There is a thing. It is in the shape of a cube, rectangle, or other easily grasped form, but not idealized like a barbell. You will lift it from the floor to just above your waist, and set it on a cart. If it was lighter, it would not be heavy. If it was heavier, it would be a two person lift. You can do it, but it’s heavy.
How heavy is it?
I would appreciate as wide a variety of answers as possible, preferably with your personal information re: height, weight, sex, and any other factors like your appearance at last year’s World’s Strongest Man contest, or your lack of a right arm.
I’ve been trained to lift things many times by many companies, all trying to save money by me not getting hurt.
So anything more than about 10 pounds gets me to pay attention when lifting.
But ‘heavy’ starts at maybe 50-60 pounds. If it’s a small dense item, up to 100 pounds is still a one-person lift though.
As a teenager (18 or thereabouts), 1.72 m, 70kg, I used to stack 50 litre beer kegs three high,
Had a job unloading 25 kg sugar bags from a 20’ container,
Could pick up and carry 2 x 40kg cement bags (but only for a short time)
Right now - I’d say, 50-60kg wouldn’t present so much of a problem that I couldn’t do it alone - and wouldn’t bother me enough to chase down someone to help
If it was lighter, it would not be heavy: 10kg (22 pounds). That’s near the limit where I go whuf that’s kinda heavy. It’s certainly not “light”.
If it was heavier, it would be a two person lift: 30kg (66 pounds). If I’m just picking it up and putting it on a cart, I could do it easily at 30kg. I wanted to say 45kg (being the weight of a grown woman) but it’s hard to say - unless I really had to do it myself, it really ought be a 2 person job.
A large suitcase is probably the heaviest thing I’ve had to lift in the last few years (outside of lifting a barbell in the gym). Male; average height, average weight, average age, average build, above average driving skillz (like everyone else).
Artillery rounds are dense and easy to balance, it’s possible to walk with a 96-pound round on each shoulder.
I could never pick up the second one, somebody had to hand it to me- but lots of guys could pick up two at once.
Once loaded, off you go! across rough ground, sometimes at night or in weather. Good training, that was.
Is our hypothetical object a stream of somethings that needs to be lifted again and again, such as car parts on an assembly line?
Something like a portable table saw that you need to pick up and put in the back of your truck every day?
Or is this a one-off task like picking up a car battery and putting it in a shopping cart?
At the moment, anything over 20 pounds is “heavy” for me as I’m recovering from spinal surgery and am still under lifting/carrying restrictions.
I recently had the battery in my truck replaced - paying $20 to the shop was a bit irritating, but picking up 65 pounds of lead is far out of my current abilities. Before surgery, that would have certainly been a manageable weight for a one-time lift, but I’d really not want to be in a position where I had to pick up and rack car batteries all day long for work.
Female, mid-thirties, no stamina, but average strength.
Something that would be “light” if it were slightly less heavy - carrying two one-gallon milk jugs in one hand. If I split them one per arm, they’re quite light.
Something that is heavy? That varies.
Is it something I’m only doing once?
Carrying a 50 lb bag of catfood around the store, out to my car, and into the house is heavy, but not such that I worry that I would hurt myself, but not so light that I would want to (or be able to) carry it for a long time (more than 20 minutes).
Is it something I’m doing regularly?
I was part of a sandbag crew, and the sandbags were the standard 1 foot by 2 foot-ish size. I have no clue how heavy they were, but an afternoon of that was strenuous.
Something that is on the edge of a two-person job?
If it’s awkward, then it will be a lighter weight than if it’s easily hefted. Same for if it’s something that shifts and settles while moving it. I’d say anywhere around about 80 to 100 lbs I’d *want *someone else to help me , and once it gets past around 120 or so, I’d *need *someone to help me.
My numbers are almost identical. At 20 lbs, it’s “heavy” but nothing to complain about. (20 lbs is about the point where I’d almost always use two hands.) Somewhere around 60 pounds is the max I want to lift myself. I know from experience that I can handle 80 pounds if I have to, but I’d prefer to ask for help.
And this is assuming an actual lift. I recently manhandled a 230-lb box by “rolling” it end over end, so I can do quite a bit when I have to get creative.
My dog weighs between 80 and 90 lbs, and I have to pick her up from time to time and it’s not that bad, so I say 80 lbs. I find myself picking up 27" CRT TVs a lot too (I recycle them for people) and according to the Internet they weigh about 80 lbs, and it’s not that bad (albeit cumbersome).
About 100 lbs.
At that weight, it becomes more about how easy it is to grip as opposed to how absolutely heavy the object is. A featureless cube would be much harder to lift compared with a milk-crate filled with bricks (because of the handles).
I’m male, 5’7", 165 lbs, 53 years old, and a gym rat.
