Common Sense Evaluation

Too much texting, not enough heavy lifting

(NEWSER) – If today’s men think that all those video games are helping them maintain optimal hand strength, they’d better think again. In a series of studies testing grip and pinch strength, researchers report in the Journal of Hand Therapy that among the 237 healthy millennials studied between the ages of 20 and 34, men today are significantly weaker than their counterparts of the ’80s. Specifically, men could squeeze with 120 pounds of force in 1985 and only 95 today, reports Today.com. The strength of women dropped off, too, but not as substantially.

The prime reason, the researchers propose, is that men are simply less handy—fewer work in manual labor jobs, hence the reduction in strength over these past three decades, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. They measured hand strength because it can be indicative of overall body strength, and weaker hands have been linked to anything from heart disease and stroke to arthritis. Men’s Fitness pointed out that this essentially means modern bros are wimpier than their dads and suggest that they start doing some grip strength workouts. (Apparently grip strength is more telling of certain health metrics than blood pressure readings.)

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When Men Were Men