Cow on a conveyor belt....

[ApexJimi]

Well, no, not quite!

But bear with me on this one...

At the gym last week, one of the chaps came up with this scenario (said he'd picked it up from somewhere)

A calf is born, and every day after that, a guy picks up the calf, puts it on his shoulders and goes for a walk with it. Would the guy eventually be able to lift the fully grown cow?

The biggest flaw I can see is the rate of growth of the cow, versus the rate of muscle and strength growth of the guy. Personally, I'm tempted to say it's unlikely...but there's a certain amount of logic there

[goldblum]

For a variety of reasons,no.

[Big Worm 1]

Sounds like a Hercules film i saw once, where he got his strength from squatting with a horse on his shoulders, and his strength developed as the horse got bigger.

I doubt the increase in strength could keep up with the growth of the cow.

[goldblum]

Or Arnie pushing the mill wheel?

I vill carry dat cow.

[Mojooo]

On one of the strength programs I was reading about they give an example of someone carrying an Ox back in the day.

It was to explain the concept that the more you lift the bigger your muscles will get - so in theory the man may be able to lift more and more as the cow gets heavier but may be limited at a certain point.

[okgo]

ITs basically stronglifts, and most people fail that at some point. Pretty sure a cow would grow more than the 2kg a week stronglifts has you add, or whateve small amount it is.

[Animal]

The fable of Milo of Croton (who may also have invented crispy little bits of bread to have in soups and salads):

Milo's father gave him a bull calf to raise and every day would ask him "How big is your bull today?" Milo would then go outside and carry the bull indoors to show his father. As the bull grew so did Milo.

Obviously not a true story; the average Holsteinbull calf grows by 0.65-0.75kg/day -and they don't exactly start small!

Milo was, however very strong: six-times Olympic wrestling champion he apparently once stopped a roof collapsing to give his friends time to escape.

Yes, he had a goatee.

[BlackVanDyke]

Not unrelated: I have a friend who has very, very profound physical disabilities (seriously, makes me look like a marathon runner). She's of relatively small stature - maybe something like 4'10" stretched out, and weighs about 7 stone. Her mum obviously started off lifting and carrying her as a tiny baby - and never really stopped. I don't think you'll meet many 46 year old women who can lift (and walk with) a 7 stone dead weight! Her mum's only titchy too, maybe 5'2ish... these days my friend has left home and so her mum's mostly lost the ability to carry her as she's somewhat out of practice, but still - pretty incredible.