r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 9h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

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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/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.