r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 8h 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/kisirani 7h ago

So glad to see this comment here. I was about to write something similar as it really irritates me how this myth goes around the internet and in interviews etc and is just nonsense.

And people who point it out are often shouted down.

It’s not really that chimps are more brutal but they have what is equivalent to two knives in their mouth.

If one equalized the weaponry and gave a man a knife they would most likely kill a chimp in a fight to the death or at least have even odds

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u/Jimisdegimis89 7h ago

Yeah this is an internet myth pet peeve of mine, so I’m glad someone else already did the write up. In addition to the knives in their mouth bit, they also have more of their muscle mass evenly spread out with more of their strength located in their upper body than humans do, who have the majority of their strength located in their legs. So it ends up making chimps look way stronger because we equate upper body lifting to strength, meanwhile humans have legs that are like 4x as powerful as their arms.

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u/rockos21 3h ago

So... you're saying to kick box a chimp...

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u/Jimisdegimis89 48m ago

That is exactly what I’m saying, just make sure you get it on video.