A Discussion On Sasquatch Musculature & Raw Strength

[AndrewOW]

All this 'fighting' talk reminds me of this great scene in the recent Avengers film.

Puny god, anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AORKWkN3-c

I think that's kinda how it would be in a 'fair' fight against a decent sized primate.

[Guest poignant]

So from earlier in this thread, the eyewitness account of two BFs running up a hill gave a BF power estimate of 20 - 30 x stronger than the average Joe.

On a hunch, I analyzed another sighting, this time of a female sasquatch sprinting up to and killing a hog: http://www.bfro.net/...ort.asp?id=8547

From this porcine assault, I used the following estimates:

BF mass = 250 kg (550lbs)

Sprint distance = 27 m (30 yards)

Sprint time = 2 sec

Using the sprint power equation:

Power = Body Weight x Distance^2 ÷ Time^3

The female BF put out 23 kW peak energy.

Dividing by her body mass, this is about 91 W/kg.

The average ATHLETE puts out about 6 W/kg

This would make her about 15 to 18 times stronger than the average human.

So now we have a range...BFs are 15 to 30 times stronger than you. Wanna play?

edited for font size.

Edited March 13, 2013 by poignant

[Guest]

These people saying that human fighters could beat a chimpanzee in a fight are either trolling or completely delusional.

Thank you, poignant, for taking an educated approach to answer this question given the evidence we do have.

[Guest poignant]

Thanks Nod4Eight. Definitely puts into perspective what they could do in the wild.

I would be fair and say that a large athletic human could stand a chance with a chimp, but pound for pound we are no match for them, much less an adult BF.

[Guest]

Poignant, all due respect but I'm still not buying that even a large athletic human could stand a chance with a chimp. Besides strength and athleticism - it's understanding. Two human fighters will usually stop when one is knocked out or taps out, who is to say an animal will? Chimps don't fight fair. Biting, gouging eyes, tearing of (a-hem) appendages... who is going to stop a raging chimp to save the human who is down and out? Animals don't have that understanding to stop when it is over like humans do. After years of rodeo I understand this very well. A bull or bronc sure doesn't back off or stop if you decide to tap out (or get hung up.) When was the last time you watched a fight where the guy got knocked out and the other fighter continued to pummel him mercilessly? That's where the human would fail.

[Guest poignant]

Well, not going into a 'my animal will beat the stuffing out of your animal ' debate.

Just saying that in a do-or-die situation, human beings can also fight unfair and will rip and gouge and bite. You're assuming that the large human will fight by some arbitrary boxing / mma rule or style. I'm assuming the large human will fight just as unfair if pushed to the brim.

Since no large athlete is likely going to volunteer for this experiment, I'm happy to give a prediction to a yet untested hypothesis.

[Guest]

Indeed, biologists have uncovered differences in muscle architecture between chimpanzees and humans. But evolutionary biologist Alan Walker, a professor at Penn State University, thinks muscles may only be part of the story. In an article published in the April issue of Current Anthropology, Walker argues that humans may lack the strength of chimps because our nervous systems exert more control over our muscles. Our fine motor control prevents great feats of strength, but allows us to perform delicate and uniquely human tasks. Walker's hypothesis stems partly from a finding by primatologist Ann MacLarnon. MacLarnon showed that, relative to body mass, chimps have much less grey matter in their spinal cords than humans have. Spinal grey matter contains large numbers of motor neurons—nerves cells that connect to muscle fibers and regulate muscle movement. More grey matter in humans means more motor neurons, Walker proposes. And having more motor neurons means more muscle control. Our surplus motor neurons allow us to engage smaller portions of our muscles at any given time. We can engage just a few muscle fibers for delicate tasks like threading a needle, and progressively more for tasks that require more force. Conversely, since chimps have fewer motor neurons, each neuron triggers a higher number of muscle fibers. So using a muscle becomes more of an all-or-nothing proposition for chimps. As a result, chimps often end up using more muscle than they need. "[A]nd that is the reason apes seem so strong relative to humans," Walker writes. Our finely-tuned motor system makes a wide variety of human tasks possible. Without it we couldn't manipulate small objects, make complex tools or throw accurately. And because we can conserve energy by using muscle gradually, we have more physical endurance—making us great distance runners. Great apes, with their all-or-nothing muscle usage, are explosive sprinters, climbers and fighters, but not nearly as good at complex motor tasks. In other words, chimps make lousy guests in china shops. In addition to fine motor control, Walker suspects that humans also may have a neural limit to how much muscle we use at one time. Only under very rare circumstances are these limits bypassed—as in the anecdotal reports of people able to lift cars to free trapped crash victims. "Add to this the effect of severe electric shock, where people are often thrown violently by their own extreme muscle contraction, and it is clear that we do not contract all our muscle fibers at once," Walker writes. "So there might be a degree of cerebral inhibition in people that prevents them from damaging their muscular system that is not present, or not present to the same degree, in great apes."

Source

If you were to pit the strongest, most proficient human fighter against a small female chimp, I can see a human killing the chimp. But if we are talking a healthy adult male chimpanzee....don't kid yourself. A large adult male chimp can literally rip your hands off of your arms. They can move with a speed that is unfathomable for human combatants, and deliver a series of blows with all four limbs before most humans would even have time to react. After sinking their enormous canines into an adversaries limb, they can literally strip muscles and flesh away from the bone.

