I've been running for 40 years, and lifting for 15. Lifting has virtually eliminated my back pain. Strengthening the muscles helps a lot in preventing injury.

No, I'm not lifting 400 lbs. Weightlifters lift insane weights, does that compares to what physical laborers lift?

The problem is the conditions under which they lift. If you lift weights, you're probably watching your form and taking rests in between your sets. On a jobsite, you're being forced to bring those bricks or that heavy tool over ASAP, and nobody is going to let you get into proper deadlift form. While OSHA standards exist, most companies and techs are just skirting by because of the margins in the business. There's a lot of pressure to get things done fast so they'll fuck up form just to get things done that little bit faster.

I'm a cyclist and a lot of other cyclists are ex-runners whose joints are shot from running. They prefer to cycle because it's easier on the joints but it offers the same headspace as a long run. I also do some climbing and frequently hurt my joints (shoulder and elbow are frequent ones, wrist from time-to-time.) I have lots of friends who also climb who have had to take short or even long breaks from climbing due to the effects on their joints. Lifting on a jobsite is more dynamic than weightlifting and closer to climbing.

It's not about actually wearing out your joints (which can probably take crazy amounts of load and stress over years if you use correct form and rest appropriately), it's more accumulated injury from incentives to use bad form.

Thanks for the interesting take.

I've been running for 40 years. I suffered from knee and hip pain from it, until I read about the biomechanics of running. I ran doing the "heel strike", where the heel hits first. I could feel the shock in my knee and my hip with every stride.

I decided to switch to "ball strike" where I landed ball of the foot first and then rolled onto the foot. I did not feel the shock in my knee or hip after that. A couple weeks later, the joint pain began to subside, and for the last decade has not bothered me.

It takes a while to switch to ball strike, now it feels perfectly natural. Try this experiment. Run with your shoes on, and note your heel strike. Take your shoes off and run again - you'll run on the balls of your feet. This was the epiphany for me.

Running also builds up your heart, lungs and muscles quickly, but the tendons and joints and bones need years to adapt. A lot of people get into trouble by feeling strong and overdoing it. Ya gotta hold back and give it years.

I agree that if you're still having trouble with running, biking is a great alternative.

With your back, take the time to do proper back strengthening exercises. They greatly helped reduce the rate and severity of my repeated back injuries. I strongly recommend talking to a doctor to get a regimen of these exercises. They paid off for me big time. More that once I thought oh crap, I hurt my back again. But nope! Woo-hoo!

I'm not at all suggesting that tradesmen don't get injured on the job and the accumulation of such can be crippling.

>Running also builds up your heart, lungs and muscles quickly, but the tendons and joints and bones need years to adapt. A lot of people get into trouble by feeling strong and overdoing it. Ya gotta hold back and give it years.

Any good resources on this? Getting into running in my early 30s. Already switched to zero-drop, I think I'm ball-striking.

But do you run and lift for 40-60hrs a week for 40 years? If I did an hour or two of electrical work a day instead of 8 to 10 my knees would probably have lasted longer than 17 years.

Depends! People that train for Ironman average something like 20h a week over a year (some peak at closer to 40 during their race buildup)

But most of us are way less than that, more like 10 hours a week. And if you are careful your body rebuilds stronger each time.

My knees are not shot from running. In fact I’d wager they are in better health than a desk potatoe that never exercises.

There are multiple things being lumped together. The body constantly heals itself, but doing blue collar work the issue is that the cumulative load regularly exceeds your recovery ability. Athletes can stay under the limit if they are careful.

Irrespective of job or sports people can randomly develop degenerative diseases as they age that can be exacerbated by work.

You are looking at the pointy end, people on roids and HGH that lift 8 hours a day.

Compare to someone that lifts for 1 hour 3x a week. He will have stronger bones and joints than either a desk potatoe (no stress = no buildup) or the tradesmen (too much stress without rest = failure)