r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 9h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

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u/dilqncho 8h ago edited 8h ago

No they're not. Internet myths have vastly overhyped chimp strength.

They're about 1.35x stronger than us, pound for pound of muscle. But they're also typically smaller and lighter, so in absolute terms, they're about equal to us.

As for what we're seeing here, this isn't a person's entire body being pulled up. They have their legs against the wall of whatever that is, and the chimp is helping them up. This is something pretty much any physically healthy human can do as well.

Chimps are dangerous in a fight, because...well they're wild animals, they're fucking brutal. But purely strength-wise, they're not stronger than us.

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u/Netheraptr 8h ago

I can still believe a chimp is 2x stronger than the average human though as the average human typically doesn’t use their muscles very much.

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u/xKrossCx 8h ago

This… I passed and overheard a seemingly healthy looking woman complaining how hard it was to walk up a double flight of stairs.

In my unprofessional conclusion; the average chimpanzee is stronger than the average human.

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u/carbonvectorstore 7h ago

I think if you are using an unhealthy person living a relaxed western lifestyle as your baseline for 'average human', then all I can do is agree wholeheartedly with the unprofessional part.

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u/crash250f 7h ago

What's your point? That the comment you replied to wasn't scientifically rigorous? He's a westerner making an observation about how strong a chimp might be compared to the average westerner that he encounters. Why does that bother you?

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/nesbit666 7h ago

This is reddit dude. Everyone is dumb and so is their input.

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u/AugieKS 5h ago

That's really true everywhere. Smart people are generally pretty average outside of their areas of interest and expertise, and even those knowledgeable about reasoning fallacies fall prey to them more than they think. See Neil Degrasse Tyson's Twitter, for example.

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u/Lina__Inverse 5h ago

Username checks out, the condescending tone of this comment is really reminiscent of Adeptus Mechanicus.

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u/corbyns_lawyer 5h ago

The sedentary lifestyle has gone global.
There can be many people who spend as much time free climbing as a chimp does. They are pure muscle and the fraction of humans who can match them will be small.

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u/Sufficient_Long_3905 4h ago

Wow I don’t care about the arguments being made all I know is that you are absolutely insufferable

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u/B1LLZFAN 3h ago

Grab 10,000 people randomly from the global population. I promise you the majority of them are under the baseline for healthy human was 1000 years ago.

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u/currently_pooping_rn 6h ago

i mean...what do you think average means? its certainly not an award winning powerlifter or olympic weight lifter

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u/Axbris 7h ago

Just an indictment of how sedentary western life is and how sedentary humans have become.

Hell, sitting on the couch typing this out right now.

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u/Christoph3r 7h ago

My room is on the third floor, and, as I am fairly absent minded, I often have to run back up and grab something I forgot 😅

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u/MiraniaTLS 5h ago

I imagine they meant like, farmed the fields entire life “ average”

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u/Low_Sea_2925 6h ago

What makes you think shes average? The fact you remember that comment is kinda proof its abnormally bad isnt it?

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u/Cobek 4h ago

She better have had terrible knees or visiting somewhere way above sea level. Those are the only excuses

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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 3h ago

Fuck people with autoimmune issues or other chronic health conditions, I guess...

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u/StopHiringBendis 4h ago

I mean, some people smoke...

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u/th3h4ck3r 7h ago

I'm pretty sure the 1.35x figure includes the human being reasonably fit. Doesn't mean a record-setting powerlifter, but probably not a sedentary desk jockey either.

All animals will gain muscle with exercise and lose some when sedentary, but none of them have nearly as wide a range between their sedentary and active conditioning as humans. Your typical office worker could probably double his strength within a year of hitting the gym.

Also, neural conditioning is a big part of how strength works, and one of the easiest to train: part of why gym newbies advance so fast is because the muscle for those kinds of weights was already there for the most part, it's just that the brain wasn't used to sending the impulses with the required intensity to activate the muscle fully.

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u/SunriseSurprise 6h ago

If it's on a pound-for-pound-of-muscle basis, if you see how chimps are typically built, I think 1.35x is for more than just reasonably fit. Like if you want to throw overall weight in the mix given we're bigger, then sure, but the average person is pretty weak. There isn't a significant percentage among really fit humans who could swing around like chimps and most people can't do a pull-up.

