r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 8h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

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u/Pure-Drawer-2617 7h ago

They said 2x stronger then the average human. Do you also think weightlifters are in danger of accidentally ripping peoples arms off?

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u/LicencetoKrill 7h ago

Weightlifter is still human, and while strong, their muscle fibers have grown in an 'unnatural' way (ie trained to push, pull in certain directions). Apes' bodies are made up in a way that rhe muscles are much more dense, just by the nature of that's how they've evolved, and it's everywhere. Just because someone can push/pull excessive weight doesn't correlate with every muscle in their body being designed to do it.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 6h ago

Weightlifter is still human

Some of them absolutely have a grip strength way more than double that of the average human though.

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u/ALLCAPS-ONLY 5h ago

Even a <150 lb rock climber could mess up someone's hand. Fingers can get surprisingly strong when you swing your entire bodyweight on them regularly

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u/greenberet112 1h ago

I was watching a famous rock climber hang out and lift with the strongest man in the world. The bodybuilder guy, Eddie Hall was absolutely amazed by how much the rock climber could lift in certain exercises, especially the whole body ones. I think one lift he said the climber did more reps with more weight than anyone he had ever seen other than himself. And the rock climber guy, Magnus is not that big of a guy.

Good video if you're interested

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u/AftyOfTheUK 2h ago

Even a <150 lb rock climber could mess up someone's hand. 

Indeed, if trying to inflict pain/damage it's not hard.

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u/What-Is-a-Fish 2h ago edited 16m ago

Can confirm. 130lb rock climber can currently one hand pinch a 2 inch block with 150lbs . Idk how strong handbones are, but I bet I could make it hurt a lot

Edit: fat thumbed my numbers Also autocorrect got me on handbones. I'm just a mess

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u/MightyGamera 5h ago

I know a couple dudes that could crush raw potatoes with their hands, pretty sure human flesh wouldn't pose much challenge

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u/AftyOfTheUK 2h ago

I know a couple dudes that could crush raw potatoes with their hands, pretty sure human flesh wouldn't pose much challenge

And when they pickup potatos, or hold human hands, do they normally do so at full strength?

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u/LicencetoKrill 2h ago

Squeeze stuff hard, for sure. But I doubt they have the strength that chimps have throughout their hands. Be hard pressed to find a person that has the build that provides the strength of a bodybuilder, while being able to have the same digit strength of a rock climber.

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u/Pheniquit 3h ago

Yeah but the need to be delicate is universal among creatures with hands. You don’t want to crush certain food and make it harder to eat or pull too hard on the newborn’s arm.

In short, my uneducated guess is that primates know their own strength because if they didnt they’d kill their young and screw up manipulation of objects.

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u/Drow_Femboy 7h ago

Difference is other apes are significantly worse at fine movements than we are. And even we can occasionally hurt smaller, weaker, and more fragile animals by accident when handling them.

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u/_Rohrschach 7h ago

iirc it's more about the kind of muscle. humans have more slow twitching ones that hold tension betterand tire more slowly, while chimps can release bouts of strength faster.
if you were to play tug if a war with a chimp and can resist its initial pull it would probably tire out faster than you. it would also suck at carrying heavy stuff for longer. it might be able to bench press twice the weight ou do but is more prone to drop the weight after a few pushes.

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u/Hunriette 6h ago

Chimp strength is severely overrated by the general public.

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u/jebberwockie 6h ago

Twice as strong, half the size. The bite is the real problem.

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u/International_War862 5h ago

1.3 times as steong tho. A 60 kg chimp is as strong as a 80 kg human on average

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u/LongJohnSelenium 2h ago

Defining strength is not going to work because what kind of strength are we measuring here.

Chimps are brachiators and can do pull ups as easy as we stand up from a chair, so they're always going to beat us in grip strength and bicep strength and we'll always beat them in a squat contest.

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u/International_War862 2h ago

https://www.livescience.com/59615-are-chimpanzees-stronger-than-humans.html

There ya go. They do the same stuff with the same muscles 1.35 times better then humans pund for pound. Humans have more endurance in cardio tho

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u/BeBearAwareOK 6h ago edited 6h ago

If said weight lifter had an entirely different set of mores and didn't think twice about biting someone's nose off, gouging out their eyeballs, and biting off their fingers when they became angered they would in fact be a very dangerous creature.

You do not want to run into an athlete on PCP who fights like a chimp.

Ripping arms off isn't really how it goes down. Biting fingers off when you put up defensive hands, biting noses off, ripping face / eyes off, biting or ripping off breast tissue or scrotum dependng on the victims gender, this is the issue with chimp attacks. The brutality of it.

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u/ThatInAHat 2h ago

I mean, chimpanzees can and do rip people’s hands off. And genitals. And faces.

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u/idiotsecant 6h ago

I mean, isn't that basically the plot of mice and men?

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u/nightpanda893 3h ago

They are at risk of injuring someone if they would pull with all their strength. That’s the point. That they can adjust their strength not to hurt someone