Can Humans Really Have Superhuman Strength?

[the_awesome]

Even that hypothesis about humans only using ten percent of our brain/mind has now been proven to be a mis-understanding, and not a truth.

(~ and Thanks BiG Fairy!)

So your saying that humans use 100% of their strength all the time? By following that logic, how can we then lift massive amounts using adrenalin, but we can't do it normally?

 

[BigFairy]

whats the massivest biggest hugest giantness thing that you have lifted using adrenalin? by your logic, if you weigh in at 75-80kg, you shoould lift at least three quarters of a tonne. lols... somehow i don't even think amphetamines would help you.

 

[Proton Soup]

whats the massivest biggest hugest giantness thing that you have lifted using adrenalin? by your logic, if you weigh in at 75-80kg, you shoould lift at least three quarters of a tonne. lols... somehow i don't even think amphetamines would help you.

you might be able to leg press that from a short distance to lockout. even pat robertson was pushing somewhere around a half ton.

but no, the usual sort of stimulants aren't going to do a lot. maybe 10% on a good day, which would be quite a lot actually. there's something beyond just a bit of adrenaline going on in superhuman type strength.

 

[the_awesome]

whats the massivest biggest hugest giantness thing that you have lifted using adrenalin? by your logic, if you weigh in at 75-80kg, you shoould lift at least three quarters of a tonne. lols... somehow i don't even think amphetamines would help you.

Haven't read all of it. But has anyone mentioned that humans only use about 10% of their strength? Adrenalin gives you the ability to go far beyond that.

Um..where did i relate it to weight?

 

[leroyjenkens]

how can we then lift massive amounts using adrenalin, but we can't do it normally?

Is there any proof that we can?

 

[the_awesome]

Is there any proof that we can?

Yes, I've done it before. Its a well known fact that when humans are under stress they can do amazing things :)

 

[Zubin]

When we use our body to exert some force we're not recruiting all the muscles in a particular muscle group due to safeguards. During tense situations someone may recruit a large amount of their muscles and thus perform feats they couldn't manage otherwise.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Yes, I've done it before. Its a well known fact that when humans are under stress they can do amazing things :)

So adrenaline can cause your muscles to contract harder than they can normally? I know it can take away pain. We've probably all experienced that, but I've never been able to exert more force from my muscles just because adrenaline starts pumping. Is there any documented evidence for this happening and an accompanying scientific explanation for the mechanism by which it works?
We've all heard the stories of the women who picked up a car to save her child, but how true are they? Adrenaline not only makes you able to lift extreme amounts of weight, but it also makes your ligaments, muscles and bones unbreakable?

When we use our body to exert some force we're not recruiting all the muscles in a particular muscle group due to safeguards.

Different movements use different muscle groups. If you do a certain movement, that movement utilizes all the muscles that assist that movement. If there were specified muscle groups reserved for hysterical strength, they would atrophy from lack of use well before you had a chance to use them.

 

[erok81]

So adrenaline can cause your muscles to contract harder than they can normally? I know it can take away pain. We've probably all experienced that, but I've never been able to exert more force from my muscles just because adrenaline starts pumping. Is there any documented evidence for this happening and an accompanying scientific explanation for the mechanism by which it works?
We've all heard the stories of the women who picked up a car to save her child, but how true are they? Adrenaline not only makes you able to lift extreme amounts of weight, but it also makes your ligaments, muscles and bones unbreakable?

Different movements use different muscle groups. If you do a certain movement, that movement utilizes all the muscles that assist that movement. If there were specified muscle groups reserved for hysterical strength, they would atrophy from lack of use well before you had a chance to use them.

I agree. I think a lot of these stories are just pure luck they do this. I've been around a lot of rollovers four wheeling. Depending on how the vehicle rolled, one person can easily flip it back it over, no adrenaline required.

Same thing goes for weight lifting. I've seen people get pinned under a bar, and be all alone. No matter how hard they try, they aren't going to lift that weight off their chest. Another example is weight lifting competitions. I can guarantee there is a lot of adrenaline involved when you are trying to lift as much as possible in front of a crowd. However those maxes don't just up by hundreds of pounds, like you would expect during an adrenaline packed super human feat of strength - sadly is isn't a whole lot more than lifted during practice.

