In More on Deadlifts, Art De Vany describes some old research on the strength of frontier soldiers and Indians:
I think back about the University of California, Berkeley anthropologist who did the testing of frontier soldiers and indians. Neither are likely to have done deadlifts as they might be done in a gym. Yet, both scored reasonable values relative to a more recent soldier or indian. And far better than a a modern male (who would be easily beaten by a male civilian of the time of the tests). Alas, the article is lost in time and I never could find it at the UCB library. I just recall the text from a book citation.A truly strong person, who is generally strong not in the highly specific way that power lifters are, can usually do a double body weight dead lift. The Amerindians surely did not usually do anything like dead lifts, but they surely did a variety of things that gave them almost double the dead lift strength of frontier soldiers. Building structures, playing games, butchering and carrying food are among the things that would have contributed to their great strength. Don’t over look either the role of general fitness as a contributor to strength.
How might Plains Indians have built their strength? By dragging bison:
What they dragged were one ton bison out of pits they ran them into to kill them. I recall the story (the reference is back in a file I simply don’t have time to try to find) of 5 indians pulling bison out of a 10 foot pit they had run the animals into. They had lept into the pit to kill the animals. Then they pulled them out, somehow. Then they dragged them to a nearby butchering site to do the heavy work of butchering a large animal with stone knives and implements. Then they loaded the meat and took it to camp.If there is a better exercise, I don’t know what it might be. Every major muscle group is engaged, trunk, hips, legs, arms, grip, back and shoulders. It combines dynamics and strength because you are moving the load, not just lifting it. Balance comes into play. There is maximal heaving to initiate movement of the heavy mass, followed by faster movement after initial friction is overcome. Then a brief rest and the process is repeated. They may have made as many as 100 of these sorts of movements over the course of their work. Each one a maximal effort, followed by a burst of speed and then a brief rest.
Given the amount of nutrition in a one or more animal kill, they would only do this sort of thing a few times a month. No more than once or twice a week. A great model of true power training.