Stonelifting Etiquette | Hacker News Reader

Stonelifting Etiquette

liftingstones.org

217 pointsKaibeezy103 comments

> Return the stone

Cannot be stated enough. I hate gyms that turn a blind eye to people not replacing weights. I was recently visiting Orlando and went to a sort-of-well-known gym there (owner is a professional body builder) and was amazed at how many plates were on the floor. The equipment was as high-end as you could get (the best Rogue/HS) but plates EVERYWHERE to trip over. It was pretty disappointing.

Leave the rack in better shape than when you found it. That's a metaphor for life.

I have a gym nearby that’s very expensive and focused on lifting. I am always so impressed by how the weights are always where they should be. The culture is amazing. In addition to people having respect for this, the weights there are colored which helps spot it visually. So the 45lb is blue, 55lb is orange, 35lb is yellow, 25lb is green. In my very anecdotal opinion this and well labeled racks go a long way here.

Compare another gym I use when I’m working from home: weights everywhere, no weight where it should be, and the weights themselves are inconsistently sized even at the same weight. It frustrates me to no end to have to pick through weights to find the ones I need for a lift.

the colored plates come from olympic weightlifting.

    0.5kg / 5kg  white
    1kg / 10kg   green
    1.5kg / 15kg yellow
    2kg / 20kg   blue
    2.5kg / 25kg red

makes it easier to count the weight on the bar quickly (the metal collars are also 2.5kg each). the green 10kg plate is the first full size plate (ignoring youth/beginner plates).

I love oly weights but there's something deeply nostalgic and satisfying about metal Yorks clanging each rep.

resistor color codes, but for mass

Another word for it is "resistance training", so...

That's the big difference between a "weightlifting gym", the first gym; and a "gym with weights", the second gym. The people going to the first go regularly and treat it like home, and the owners have to charge accordingly to buy and maintain good equipment, making it a place where the users choose to go. In the second, the preferred customer is someone that pays for a long contract but never goes to the gym and there's no point it making it other than surface-level nice. Then again the second gym costs half or a third of the first gym.

Cool website and notion, but, I mean, it's a fucking stone. There are like a billion of them, just laying around, older than all humans. I wish my life was this carefree. I will start my own stone lifting club, everyone is welcome, lift till you drop.

A lot of these stones are important cultural and historic artifacts with hundreds of years of history and culture behind them, and people traveling long distances to see and lift them. Destroying it is irreversible since each stone is unique.

It’s fine if you go out in the forest and drop a random stone, but don’t travel to Iceland or Scotland and destroy a stone with hundreds of years of history.

We pour concrete to make Atlas stones for specific weights knowing that these artificial stones will eventually be ruined by accident by the people who have a new interest in stone lifting. We also collect natural stones which may get ruined by mistake so people in the club can get used to lifting irregular shapes.

But when it comes to the historical stones, all the prep work above is so these stones are not ruined. It's a privilege to try to lift a stone that Irish or Scottish men would lift to become huscarls for their lord and breaking one out of carelessness is a loss for everyone in this hobby.

> gyms that turn a blind eye to people not replacing weights

They almost all do, because calling people out will lose you more customers than you'll lose from patrons being annoyed by the practice. It's just good business to ignore it and make the employees clean up at closing time.

This is true in almost all of the commercial gyms I've ever been to. In the more specialized gyms I've never seen this problem until this particular occasion.

In some cases, the customers are interested in paying for a place that will remind them (a degree of accountability).

Think 'japanese school kids clean their school'.

I'm guessing those places will also have exceptionally polite and motivated customers, but may be overly structured and difficult to do oddball things in.

A cheap 45# plate with square edges lying flat on a concrete floor is quite challenging for ordinary (or older) mortals to pick up that first inch. So, please rack ‘em or at least leave them leaning.

Extra annoying when people half ass clean up, i.e. stack plates on wrong pins, makes cleaning up for others even harder. The only weight storage I've seen people reliably use (and not well) are bumper racks on the ground, but it gets people to do something since it's already on the ground in the first place.

I don't understand, honestly. Never seen this in any gym in my country in Europe (which is poor). How is the difference so big?