 

[daveg360]

I agree with erok81 - a lot of the witness accounts fail to correctly observe the physics of a situation correctly. I child pinned by a car who is freed by a mother lifting the car quickly becomes "60Kg lady lifts 1600Kg to save child!" when in fact she didn't lift anything like that sort of weight. If the child was only trapped by the last couple of inchs of travel then most people can raise the body of a car on one side by that much.

 

[the_awesome]

I agree with erok81 - a lot of the witness accounts fail to correctly observe the physics of a situation correctly. I child pinned by a car who is freed by a mother lifting the car quickly becomes "60Kg lady lifts 1600Kg to save child!" when in fact she didn't lift anything like that sort of weight. If the child was only trapped by the last couple of inchs of travel then most people can raise the body of a car on one side by that much.

You are making unproved assumptions.

 

[DanP]

You are making unproved assumptions.

Daveg360 is right.

 

[daveg360]

Versus anecdotal evidence and tabloid headlines? unless you're will to perform to lab experiments I'll continue to apply Occam's razor - people are performing feats beyond human capabilities or the observers are simply mistaken? I think it's important to put aside ones overwhelming need for comic books to be true when discussing this.

 

[the_awesome]

Versus anecdotal evidence and tabloid headlines? unless you're will to perform to lab experiments I'll continue to apply Occam's razor - people are performing feats beyond human capabilities or the observers are simply mistaken? I think it's important to put aside ones overwhelming need for comic books to be true when discussing this.

You can easily google or go on youtube to watch some videos of some examples. How bout a guy pulling a 10 tonne truck? Not to mention the friction of the tyres!

 

[DanP]

You can easily google or go on youtube to watch some videos of some examples. How bout a guy pulling a 10 tonne truck? Not to mention the friction of the tyres!

Sorry, "Strongest man competition like feats" are within the realm of a highly trained athlete. What *you* can't do, others can :P Let's get real. Besides , I am left wondering if you understand physically what happens in a probe like "truck pull" in a strongest man competition.
Which makes Daveg's point shine :P

 

[daveg360]

Wow if only empirical data was so easy to produce in real life!

a 10000Kg truck would need about 600N of force to pull it based on the following assumptions:
Rolling resistance of tyres: 0.0062
No resistance from the drivetrain.
10000 kg × 9.81 m/s2 × 0.0062 = 607.6 N

Even if we make allowances for a other sources of resistance such as the drivetrain - it's probably no more than 1000N So probably about the same as doing squats whilst giving a bigish guy a piggy-back. I couldn't do it but I know guys who could do that briefly. They don't wear capes or even tights (well maybe at the weekends). I can however, being an all-round 6ft, 12st buff beefcake lol, pull a 17 tonne canal boat along the canal with nothing but a rope.

 

[DanP]

So probably about the same as doing squats whilst giving a bigish guy a piggy-back. I couldn't do it but I know guys who could do that briefly. .

Squatting something similar to your bw for multiple reps should be the very minimum amount of strength of a man.

Here is what a trained athlete can do( elite level ):



Ive chose this example because Dimas competed in a relatively low weight class, and was extremely explosive. I find this much more impressive then pulling a truck.

 

[robocop]

This is a topic I've spent many times podering, and I have found my own conclusion, but won't inflict my belief upon yours. With a limited range of motion, I can leg press 2085lbs 100 repetitions, and could have still gone on. The most I could absolutely fit on the olympic machine with 100lb plates was 4205lbs(42 plates and the bar/platform by itself I count as 5lbs). I did 48 repetitions, and the odd thing was when I replaced the bar holder to its place, I felt dead, but only a few seconds afterward I jumped up and helped remove the plates. Now, despite all the criticism the leg press excersize has drawn, I have heard from doctors and bodybuilders that in the smaller range leg press, the absolute most a man should be able to press is around 3500lbs, at most 5 reps. Ronnie Coleman, a worldly recognized bodybuilder was able to press 2250lbs within this limited range of motion. Is this supernatural, superhuman strength? Again, I have made my own conclusion. If there is any doubt among the reader, you are correct, there is no way I can prove this unless you saw with your own two eyes. All I can say, or ask rather, is why would I come onto this website and lie? I have absolutely nothing to gain, but by telling you of my lift, I hope I have brought some additional insight into your debate.

