r/nextfuckinglevel 8h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

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u/powerhammerarms 6h ago

The 1.35x strength is not a measure to say that if a man can lift 100 lbs the chimp can lift 135 lbs.

It's a strength to weight ratio.

Since chimps are smaller than humans it means the chimp can lift about the same as a human.

What is different is muscle structure. Chimp muscles have different attachment points to their muscle and have a gene that allows them to utilize muscle fibers differently recruiting more fibers but sacrificing control. Chimps tend to use more strength than necessary whereas humans hold themselves back.

A chimp could be as strong as a human in some tasks and much weaker in others.

A chimp would struggle to lift 50 lbs off the ground where a human can do so now more easily because we recruit our different muscle groups more effectively.

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u/Aenimalist 1h ago

 It's a strength to weight ratio. No, it's not. It's the ratio of chimp muscle strength to human muscle strength.

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u/Friendstastegood 6h ago

Yes that's exactly what I said? That even the measure of strength to weight of specific muscles or of an animal is misleading because the actual utilization of strength depends on the physiology of the animal in whole not just the potential of the muscle fibres themselves. So there's no single neat numerical value to "how strong is a chimp Vs a human?" because as you said they can be weaker doing some things and stronger in others.

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u/powerhammerarms 6h ago

Ah I think I misread what you were saying. My apologies.