Yeah I don't know. I think there's a level of narcissism that accompanies this tendency.

Narcissism is a tangential trait, but yeah.

It's about how customers were conditioned as children, and self selection of customers + how they deal with it. Similar to littering.

If people were taught/shown that it's okay to litter, most will litter.

If people were taught/shown that it's not okay to litter, most will have various strategies re: litter.

If they learned they could not litter in the first place and be 'good' and get benefits for it, they will probably do that. (they got praised appropriately for good behavior, and when they did bad behavior they got caught early, or had no excuses anyone would believe, and couldn't get away with lying).

If they grew up around a bunch of litterers and hated the people they grew up around for whatever reason, they will probably compulsively not litter even if no one cares - and pick fights with litterers. Or litter and hate themselves (which also correlates with NPD).

If they learned they could litter, and if caught could (successfully) pick it up and apologize, they will probably do that.

If they learned they could litter, and if caught could pretend they didn't know what was going on, or that it was wrong, pick it up, and then continue doing it, they will probably do that.

If they learned they could litter, and if caught they could pretend they couldn't figure out how to pick up litter, and someone else would pick it up for them, they will probably do that.

If they learned they could litter, and if caught they could successfully lie about it/blame someone else/get someone else to take the blame/gaslight people (that's not litter!), that's narcissism in many cases. If it's NPD, they'll also probably attack anyone who calls them out, as a survival mechanism, just maybe not directly.

Someone could also be a psychopath/sociopath in some cases, with different predicted results if they get caught or think there is someone who could get them in trouble if caught - like being directly attacked if you confront them about it, or being sabotaged/machiavellian'd out, getting themselves appointed onto a litter fine enforcing crew, etc.

Probably correlates very strongly to whether people around you throw trash out of a car window or not.

> Leave the rack in better shape than when you found it. That's a metaphor for life.

And applicable to many areas. E.g. the famous book "refactoring" by Martin Fowler hinges on this idea. Where we refactor a little bit, every time we visit a class, function or file.

Wasn't expecting to see this on Hacker News! I'm the creator of liftingstones.org - happy to answer any questions about the project!

What should my main lifts be to carry the original hussafell stone?

Do you mean what lifts should you train, or what numbers you should hit?

What numbers I should hit, to see if it is remotely achievable.

That's a really difficult question because the Husafell is so different to a barbell - along with the fact you have to carry it 35m. There are aspects of grip and wingspan involved, too.

I say this as someone who hasn't touched the Husafell in Iceland (yet), so take it with a pinch of salt: From what I've seen, if you haven't hit a ~200kg (440 lb) squat and a ~250kg (550 lb) deadlift, you might struggle with the Husafell stone.

Interesting. I've done a 100kg loadable metal replica. I'm not sure I can see myself hitting those numbers outside of enhancements.

Barring really clean technique, 1200lb+ combined total club is when I’d expect it to be practical.

(Basing this off having visited the stone and toyed with it - but I’m not an experienced stonelifter speaking from expertise.)

That's not too extreme. At my age though I'd probably need to hop on the Secret Juice to be able to do it.

I've always wanted to be Fullsterkur.

What a fascinating sport!

What should I be picturing for a lifter going for one of these stones? Should I be picturing a lone man stalking across a scottish moor, to test his strength with a single lift, alone and with no witnesses? Groups of athletes in lycra wearing lifting belts? Organised competitions with cheering crowds?

A bit like this in Scotland: https://www.thedinniestones.com/

For the Icelandic hussafell stone you can just drive up and have a go I believe.

There are some competitions with crowds. They're effectively strongman comps but solely with stones, and they're getting more popular.

Generally, you're alone or in a small group. So your idea of a lone man stalking across a Scottish moor isn't too far off. Usually no lycra though.

Perhaps a giant in a holocaust cloak lurking in an outcropping waiting to hit you in the head with a small boulder.

Which doesn't seem very fair.

Inconceivable!

Edit: the parent post references the movie The Princess Bride and my reply follows:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do...

bro, i heard you enjoy lifting stones. but are you strong enough to lift stone cold steve austin?

anyway, is there any events related to lifting stone in south east asia? thanks.

