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Check this video out:

Isn’t that cool? If each block weighed about 3-5 lbs, he was carrying about 60-100 lbs of weight on his head.

Over the history of time, many cultures—who didn’t have sophisticated equipment—came up with ways to do things efficiently. It could be transporting heavy loads, like shown in the video, or other types of manual labor.

Here are more examples from Ghana:

You’ll notice that all the white folks carried the loads with their muscle (shoulders, biceps, forearms), while the locals used their heads. The original poster of these pictures wrote that each brick weighed about 40 lbs, and they walked 100 yards to the construction site. Not only that, the women showed no signs of strain; they could casually stop and chat with the heavy loads on their heads.

That is not an easy task. When I in college, I had to carry a 40 lb package from Georgia Tech mail center to my dorm. The walk was longer than 100 yards, but my muscles failed 75% of the way. I barely made it to my dorm. If I knew about this technique, I could’ve saved a lot of trouble.

You can try it yourself. Put something heavy on top of your shoulder or head. It’s much easier to carry stuff that way. It’s very efficient because the weight is closest to your center—it’s pretty much on the same plane.

Does this mean we can now start carrying things on our heads? Not really. The locals did this for a long time. The top of their heads, mind-intent, and the necessary bone and muscle connection became conditioned through years of practice. It’s just not good leverage; it’s good body conditioning.

What they’re probably doing is relaxing certain muscles so their structure will transmit the ground through their bodies and support the weight. In a nutshell, the ground holding up the bricks. The only muscles they’re using are the muscles to hold their structure (and walking). Of course, their structure has to be conditioned enough so the ground can transmit through it. But even if you know the secret, it’s still be hard.

If you do ancient Asian martial arts like Taijiquan or ancient Asian body conditioning like Yoga correctly, your body should be conditioned in that way. And since I’ve been doing that kind of Asian exercise stuff for a few years, I was curious if I could carry at least 80lbs on my head. I tried it and failed miserably.

The problem wasn’t my structure, but my skull felt like it was being crushed. Therefore, my skull wasn’t conditioned enough to hold that weight. I do think my spine and legs were able to transmit the ground to my head though. I think I need to practice more if I were to do this seriously.

Anyway, next time you move or have to carry heavy loads, trying putting it on your shoulder or head. In fact, the other day, I had to carry a drunk girl away to our car. I used my structure to hold her weight, but if I really wanted to be efficent, I should’ve put her on top of my head and carried her.