Mark Hammond

that completely has to do with the limited range of motion, Ronnie Coleman undoubtedly has a greater ROM than you do. When I was competing in snowboarding my legs were steel, I could leg press 1000lbs when I was 5'1 120 pounds, until my friend told me to go lower and the thing came crashing down. Proper form, I could maybe have done 300-350 pounds. You're probably 300+ pounds if you can even hold that weight without your bones snapping and you are probably moving at most half a foot when you do the workout, that's not superhuman, that's just bad form.

 

[pafrya]

Hi, I'm fresh here and my nick is from the two first letter in parkour - freerunning - yamakasi = pafrya, not doing much of it but fun to watch and I come from Sweden (just did a google check now and seen some else have the nick on other places, not to mix me up, sorry).

What I would like to say about the topic of superhuman strength, I think there is two components in it. One be the physical with all that musclefibers, adrenaline, mental unlocking of protection and such. The other may in some cases be of different nature. Let's call it external qi, or power of God, or whatever you want, and that is a much bigger part for the biggest feats of superstrength. Perhaps a person get instant connection with this force and for a short time huge power arise on atomic level to bind together the physics material beyond it's normal destruction limit. The same thing as for people survived very high drops on hard ground (many times higher than the parkour guys do volontarily).

The best of the best will then get into a state where it seems relaxed but still hard as diamond and simply crush parts of the surrounding environment. Something like what a guy write earlier here when a car door gets deformed by his hand.

Maybe this is different between different persons, depening on their supernatural connections with the universe or previous incarnations as holy monks and such? What do you think? Yeah, I'm serious!

 

[pafrya]

To bring the discussion further, how to develop superhuman strength?

The martial artist Bruce Lee was very strong without massive amount of bodybuilder muscles. It seems to me he looks not even 50% more muscular sized than average fit men, but was at least three times stronger. His training focus on quality, not size. This was a great example of doing the physical and mental part of the way to superstrength, probably as good as many of the small superhuman feats of others, but still in lack of the very magic forces of outstanding superhuman power, sometimes delivered in shape of a ghost or similar entity.

There was a story of somebody in an accident who had to get away and later told he saw the arms of another besides his own and feel a deceased relative of him. This could be some psychologic but the superhuman task was done.

A different story of a man who had such superpower delivered without emergency situations, happen on Iceland some decades back in last century. He used to see the covered shape of a monk clothed appearance by his bed an know the force come from it. This man had the power in daily life at will and used it to switch wheel on his big truck car by lifting with one hand and work with the other. Perhaps this are a remain from the ancient nordic tradition of the berserk force from the vikings?

Some years ago there was a news story about some person in the region of Arabia or Africa (if I remember correct) that should be i jail but always smashed his way out, bare handed through concrete walls.

Another story of criminal superstrength was from a french police detective long back in last century, describing his hunt of a thief. Almost arrested, he escape by jumping down to a lower roof 6 meters (20 foot) below to catch a halfpipe rainwater metal only with his fingers and when the police look down he see the shape of fingers had wrecked in the halfpipe and nobody lay on the ground many floors below the halfpipe. Considering a 6 meters jump hard to land on feet, the fingers must had becomed extreme superhuman that time to not slip off or break after that jump without help of feet. Later the police catch him anyway to be executed.

An english suicide cliff jumper missed the full free fall and stop smashed a piece of rock a few hundred feet down, get rescued from it and survived.

An american window washer dropped when the equipment failed and survived some 500 feet to ground, get recovered.

In sweden some decades back in last century, somebody sitting and smoking on a open window, falling backwards 18 meters (60 feet) to smash a flat concrete roof, then bounce off to smash the street another 4 meters (13 feet), get up and wipping the dust off, not harmed.

Another swede lifted a tractor off his friend. The lifter was already fit trained but this lift resulting in his back bone disks compressed to permanent several centimeters (some inch) shorter. Probably a "normal" physical/mental superstrength (adrenaline and no holds back) because the magic force did'nt protect his spine.

Previously in this forum are a post about Mark Twain accounted a superhuman strongman i Europe. Will you please give more details of this?