I'm don't know of any events in South East Asia - although I wouldn't be surprised if there were some. Japan, China, South Korea, and India all have stonelifting cultures, so it wouldn't be odd to see it elsewhere in Asia.

It's a lovely website - I have bookmarked it for future reference! I have been to the Potarch cafe many times, for some reason I never noticed the stones...

Thanks! You'll definitely notice them now. If you go on the first Tuesday of the month, you'll see a group of lifters attempting to put themselves in the history books.

There's also a whole day event in August on the green with some stonelifting competitions! In the last few years, it's attracted some elite strongmen and strongwomen too.

Highly interesting read!

Have you considered adding a highscore board or something similar? Athletes can add a profile, then post an image proof that they've lifted certain stones. It won't be fool proof, but could further increase interest by adding a progress bar and/or achievements :)

Strava for lifting stones? This won’t end well.

Thanks!

The original idea for the site was something along these lines (a log of people's lifts). I may have something in the pipeline...

Thanks for doing it. I saw this floating around other social media last week, and now it's here.

Glad you like it! I've loved creating it over the last four years.

Awesome! Where did you see it? One of the articles hit the front page of reddit late last year, so that was cool.

I’m curious how this happens, did you just see it by browsing HN or was there a spike in traffic that made you search for the thread?

I've been (mostly lurking) on Hacker News for about a decade, so I visit pretty often. I only caught it this time because of a traffic spike notification.

Great work on this. Nice to see non-strongman competitors doing stuff like this.

Thanks!

How accessible is stone lifting to genetically smaller people? I strength train seriously but I'm never going to have the build or strength of the much bigger men who I usually see doing powerlifting and strongman.

My experience with stones seems to indicate that they come in an almost unlimited variety of sizes. There are boulders that are so large no human can lift them all the way down to stones that can be lifted by a small child or even a dog. You shouldn't have any trouble finding a stone with a weight appropriate for whatever level of difficulty you want to target.

Like the other reply, stones range in sizes and weights. Even if you're not massive, there are plenty of more accessible historic stones. You obviously tend to hear about the heaviest and most challenging ones that giants lift.

One of the most inspiring (and insane) feats of strength I've ever seen was Chloe Brennan's lift of the Replica Dinnie Stones (weighing 333kg (734 lb)) in 2022. She weighed ~64kg (140 lb): https://youtu.be/CRaEALQSxTI?&t=434

The historic stones are probably out of reach. I've heard of a range of stones (don't remember the name/location) where the lighter ones may be possible. With those it the claim is "X lifted all 7 forgot-the-name stones".

As a sport, strongman has atlas stones (cement spheres) going down to sizes that most people could lift to shoulder. However, as a sport, the bulk of the training to get strong enough to lift a stone doesn't involve actually lifting a stone. It's a very welcoming group, though, with most competition directed inward toward the self rather vs against another person.

There are novice strongman comps by weight class that you can enter that would scale the atlas stones and adjustable hussafell stones.

This is an example from a UK gym that I know holds lots of comps. Scroll down for the novice/beginner comps.

https://www.kaosstrength.co.uk/strongman-comps

Note also that is not unheard of for people to "blank" i.e. not complete any reps of a particular event. It's often said that if you don't (particularly at the lower levels) you're not challenging yourself.

It's also bad form to enter a novice comp if you already have a 300kg deadlift.

Strongman (which stone lifting is related to) is an extremely accessible and welcoming sport. We have men, women, and children of all ages and sizes, and stones (and other implements) appropriate for everyone. Not everyone completes, but in competitions there are classes, so you can compete against other people your own age, size, gender, level of experience, and even level of disability if applicable. There are also historic lifting stones of all sizes, not just massive ones that require a giant to lift!

I though it was going to be about harri-jasotzea for a second!

Basque stonelifters are the best in the world. I'd love to write more about them!

It's a good article but it could use a bit of background as to what "stonelifting" is, exactly, for those who aren't already familiar. From what I gather, this is more about lifting stones in public places than, say, using stones in your own personal gym? With an emphasis on historic stones? There's mention of a "stonelifting tour" as well, would love to understand more of what that's about.

