We’ve all heard the stories of mothers lifting cars off of their children, which would normally be impossible for pretty much anyone – so, what would be the (probably theoretical) limit of physical capacity a human could exhibit when experiencing physical strength?
Also, is adrenaline a component in hysterical strength or is that more of a subconscious thing where your brain takes off the training wheels of your muscles, so to speak?
In: Biology
Over time we’ve evolved to use our muscles more efficiently without having to use it in full force. This is beneficial because it keeps us from injuring ourselves and conserves energy.
When fight or flight kicks in and we get an adrenaline rush, more blood and oxygen is directed into our muscles and we’re able to contract our muscles with much more force and power than normally needed. It’s not a heavily studied phenomena because life and death situations are hard to recreate in a lab so we don’t know the true extent of raw human strength but it probably varies from person to person. A lot of people who experience this come out the other side injured though
Apparently, when you’ve heard of someone being “thrown” from electric shock, thats the persons muscles going full hulk mode. Apparently your body puts limits on the extent to which your muscles will work so you don’t hurt yourself
There was a dude who was hiking/mountain climbing. He got stuck under a falling rock, he pushed the rock of himself amd in the process ripped this muscle from chest. He saved himself.
This was in a show where they compared the strength of human vs apes. Humans apperently have a part in the brain that wont let you use the strengt to rips the musle from your bones. Kind of a limiter. And apperently primates dont have that part/or its not as big as ours.
And in the emergency that part is shut down, to allow the use of all the available power of the muscles. Wich makes a lot of sense.
If someone is really angry or has lost it, the person is almost like a bear.
Would depend greatly on their existing muscle mass. A strong man would have a different capacity than an athlete than an average office worker.
I have previously read that we typically use a third of the fibres of a muscle at any one time, and when they’re exhausted we use another third and then another, while the unused fibres recover. In extremis all the muscle fibres can be used at once, making someone theoretically three times stronger than they’d normally be.
There is a type of strength training which claims to enable you to use more of the muscle fibres at once, ‘static resistance training’, by making muscles work to their full capacity and preparing them for ‘explosive’ contraction.
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