my back hurts thinking about this

How about this guy. I can't figure out what he is trying to do in this video.

I had a hard enough time lifting my 300# Fisher when I was a young man, now I have a hard time with a gallon of milk, take care of your back. Once it's gone, dang it hurts like crazy and affects everything you do down to your finger tips and the tips of your toes and most everything in between too. Use a hoist or get someone to help you, no use saying, "Well man up Buttercup!", that a load of you know what if it takes your back out.

How about this guy. I can't figure out what he is trying to do in this video.

He's toughing up his bones. Repeated striking of hard objects strengthens bones by making them more dense. Its a very very old technique.

Can and Should are *very* different things!

When I was young I commonly carried an anvil that weighed as much as I did. Now in my 50's I draw the line at short moves of anvils half my weight and use hoisting equipment for the big ones. I have nothing to prove and I hope to continue smithing till I keel over instead of having to give it up due to a messed up back!!!

When I was young I was always trying to get *bigger* anvils; now that I teach I am assembling a harem of smaller anvils so I can load and truck them to the class site. (Generally having the students help load and unload is part of the class "fee"---but I don't want them to do something stupid either!)

This meat head doesn't know how to lift correctly like the guy in post 1 who ''looked up'' as he lifted. Lifting from the floor to a stand that's too high looks particularly dangerous as in going from the ground onto the gate of a pickup..........one pop is forever..... :(



http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=anvil%20lifting&source=video&cd=5&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CEkQtwIwBA&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-hndzJGWR2o&ei=CnxgULanCeSiiQKj7IDoDA&usg=AFQjCNH1vwoVRHcv4N5UPdndEKhK4Ig-sw

Why is looking up important?

I aligns your back and neck. Look at pro weight lifters, they always look strait ahead just before they make their move. Whenever I lift from the ground I always look strait ahead which is up in that position and I use my LEGS. Making a twisting motion while lifting is deadly.......

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Forthopedics.about.com%2Fcs%2Fbackpain%2Fht%2Flift.htm&ei=q5NgUOGcK43siwKBxIHwCg&usg=AFQjCNGEL33TPPCZepBlopD_fHYpbTS0Ww&sig2=pciGzohC68yWGVc_gA2N1w&cad=rja

All that... and he only gets an inch?

Personally, I wouldn't even bother to try. Who's impressed with that show of wonderment? If I need the anvil moved, I'll find a way to do it that uses all the wonderful technology that man has invented over the millennia!

millennia*s* any ancient egyptian worker worth his millet knows you use levers to lift obelisks!

I recently worked on a job where one of the engineers who trains for strong man comps lifted my 3.5 hundred weight anvil from the floor to its stand. A proper strong man is a thing to see.
I was thinking it was a 3 man lift and not really a two man lift...

I could lift that easily...

Pull up to it with my forklift and full back on the lever.

Heck, kid, I can still lift my 150 kilo anvil further than that, and I am a wheezy old goat who was born under a flag with 48 stars.

Back in the day, when I was a wrestler and a caber tosser, I used to pick up all kinds of crazy stuff. The first person you thought of when it was time to move wood stoves, pool tables, fridges, shop equipment.

Now, back still good; knees, not so much.

My uncil, Harry Schreiner, was a blacksmith in Manitou, Oklahoma - back in the late 40s and early 50s. On Friday afternoons, a few of the local men would stop by his shop to cuss and discuss the world, and to watch this 6'6" German pound iron and steel on his 300 lb. anvil. Every once in a while, the gathering would get a bit rowdy and Uncle Harry would know how to quell the noise. He would simply grab the anvil with both hands, hold it at arm's length, and look at the offenders. Things always got real quiet in very short order.

If his bones get strong enough maybe he could do away with a hammer altogether. He may have a problem pounding on hot metal though.

yup it hot steel gets "slippery" under the hand...

Yeah, those fork thingys are wonders ain't they? :P

Nah, the guy hiting the anvil just found out that was how Chuck Norris makes tinfoil out of billet...

My great-great grandpappy was a blacksmith on a submarine....told me the other day that the worst thing he picked up was a hairy "bird" at a bar in downtown Memphis on Sunday evening in the rain.

Have a look if you work on your own

I'm too old and smart to mess with the bigguns'.........I do alright with the puny ones though......... ^_^

Hmmmm reminiscent of king kong snatching planes out of the sky...