Those are fair points. I guess the audience I wrote this article for is people who are already aware of stonelifting and who are planning to go and lift some stones. I've added a TODO to make it a little more clear in this article.

>From what I gather, this is more about lifting stones in public places than, say, using stones in your own personal gym? With an emphasis on historic stones?

Exactly!

A stonelifting tour is when you visit a place (often a country like Scotland or Iceland) to lift various historic stones on the same trip. Sometimes that's with other lifters.

The map shows a concentration of stones in the UK, particularly in Scotland. Is that representative of the stonelifting community? Or maybe just an artefact of it being an English-language website?

A bit of both. Scotland definitely has a concentration of stonelifters in the community. But there are plenty of stones that I haven't added to the map (in Iceland, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, and Japan especially). I try to branch out to other countries and cultures as possible.

OP here. My kid is a new Dr Who fan. An old photo of the cast of Local Hero popped up in one or another of my feeds, with a 1982 photo of an impossibly young Peter Capaldi. Kid loved the photo but had no idea about the movie. I found a good photo of Pennan on the Wikipedia page, amazing place. The article mentions lifting stones, which was unfamiliar. Google brought me to your site, which is very appealing, as many have noted. I’m a non-tech in the tech industry, so I like to contribute outlier things here, usually resulting in crickets, sadly, but in this case it resonated. Huzzah!

Awesome! I know of the stone the page mentions. Someone placed a stone there a couple of years back because it's such an amazing place.

What backend is your site made with

It's just a Jekyll static site.

Common sense, really. I got angry with my beefcake friend when we were are at an anthropological history site in Japan and he decided spontaneously to lift the ancestral lifting stone.

Edit: I recall the name: Hida Folk Village (Hida no Sato). There is a historic lifting stone on the side of a path, which you obviously are not allowed to pick up or would require permission. Exact location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/oxKc4M2djkk76s8y5

Funnily enough, I went to Hida no Sato in May to visit the stones (the museum itself is great too)! They're going to be the subject of one of my future articles. The stones at Hida folk village are lighter than most, but the setting makes them wonderful. I got permission to lift of course. That's the key really - especially with Japanese stones when they're often in shrines.

You're really dedicated to the sport. They're not on your site yet, do you regularly add new ones or are monuments like these not in-scope?

Know any in the Benelux? The region seems pretty empty on the site, can't say there is a strong stone lifting or strongman culture here.

I do add some monuments. For Japanese stones, I'm a little more conservative about adding them, generally. I'll be adding the Hida no Sato stones to the map alongside the article though.

As for Benelux, I'm not aware of any historic stones. There is one person who set up a stonelifting challenge in Belgium. Feel free to email me (via the contact email on the site) and I can share more info if you want it.

How did you get permission? Do you speak Japanese?

I would have thought stone lifting etiquette would have prevented stones in shrines, and can see them being the biggest attacked by this hobby.

Yeah, I speak a little Japanese, so I was able to ask one of the people working at the museum.

It really depends on the shrine. Some explicitly allow lifting and some have stones that you're not allowed to touch. So it's best to ask in just about every case.

Could it be that your friend champions the inaugural campaign to liberate stones from their purgatory?

I wonder if the stone sensed his exuberant freedom and exclaimed, "Yes, this is the life!"

This entire thread/post just feels like an excuse for these people to keep lifting stones and it is no doubt going to lead to more idiots traveling and lifting stones. For some reason Japan is a hub for people being obnoxious.

I will attempt to sum up what’s actually bothering you here… This kind of behavior bothers me too. Censure-driven gatekeeper enforcement (prevalent in niche interest) of strict rules fosters an atmosphere of elitism and exclusion, where individuals are judged more on their ability to adhere to arbitrary criteria than on their genuine passion or potential contributions to it.

Communities that prioritize inclusivity and openness tend to be more dynamic and resilient. However, it is much easier to rally attention as a gatekeeper than an innovator.

Gatekeeping and promoting ideas like this on hacker news further expands the cult/clique and indoctrinates more patrons while expanding its leaders (or web masters) ring of influence.