About the real magic force of superhuman strength, maybe the same power that keep a few people alive for weeks without water in the haitian earthquake? In particular them who get resqued after two weeks and the woman almost four weeks.

I have a splendid idea! Some country with good scientists (perhaps USA, Russia, China or some in Europe) should try to get a bunch of such people together, both them from real magic level of superhuman feats of strength and them who survived long without water and see if some become couples and get kids. Then a new race of superhumans develope and the nowadays olympics and world records will become pretty much exstincted in the future... without drugs!

Now back to the initial quest, how to develop superhuman strength?

A technique I practise while open food in "impossible" glass cans with screwed on metal tops that resists my desperate brute force style, is to become tranquile and somehow feel as a warm flow surrounding the hands, also feel a unity between me and the object, then a mental movement sort of opening up forwards without thinking and no hesitate. Most often that do the trick. I suppose this is the same as meditation and similar to martial artists for breaking bricks and stuff, to get the optimum out of the normal physic, not real magic superhuman strength.

It would be very interesting if you in this forum give your own "secret" techniques.

 

[Proton Soup]

i seriously doubt Lee had triple the strength of most men, but he was strong. he also had excellent strength to weight ratio (very lean), and something that is more important than strength in martial arts: speed. as for his techniques, no secrets really. i think he published most everything he did. some things he did that most people don't do are grip strength training, and of course, the electrostim.

as for vikings, yes, their descendants are very big and strong. quite a few big deadlifters come from nordic stock. maybe related to selection process of rowing those viking ships?

 

[pafrya]

That triple strength of Bruce Lee was calculated from a list of his feats, among there was 400 lbs bench press and barbell lifting straight out standing straight arms of 125 lbs, but these feats differ some between other websites. That compared to average men who not visits gym every day, well, the differencies may differ different of course.

Yes, those nordic guys in strongman contests, but that are more of normal strength. The Icelander I wrote about was a skinny guy with his power somehow supernatural reinforced in his material. Not the big pumping sweating style of the strongmens contestants.

And for my idea about a race of superhumans, of course all should be volontary free willing, not some prison camp lookalike.

 

[Proton Soup]

That triple strength of Bruce Lee was calculated from a list of his feats, among there was 400 lbs bench press and barbell lifting straight out standing straight arms of 125 lbs, but these feats differ some between other websites. That compared to average men who not visits gym every day, well, the differencies may differ different of course.

Yes, those nordic guys in strongman contests, but that are more of normal strength. The Icelander I wrote about was a skinny guy with his power somehow supernatural reinforced in his material. Not the big pumping sweating style of the strongmens contestants.

And for my idea about a race of superhumans, of course all should be volontary free willing, not some prison camp lookalike.

sorry, but I'm pretty skeptical of the 400lb bench press. his "heavy" working sets aren't at all indicative of that kind of strength.

http://www.bruceleedivinewind.com/feats.html

Ted Wong - "Bruce would do a lot of different types of sit ups and bench presses. He was also using a technique like the Weider Heavy/Light Principle, working up to 160lbs in the bench press for three sets of 10 on his heavy days and then repping out for 20-30 reps with 100lbs on his light days. Bruce experimented successfully with partial reps, movements performed in only the strongest motion. He liked the fact that they were very explosive, sometimes he would do the bench press, using just the last 3 inches of the range of motion. It was the same range in which he would do some of his isometric exercises".

note that lockouts are not a bench press. bench press is a full range of motion exercise.

assuming those three sets of ten were not true maxes, that would put his true, full-ROM bench at somewhere over 213. so, to be generous, let's go ahead and guesstimate his bench press at somewhere in the 230 to 240 lb range.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html

 

[DanP]

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html

I want to point out that those calculators do not apply to many types of athletes. Mainly the categories which do special endurance training in alactic and lactic regions.

For example it's pretty much useless to try to infer the 1RM in squat for a 100m sprinter from his 10 RM squat, according to normal tables.

 

[Evo]

I just do not get why some people care about this stuff. I think most people just yawn at this stuff. But if you like it, more power to you.

I think it's silly in the overall scheme of things.

 

[DanP]

I just do not get why some people care about this stuff. I think most people just yawn at this stuff. But if you like it, more power to you.

I think it's silly in the overall scheme of things.

