On: “Tree planting will make the rest of your life fee...

[cheerlessbog]

"Planting trees is one of the most physically demanding jobs in North America."

They have a fairly serious preconditioning program :

https://www.summitplanting.com/plantingfitness.html

[conscion → cheerlessbog]

Watching the videos it looks like they only use a standard spade to break up the dirt and then slide the tree into place.

Is there no specialized tools that would allow that without bending over?

[tazard → conscion]

Where I planted, The ground was often rocky so it was tricky to close the holes properly after planting a tree. It's also very important not to bend the tree roots. It would be very difficult to accomplish that reliably without bending over. As far as specialized tools, generally from what I have seen the spade is sharpened and one half is usually ground completely off