Of course all of this is irrelevant because they haven't conducted studies on the disproportionate strength of Lemurs yet.

[Guest]

If you ever watched escape to chimp Eden, when those chimps get po'd everybody runs, even with the electric fence on. Hugene Cussin, the main character on the show has more than respect for them, it's not acting, you can see the fear in his eyes, when a situation goes bad.

Their speed is blinding.

I watched a video where a chimp was just messing with this lion, jumping onto the ground, hit the lion, and run back up the tree, making the lion look like it was moving in slow motion.

Maybe a highly skilled expert in martial arts like Mas Oyama who killed 52 bulls with his bare hands, 3 of them with one punch, also fought 300 matches against other black belt or higher, for 3 days straight, and did not loose a match. and with all that said, Against a full grown chimp, he might win,but if the chimp gets a hold of him, it's over.

Edited March 16, 2013 by zigoapex

[Guest]

If you're going to cite Oyama as your human (possibly the greatest hand to hand combatant in recorded history) then you have to pair him up with an equivalent chimp, such as a bili-ape. I still say the chimp wins with no contest.

I really enjoyed Escape to Chimp Eden, and I was optimistic that it would return. After what happened to poor Andrew Oberle I seriously doubt they would risk it now. If that poor kid had followed the rules set forth by the proprietors, the attack would not have happened. I'm sure he regrets it worse than anyone. I hope he is recovering as best as possible.

[Guest]

i didn't know that happened, i'm assuming they did the unthinkable to him, as they would not elaborate on the extent of his injuries(in the article i read)

[Guest Deucalion]

I have trained in the martial arts for roughly 28yrs. i am 6ft 3 and i weigh in at 15 stone 9. I can say without a doubt that an animal like a chimp if it was to attack me would dispose of me fairly quickly. Thats the reality of it, without weapons, tools etc my chance for survival wouldn be pretty limited. Martial arts do give you a skill and improve strength, speed etc but only so much. We after all are only human and they re not. A few years ago my little dog was attacked by a cross pitbull. Wihtout thinking i jumped on the dog s back and pinned it to the floor. The only way i could get the dog to unlock its jaws was to apply a rear naked choke. Now this dog bucked and struggled and pushed me to my absolute limit. Its power was quite frightening. And that was just a dog. The media makes out that people who train in unarmed combat are super human. They are not. Bottom line Chimp 1 Man 0

[Guest]

That was the point i was making, Mas Oyama, one of, if not the best, MIGHT have a chance, perhaps landing a lucky strike that would immobilize it, before it got a hold of him. being that they have 4 hands, once they get a hold of you,your finished.

Edited March 17, 2013 by zigoapex

[Guest]

Concur, Deucalion. I have 2nd BB in Jujitsu, 3rd rank brown in Judo, and roughly 25 years as a practioner, competitor, & LE instructor. I have no doubt I that against an adult chimp I would last about as long as it took to write that sentence. It doesn't take much research to see a number of gruesome examples of chimps taking humans apart, sometimes with seemingly casual indifference. I have never seen one of a human overpowering a chimp...

Speaking of primate strength, back when I was in high school we had a couple monkeys in the Science Room. I don't recall the species, but they weren't very big, I doubt the bigger weighed 10 lbs. Being teenaged jocks, we would get them to reach out for a piece of monkey chow then grab their arm, to see who could hold on the longest. The biggest & strongest of us were able to hang on for maybe 5 seconds. Those little runts had arms like steel bands and strength all out of proportion to what one would expect based on their size...

[Guest BuzzardEater]

Here is some stuff to think about; Humans have known, at one time, a serum or formula for greatly increasing their strength for a brief period. It was actually described as a wine. When I looked into it, the best conjecture was that this was a drug, preserved in wine in concentrated form. The recipe is lost, but a thousand years ago this formula was well known and common enough to be used in construction! Yet, we do not understand it, now.

Police have told me that some of the street exotic drugs can give the user tremendous strength and pain threshold.

There are anecdotal examples of panicked humans displaying enormous strength. Mothers lifting a car of an infant, that sort of thing.

Could this sort of thing be going on in the Sasquatch community? I put it to you, reader, that Sasquatch/Bigfoot is not "sighted" as much as we see "displays". When these creatures do not wish to be seen, they simply are not seen. Yet, has anyone ever shown sure evidence of Sasquatch strength? Has anyone seen a Sasquatch spontaneously use this alleged strength to do something that left evidence, a bent bar of steel or cow thrown through a window? Perhaps they can't do it. Perhaps they need advance warning to stage an incident? Perhaps they are nothing more than clever men with fur clothing and an old recipe for wine?

[wiiawiwb]

Nice posts Poignant.

Bare with everyone,

I think a person like Brock Lesnar could defeat a gorilla with his bare-hands by choking.(submission) I wonder if Brock or Arnold could defeat a 6 or 7ft bigfoot like that? Forget the 10ft+ bigfoots. Unless you want to discuss religion(David & Goliath). Which we can't! I wonder how far a log or rock could go. But Austin M, at least some of these bigfoots gotta be comparable to gorillas and chimps and some comparable to well... a robot? There's nothing to compare the 12 footers. It's got to be a sight to see. I guess I cracked the how the Pyramids of Giza got made.

Forget a gorilla. Brock Lesnar would be instantly slapped into unconsiousness by a chimp. That same chimp would drag and throw him around like a helpless rag doll.