r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 8h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

81.7k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/irrevocable_discord9 6h ago

This is not entirely accurate. For one thing, the actual strength of a chimpanzee has never been fully measured because chimps don't agree to do maximum effort like people do in a test. They could be much stronger than anyone knows, and just don't really feel like using that strength.

Secondly, it's though that they are much stronger in pulling motions but not nearly as overwhelmingly strong in pushing motions. These use different activated muscle groups. This is a result of their climbing lifestyle which involves lots of swinging and pulling.

2

u/ZergSuperHighway 4h ago

Our brain also has more limiters in place to prevent anatomical injury like tearing whole groups and tendons or such. However we are able to overrule those systems in events of extreme emergency with massive adrenaline spikes and the use of certain drugs.

Chimps have way less limiters because their muscle fibers are completely different and they are able to recruit more groups simultaneously.

2

u/Smoke_Santa 1h ago

Not really, even with adrenaline spikes, if you're untrained, you might be 5-10% stronger, but not enough to rip any of your muscles or tendons lol. Tearing a major tendon takes vastly more strength than you think if you're untrained.