work in private security and am trained to fight with firearms in body armor. I started learning to shoot and started sports shooting at about 12. So it probably isn't that different to someone who would have been employed by a private army in the middle ages. Except that it's extremely unlikely that I will actually have to do any fighting and they sometimes had the possibility of getting knighted. I just get a 401K. Not quite as cool.

Just to let you know the hard physical training for sports starts whenever the athlete starts said sport. The mid teens is just when they can start putting on more muscle due to puberty. In your example of gymnasts they don't develop because they are on hormones that prevents that from happening and they have lots of physical problems because of the high impacts going through their bones when dismounting. Also spot on with this video the number of crazy talented people these days especially of younger guys is crazy

This gets into nature vs. nurture. I think if we were able to take the best of both worlds we would be able to make a super physiology.

I think the sense of supermen people from history is from the perspective of their training compared to people who do not train. Most of the people who see it in movies and some who are interested in history are not trained soldiers and often they are not even physically fit, so to them superman is anyone who is physically fit and more if they are trained soldiers but that is the same with modern soldiers. Among modern soldiers are even branches that are considered superman by fellow regular army soldiers. Just any soldier of any period of time is a supermen in the eyes of an average Joe. So it is always the point of view that makes someone supermen. from the point of view of active sportsmen, soldiers or modern weapon-masters they may not be considered supermen. Although there is a form of common respect to ancient warriors who didnt fight with blunt blades as we do today for fun.

Just before he mentioned Conan the Barbarian, I was thinking how funny it is how he gets Mr. Olympia grade abs by turning a heavy wheel for 20 years

I went to a museum featuring the Huns and of the armor sets someone beside me said aloud, "This stuff looks like they were made for children!" She was right, the armor featured on display wouldn't have even fit me, and I am 5'5" (165 cm). Goliath was only 6'6" (or 200 cm about).

you hit the point about at the end... there were many people who did jobs that lead them to be obese... obesity isn't a modern thing, and was actually somewhat common in the nobility and the rich... warriors often had to build up strength, but it was (usually) lean muscle. there were men who were fed more for the purpose of making them big, bulky, and these men entertained in arenas both as fighters and as competitors... ... as for us common folk, there are still hobs out here that require the use of our strength, such as construction... SOMEONE's gotta pick that stuff up, and carry it up the ladder and so on. manual labor is not gone from any part of the world... alas, with the increase in populations, the increase in desk-type jobs also increases. obesity is a wider problem, but there's equally more people who are fit and slim.

My question is this; yes this generality would be correct, most people and indeed most soldiers would be “wiry”. But what about the professional affluent warriors? Would Huscarls, Knights, Men at Arms etc be large from training/diet? Could the “lords table”/mead hall feasting be a form of ensuring your best soldiers ate enough to grow large? What do the skeletons of these sorts of individuals show us? Did these professional warriors intentionally fatten up before going on campaign to stave off starvation weakness? Thanks, love the show!

lol at vikings being 6'6" 260 pound nfl football players. I remember meeting someone who was or at least should have been an educated person, yet he honestly tried to convince me of that...

"for some reason London has a lower average height than rest of country". That reason would be immigration.

Hi there I really like and appreciate your videos as a history enthusiast i am.Since you are an archeologist and you mentioned Ancient Greece could you please make a video about the way hoplites phalanx fought because from my internet research I could not come to a solid conclusion

I mostly agree with you but, if historical accounts can be believed, Athenian trireme rowers are credited with some astonishing feats of endurance.