Why aren't lumberjacks jacked?

Actually, many lumberjacks are jacked (large visible muscles), especially nowadays. My question is, why don’t they look like bodybuilders? You would think they should, with all that hard manual labor. This is a health and fitness newsletter, so I will come back around to the science of muscle growth later. Ironically, exercise outcomes are defined by rest intervals.

I grew up in New England, surrounded by trees. We used to collect firewood for some of our heating. If the power and water went out during ice storms, the wood stove provided heating, and a way to melt snow for water, and for cooking meals. This was infrequent, yet my naive and romantic childhood memory pictured us as rustic.

Firewood used to be more of a necessary survival situation. I still collect it because I like to work outdoors, and the wood stove provides better heat than the furnace.

I am fascinated by history and past suffering and hardship of early European settlers. Partially because it reminds us of how easy most of us have it, and I’m amazed by human physiological potential. Early settlers had it pretty rough.