Yes! That feels like what my silly bother is. But also it ends up pivoting where everyone is doing it, and the rules are now more cosmetic and hipster than they are really for everyones benefit.

Gatekeeping is a huge problem for communities that are always connected. See video game metas, reddit sub-reddits, etc. These places just feel stale after the first few innovators define the "best of all rules", where there are people who follow and very, very small amounts of people who experiment.

Precisely

Had my friend read the etiquette page, he probably wouldn't have lifted the stone without asking permission. So no, OP's website is beneficial wrt educating people to avoid the purported obnoxious behavior. Additionally the hobbyists that travel to lift stones probably already know not to lift monuments.

But I guess you mainly wanted to complain about obnoxious tourists in Japan, so fair enough. I highly doubt tourists in general are more disrespectful in Japan vs. elsewhere.

Stone lifting has been a life changing thing for me. It got me through a really difficult time in my life, helping me restore my mental and physical health. I’m surprised to see it on Hacker News.

You have no idea how many times I've heard that. And it's not far from my own story. The stonelifting community is fantastic.

Interesting to hear. I've recently pivoted hard towards sandbags and naturally I'm seeing more and more about stone lifting.

How does one get into this sport? There are no historic stones near me, in SoCal, and I'm not really able to get to a powerlifting or strongman gym, that night have stones, due to my professional and personal life / obligations. I mostly lift out of a garage gym but I'm fascinated to keep seeing this sentiment over and over again as I've pushed more into sandbag training.

edit/ Sean has some detailed information on the site about his training.

There are a bunch of great strongman clubs and gyms in socal- just go visit one once at first, you don’t need to be able to commit to go regularly. If you can find someone experienced to teach you in person once or twice, you can then work by yourself at home.

Sandbag training at home is great, and of course you can go to a landscaping store or just in the middle of nowhere and find a big rock or two to bring home. I have a 320lb landscaping rock in my back yard! Regular barbell training- especially front squats and deadlifts will translate to stone lifting well.

I personally train mostly at home, and have an online coach I send videos to for feedback. I then only occasionally travel to a strongman gym, because it is far away. Maybe once or twice a month.

The book Stonelifting by Martin Jancsics and Dr. Bill Crawford is also excellent and can be used to build your own program at home.

I love to see people doing things I've never even thought of that embrace history and culture, and that they take pride in doing. This is exemplary of the respectful attitude we ought to have toward more of our activities.

There is a documentary called Strongland that explores the sport of stone lifting in three different cultures: Basque Country, Scotland and Iceland. It's worth a watch, very interesting and well made.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxEAK5-2Leeul8idnGCE...

Stoneland, Fullsterkur, and Levantadores are many people's introduction to stonelifting. They're wonderful documentaries. Martins Licis (2019 World's Strongest Man) also produces some great documentaries related to stonelifting and other obscure strength sports with "Strength Unknown" that I recommend to anyone interested.

I read the entire article and really thought this was satire. Even reading all of the comments here didn't quite make me believe it... but it's real.

The Wikipedia article has some interesting history behind it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_stone

Found this comment while trying to figure out if this is a joke.

What an amazing sport.

If it wasn't for Wikipedia then I would still be unsure. It feels like the kind of put-on that anyone in the know tries to maintain, like Morning...

... er, I mean, entirely unlike the classic London subway game, Mornington Crescent.

>I read the entire article and really thought this was satire.

Can I ask what made you think it was satire? Just disbelief that stonelifting is a thing?

Sure. :)

I’d never heard of stone lifting and I couldn’t see why it would be real.

Without the context of history, it seemed absurd that people would run around lifting random rocks and ascribing history to them when it served no useful purpose.

Going even further to design rules and convey them with great sincerity without context felt like the Ministry of Silly Walks from Monty Python. (A type of humor I greatly enjoy.)

Over the years I’ve been on Hacker News, I’ve seen a few founders who had convinced themselves a large market existed (or could be created), contrary to all evidence. (E.g. A social network around raising and caring for electric eels.) So I was primed to see someone poking fun at that.

