New York City – At NYC Sanitation Powerlifting Trash Cans as Test of Physical Fitness

New York City – Their physiques have not been featured in calendars like those of their civil service colleagues in the Fire Department. They may not possess the athleticism of triathletes or running backs, or the powerful grace of gymnasts.

But New York City sanitation workers and fitness have a surprisingly long and colorful connection, one that was illuminated last week by the death of a man considered the Superman of sanitation in New York.

Bill McCabe grabbed headlines in 1940 when he scored a perfect 100 on the Sanitation Department’s physical test, a feat that included hoisting a 120-pound trash can to a 4-foot-6-inch-high ledge, scaling an 8-foot-tall fence and running 120 yards with a 50-pound dumbbell in each hand in 25 seconds.

Decades later, Mr. McCabe’s feat remained the stuff of lore among sanitation workers. The “Superman” test, as it was called, was rumored to have caused heart attacks and induced vomiting.

“Out of all the agencies, this is the job you want to be physically fit for,” said Harry Nespoli, the president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association. “That truck leaves the garage empty and at the end of the day it’s full. That stuff doesn’t jump in that hopper. It gets in there by lifting, pulling, poking and dumping.”

But even Mr. Nespoli conceded that the test of Mr. McCabe’s era was a bit over the top.

So the test makers gradually scaled back its intensity, if not always to the delight of the male-dominated ranks. When the city’s first female sanitation workers were hired in 1986, the union filed a lawsuit arguing that the physical test was too easy.

The test has since been ratcheted up, but it no longer induces the kind of fear that the Superman test did.

Read the full story at The NY Times