superhero strength

[Ray McCarthy]

News reports often mislead. No ordinary person has lifted an ordinary car off the ground. But they have tilted it. Athletes can use about 80% of their muscle power, but ordinary people typically only ever use half their real strength or less.

You are much stronger than you imagine! Here's why:
How it’s possible for an ordinary person to lift a car

 

[Ursa major]

Interesting article, particular about why the bodies of even athletes can't usually harness the power available.

And speaking of athletes (which is why I mentioned them).... I sometimes hear some of a programme on Radio Four (on a Wednesday between 15:30 and 16:00** -- I'm often in the car then). On an episode broadcast during the last year, a researcher (or doctor, I'm not sure which) was talking about the adverse effects on the hearts, in later life, of all the exercise, training and competing that athletes do. Their life expectancies were lower, because of all the strain they'd put on their hearts in various ways (ones I can't now recall, and probably didn't fully understand at the time). Perhaps, if those athletes had been able to get closer to 100% maximum power outputs from their skeletal muscles, they'd not only have risked further muscle, tendon and bone injuries, but have seriously reduced their lifespans by overstressing their hearts.


** - It isn't on at the moment: the slot is currently occupied by All in the Mind.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Pain is our built in safety mechanism. Hence people with Hanson's disease (Leprosy) or other nerve damage issues can easily damage themselves.

People have broken substantial bones doing Yoga.

I need to find that happy medium between sitting typing all day and lying down reading or sleeping and something more energetic.

I've always been suspicious of jogging, also all the people I see doing it look a bit wiry and muscley. Maybe they like to do it to listen to MP3s?

I type upstairs and make loads of trips up and down the stairs each day (no fridge or kettle in Library!), that's actually quite decent exercise. A bigger house is the exercise solution!