Now, I think it is really cool. And of course I’m going to tell my friends about it so we can discuss how cool it is. :)

One of the sites linked is for the Dinnie Stones in Potarch, Scotland and I thought it was quite marvelous. [1]

"Lifting will normally commence around 4.30pm to allow judges time to get there from work etc."

https://www.thedinniestones.com/Set%20Up%20Your%20Lift.html

I often ponder if the stone ever yearns to revert to dust. Once a part of bedrock, it endured the transformative journey of glaciation, traversing thousands of kilometers to acquire its polished sheen. Originally a substantial presence in its natural habitat, it now finds itself in unfamiliar terrain, where it seemingly rests undisturbed—or does it? Perhaps the stone harbors a silent longing to reunite with its geological origins, quietly enduring a life of indifference, yearning for the day it can disperse into the wind. Yet, humans, imbuing it with cultural significance, have forever arrested its journey, keeping it fixed in place for their own entertainment.

This is cool, I never heard about this haha.

I first heard about it on the Blindboy Podcast. His meandering takes through culture and history are always worth a listen

https://shows.acast.com/blindboy/episodes/the-lost-irish-tra...

I took this to be a metaphor for courteous use of gym equipment. Then I read the HN comments. "Boy, HN sure is leaning into the joke." Then I went back to the website. Then I saw the video an HN commenter posted about the 140lb. woman lifting 733lb. of stone. Oh, this is for real.

And for real it is. Man, what a sport. I'm just a scrawny, ultra marathoning trail runner with boney little runner arms. But I have to admit to having shed a tear when that woman in the video lifted those two stones. I might never lift even a third that much, but I can appreciate the work it takes to get to that point, and the unmatchable joy of accomplishing a goal.

Wow, TIL...

They all look manageably sized until you see the photo/video of an enormous dude holding them!

I really want to lift a stone now

I wonder if a project could be started to 3D scan and precisely weigh traditional lifting stones as a backup if they are ever destroyed? Of course conservation is the most important part but it would be nice to have a fallback.

While I can see this idea coming from good intentions, it also misses the point. Stonelifting isn't just a physical discipline, it also cultivates other aspects -- honoring the stones, the land, to receive the legacy of all the others who have tried lifting that stone, and to pass on the legacy for future generations of stonelifters. Your strength is developed within that context, and these ethics become intimately entwined with the personal journey. You not only feel more physically capable, but you also know it was grown as part of a larger legacy. That, in honoring the land and the stones to get stronger, some of the stone's and land's own strength has become a part of you. That is huge.

I never lifted stones, but I'm involved with other disciplines which also cultivates its own set of ethics. That character-building aspect is often stripped out in modern practices. No 3d replica will ever restore something like that.

Exactly. An another aspect of this respectful attitude and character would involve accepting the loss if one is destroyed rather than replacing it with a fake.

However, precise replicas to already exist for the most popular and widely known lifting stones- the Húsafell and the Dinney stones have been carefully copied and replicated, to allow people to train for the real thing from a distance, and to allow for their use in strongman competitions when removing them from their historical site isn't appropriate or allowed.

Besides the obvious(?) social reasons this is a pointless endeavor, you're also forgetting that stones are not homogeneous crystals but complex minerals, especially at this size. You could try to find the exact type of rock and chisel it into the right shape but it would still be very different and likely also have noticeable differences in weight distribution and grip not to mention appearance.

Are there any precast "standard" stones? preferrably something symmetric and rubber coated. Maybe why I prefer flipping big tires.

Kettlebells may be what you seek.

Atlas stones are the "standard" stones, but they're concrete spheres, not rubber-coated. Lifters use pine resin, "tacky", on their hands to make them easier to grab. Or less hard to grab, at least.

(Note that the linked article talks about not using tacky on natural stones.)

I was thinking something irregular (accidentally typed symmetric in original comment) like in stone lifting, but with some rock climbing handles. Surprised something like that does not exist. Seems like it would be a neat training implement, especially if difficulty can be standardized. I like the idea of picking up stones, just in more commercially accessible and clean / less pain in the ass way. My original thought was something like Rogues rubber atlas vs traditional concrete cast atlas but stone shapped instead of ball shapped.

What hes trying to say is, WE GO GYM, WE GO NOW!!!!

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