Too much TV and superheroes on Cartoon Network.

 

[Proton Soup]

I want to point out that those calculators do not apply to many types of athletes. Mainly the categories which do special endurance training in alactic and lactic regions.

For example it's pretty much useless to try to infer the 1RM in squat for a 100m sprinter from his 10 RM squat, according to normal tables.

ah, ok. any idea how much it might be off for special cases? (sprinting is not endurance, fwiw)

also, the quote above for Lee's 20~30 rep lift seems about right, too. normally, it's around the range of 25-rep max = 1/2 of 1-rep max. and 100/213 = 0.47, which is close enough for me to think it's in the ballpark.

all signs are pointing to this mythical 400lb benchpress being a 2~3" lockout.

and speaking of lockouts: http://www.spike.com/video/pat-robertsons-leg/2730623

 

[DanP]

ah, ok. a (sprinting is not endurance, fwiw)

Yes, sprinting is not what popularly is meant by "endurance". The term special endurance is used somewhat loosely by coaches and refers to the endurance of non-oxidative energy systems. The creatine phosphate pathway and anaerobic glycolytic systems.

Simplistically, think at it this way. You have an 200m speed event. You have 3 important phases. Acceleration to max-speed, period where you are able to maintaining max-speed, and final period when you start to decelerate.

Now first phase requires a lot of muscular strength for acceleration, and the ability to
develop this strength extremely rapid. Once you hit max speed , the question becomes:
for how long time can you maintain it ? This is a form of special endurance, many term it "speed endurance". It's the ability to maintain top speed for as long as possible. The 3rd part is self-explanatory.

Any idea how much it might be off for special cases?

I think I had some data gathered by Charlie Francis on one of it athletes regarding this issue, but it wasn't tables. I am not sure, I have to look in my folders see what I have. But I guarantee you from personal experience that it's true that SE work affects it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hi, I'm fresh here and my nick is from the two first letter in parkour - freerunning - yamakasi = pafrya, not doing much of it but fun to watch and I come from Sweden (just did a google check now and seen some else have the nick on other places, not to mix me up, sorry).

What I would like to say about the topic of superhuman strength, I think there is two components in it. One be the physical with all that musclefibers, adrenaline, mental unlocking of protection and such. The other may in some cases be of different nature. Let's call it external qi, or power of God, or whatever you want, and that is a much bigger part for the biggest feats of superstrength. Perhaps a person get instant connection with this force and for a short time huge power arise on atomic level to bind together the physics material beyond it's normal destruction limit. The same thing as for people survived very high drops on hard ground (many times higher than the parkour guys do volontarily).

The best of the best will then get into a state where it seems relaxed but still hard as diamond and simply crush parts of the surrounding environment. Something like what a guy write earlier here when a car door gets deformed by his hand.

Maybe this is different between different persons, depening on their supernatural connections with the universe or previous incarnations as holy monks and such? What do you think? Yeah, I'm serious!

Welcome to PF, pafrya. Please note that we have a couple of problems. First, the only explanations for a claimed phenomena that can be offered are those consistent with mainstream science. So please refrain from positing personal theories. We don't discuss unpublished, personal, or pseudoscientific theories. Next, we will need references for all of the information listed in your next post. You should read the posting guidelines before making any more posts.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5929

 

[paulselhi]

I was 15 or 16 years old doing judo at school at someone had the instructor on the subject of Shaolin Monks and i forget how the converstion progressed but this is what he showed us. He knelt on the floor with his hands on his knees palm up and asked 8 of us to all press down at once with all of our weight four on each hand. Ok it was quite a scrum but we managed to get 4 on each side pushing down with all our force. Now i think we probably weighed around 8 - 9 stone each on average (112 - 126 ponnds) so that would be around 32 stone on each hand + pressure. He was no wimp but than again no goliath, around 5 foot 8 inches and i would say 13-14 stone 40 or so years old

He closed his eyes and did some deep breathing, he later said he was channeling chi or something. Then in one fast smooth movement he raised both hands of his knees and sent 8 guys flying across the gym. We must have all moved at least 12 feet away from him, and we moved with a lot of force, we rolled on the floor.

There seemed to be little strain on his face it was as if he was throwing a couple of pounds off each arm.