Working in a machine shop for a handful of years taught me a lot about patience, and about hitting things with a hammer.
Its always the last one. 
On real world strength- We were tearing down and moving wear house racks at work. I have the cross brace (which someone welded together) in one hand and holding on to a truss with the other, one foot on the ladder, and the other wedged between the wall and the upright of the rack- when the guy operating the forklift knocks the ladder away as he moves away so that I can hand off the cross brace to the guys on the ground. I swing out and hand them the brace, then ask them to put the ladder back under me so I can get down.
I’ve knocked the rubber clean off of a couple of those orange clown hammers.
Fitting new steel on old rusty barges-
It might be 120 degrees in there, but at least we’re done with the fitting.
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Deer hunting. Kill a buck and have to carry/drag that sumbitch out of the woods to your ATV or truck and you’ll appreciate having some muscle!
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Carrying 2-3 bundles of shingles at a time up to the roof you’re working on, that ladder will give out before I do! Also I end up helping everyone move, which is not ideal.
Back when I was young and only bro-sephing it in the gym, I helped some older guy who was drunk and had fallen to the ground and was having trouble getting up.
He outweighed me by a decent amount (I am 5’ 8", and was only about 150 lbs at the time), and looked a little dubious, but reached for my offered hand because what else was he going to do? Thanks to 'da curls and a decent understanding of leverage (doing the martial arts thing at the time), I hoisted him to his feet fairly easily. He had a very surprised, almost awed, look on his face and I swear was going to give me a big hug; I had to beat it out of there.
People in general are very impressed by displays of “real world strength”, whether they realize it or not. (as all the stories in here have shown)
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So far my favorite work task was pulling a drunk asshole out of the back of a squad car after his ride to jail. He’d kicked the door and damaged it on the ride so I didn’t want the end with the feet. He refused to move and was lying across the back seat. I couldn’t get my hands under his arms because he wouldn’t let me so I got one hand under his arm and grabbed his head with my other hand. One big pull and extension (kind of like an awkward rack pull) and he was out and whining like a bitch because it hurt. Boy did that make me smile
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You need to train dem deadlifts and farmer walks so that you can easily carry the new weights you just bought to increase your deadlift and farmer walks.
Vicious cycle.
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I’m not big, but bigger than your average joe. My back and traps have grown disproportionately since I took up lifting a few years ago. I’ve found this, combined with my typically pissed off face and a beard have kept me more safe it situations I’ve found myself in, especially when traveling in strange places. In these situations, the fight not fought is better than the fight won IMO.
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I once had to move out our entire apartment.
My husband got called into work st the last minute. He wanted me to wait until he got back, but we’re crunched for time, so I said screw it and spent a good half of the morning moving out entire apartment.
Queen sized mattress, box spring, a giant dinosaur looking TV, a table made out of elm I believe. Two couches, a bunch of end tables, metal containers, plastic ones filled to brim with clothing, pictures, boxes full of dishes, bathroom stuff, and little dohickeys we saved, rugs, a shit ton of gaming stuff, etc.
The heavy stuff required a crap ton of just overhead strength, and the mattress and couches I just man-handled and flipped it across the walkway. So most of my strength came mostly from my butt and whatever deadlift strength that decided to get transferred over.
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Hey, this thread is back!
Given that I’ve moved between houses 5 times in the last 5 years, as well as moved all my wife’s stuff up here from Texas, I have to say that moving furniture is probably the most common place where higher than average strength benefits me.
It’s the little things that I notice more, though… Like the look on the Wal-mart kid’s face when he asks if I need help with the 55 lb bag of dog food, and I just smile, grab a handful of the side of the bag, and one-arm power clean it up to my shoulder. Oh, and I was a bit surprised at some of the things you can do when your grip strength improves. For example, that I can hold the neck of an unopened soda bottle in the palm of my hand, and open it with my thumb and index finger with no problem. One-handed bottle opening without having to hold it with the other hand or between my legs is handy when driving back and forth between Kansas and Texas on a regular basis.
I was doing a pre-bid meeting in an old building that was to be demo’d. The contractors wanted to see the boiler room to know if there was a recessed slab, but the door was stuck/locked. Not thinking much about it, I stepped back and kicked the door down.
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