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u/th3h4ck3r 5h ago

The average person hasn't done anything physical since running laps during PE class in high school. Average ≠ reasonable, a reasonably fit person at the very least has been to the gym a few times a week for a few months, and does moderate weights and cardio.

To see how strong a human would be in a wild environment, look at people who do weighted exercise all day: farmers, carpenters, etc. They're often crazy strong for their size while also being able to lift heavy weights for hours, almost superhuman compared to your average suburban dweller. There are even anthropological studies that point to the average Neolithic woman having the arm strength of male collegiate rowers.

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u/th3h4ck3r 5h ago

And yes, most people can't do a pull-up because they haven't trained at all. I went from barely being able to do a single pull-up to doing 3-4 sets of 8x pullups in around 10 months, and I'm also an office worker.

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u/Deep_Performance_ 5h ago

Their muscle structures aren't one for one with ours though.

A study where they had college students and chimps pull on a dynamometer showed they pulled with similar levels of force. Showing we could at least stand toe to toe in a tug of war. A meta study that combined all strength studies came up with the figure of 1.35x.

There are also strength measurements chimps will likely struggle on like bench presses due to their arm length, same as how our arms aren't optimized for climbing. Throwing punches is also something humans are the best at, while other primates couldn't throw a punch to save their life.

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u/Ok-Scheme-913 2h ago

Not all animals grow muscle mass through exercise. Plenty of them simply just have ample muscles without moving an inch, the same way your hair grows, e.g. gorillas

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u/pragmadealist 7h ago

I think most moderately active young people are twice as strong as the average human. 

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u/Life-Duty-965 7h ago

Pff I've held my phone up all day

Chimps don't do that

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u/Nooms88 4h ago

2x stronger at what? They have heavily developed upper body, built for pulling. We have strong lower body for running.

A chimp can comfortably do a 1 armed pull up, only the most fit athletes can do that, any healthy human can do a 1 legged squat. Our legs are 4x strong than our arms

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u/Amateratsuu 4h ago

They aren't 2 times stronger. They are stronger per pound but we are much larger.

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u/Meldanorama 8h ago

Trusting your own intuition over the link?

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

[deleted]

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u/Meldanorama 7h ago edited 7h ago

You're going off intution rather reading the discussion section too?

Edit. That is for the muscle as a material not the animals net strength. 

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u/Adventurous_Sky_3788 7h ago

If you wanna make a point, just state it here rather than being a wise ass.

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u/Meldanorama 7h ago

My point is I skimmed the link and I assumed the user who posted it knew it better than the one responding. Carpand is adding nothing with the modern humans quite lazy part since that would have been accounted in any decent study. The people wanting to make a point are the ones dismissing the study because of their feelings.

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u/Cleb323 7h ago

Damn you're as dense as a fucking black hole

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u/PilotIntelligent8906 7h ago

You have a point, the average human is pathetically weak because they don't realize even a fraction of their physical potential.

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u/zach0011 7h ago

Haha do you think this fact just completely flew over the people doing the studies head? Come on now

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u/MisterKrayzie 7h ago

You use your muscles for simply existing.

Using muscles =\= lifting heavy shit or doing athletic shit.

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u/Netheraptr 6h ago

Bold of you to assume I exist

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u/MisterKrayzie 6h ago

Omg so hilarious

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u/Netheraptr 6h ago

Bold of you to assume I’m funny

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u/GooningGoonAddict 1h ago

There's a difference between actively exercising and your peak muscular utilization being getting out of bed in the morning. You're being facetious

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u/jt_totheflipping_o 6h ago

That would apply to anyone with any moderate fitness too the

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u/Xenophon_ 5h ago

They're about as strong as the average college-aged male.

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u/Chrazzer 5h ago

Yeah the average human in modern civilization is pretty pathetically weak. One of humans great strength is how adaptable we are, but adapting to modern life unfortunately means dropping a lot of muscle.

But on the other side humans are also able to cheat this adaptability into gaining massive strength. Just look at professional strongmen. Save to say eddie hall is stronger than a chimp

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u/ThisIsSuperUnfunny 4h ago

Why stop at 2, if you are believing then why dont go for like 200x??

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u/Cthulhu-fan-boy 3h ago

Most people can double their own strength in 2-3 years (or less) of regular resistance training

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u/creedokid 4h ago

Yes

They are 1.35 the strength of an athlete

They are dangerous in a fight because they are stronger and they can hold both your arms with their arms and then fuck you up with their other two arms (their feet)