If you’re more focused on building strength rather than mass, you’ll get the best results if you choose a weight that’s between 85 to 90% of your one-rep max and do fewer repetitions, usually less than 5. You might really struggle to lift a weight that heavy by your last rep – but is that really the maximum you can lift? Most likely not. It seems that our bodies have the capacity under certain circumstances to lift far more than we think we’re capable of, especially when we’re faced with danger.
You’ve probably heard of people who have displayed seemingly superhuman strength acts when they’re forced too by the threat of danger. For example, there are credible accounts of people who have lifted a car off of someone trapped underneath to save their life. There are numerous other instances where ordinary people tapped into strength reserves they didn’t know they had when their own or someone else’s life hung by a thread.
On a lesser scale, some athletes in a competitive situation, especially when they get encouragement and motivation from those around them are able to display a magnitude of strength they wouldn’t routinely be capable of. How can you explain these displays of extraordinary or even superhuman strength?
Your Nervous System Plays a Role in Extraordinary Displays of Superhuman Strength
The autonomic nervous system, the part that operates on auto-pilot, regulates involuntary processes like breathing, heart rate and digestion without your awareness. Without the autonomic nervous system, you’d have to “remember” to breathe. Fortunately, you don’t have to do that and can concentrate on other things – like how to get the most out of your workout.
Your autonomic nervous has two main divisions that oppose one another – the parasympathetic nervous system and a second system called the sympathetic nervous system. It’s these two systems that help to regulate the function of organs in your body including your digestive system, heart, and lungs.
The parasympathetic portion of your autonomic nervous system is activated when you’re resting, relaxing or eating and are not stressed. For example, it slows down your heart rate, lowers your blood pressure and helps digest food by increasing blood flow to your digestive tract, stimulating intestinal motility and boosting the release of stomach acid and digestive enzymes. Its effects are opposite to the second division of your autonomic nervous system – the sympathetic division. These two systems oppose one another in their effects on organs in your body.
Your sympathetic nervous system is activated when you’re stressed or in danger. It turns on the “fight or flight” response that revs you up to do battle or escape quickly by increasing your heart rate, how fast you’re breathing and your metabolic rate. It also causes your adrenal gland to pump out adrenalin. This infusion of adrenalin puts you into a hyper-aroused state very quickly. When it’s released, your pupils dilate, you sweat more, the airways in your lungs open up, digestion slows down, blood flow increases to your muscles and brain and you become more alert, vigilant and ready for action.
Adrenalin also causes muscle cells and your liver to break down glycogen stores to glucose so your muscles have plenty of fuel to work with. During stress, systems, like your digestive system, which aren’t needed to play second fiddle while those that supply your body with energy and oxygen are turned up. As you can see, adrenalin prepares your body for maximal effort and power.
Adrenalin and Superhuman Strength
What determines how strong you are under normal circumstances? Having more fast-twitch muscle fibers and a greater muscle cross-sectional area is one factor. Anatomical factors also play a role such as where the muscle tendon attaches to the bone. This affects leverage. A third factor is probably the most important one when it comes to unusual displays of strength. Your brain has the ability to activate more muscle motor units, to recruit more fibers to help you lift a heavy object. It’s this neural or brain component that seems to explain the ability to lift seemingly impossible objects.
When you’re faced with a stressful situation and you’re pumping out lots of adrenalin, all bodily components are “primed” to help you exert maximal strength. Under these circumstances, your brain pulls out all the stops, letting you maximally recruit motor units so you can lift what you would normally not be able to do if you or someone else wasn’t in danger. There’s another factor too. During the flight or fight response, your brain produces more of a neurotransmitter called dopamine that deadens your perception of pain and makes you feel energized and capable.
There Does Appear to Be a Limit to Superhuman Strength
Unlike in comic books where there seems to be no end to what superheroes can do, even very stressed and motivated humans have strength limitations. Dr. Zatsiorsky, a researcher in kinesiology at Penn State University, distinguishes between “absolute strength,” the maximum weight you can lift under any circumstances and “maximal strength,” the force you can muster up through sheer will and determination.
According to Dr. Zatsiorsky, untrained individuals can tap into about 65% of their absolute strength while people who are strength trained can harness as much as 80% of their absolute strength. This still doesn’t explain how someone could lift a 3,000-pound car off a person but it shows we have the capacity to lift a greater amount of weight than we believe we can. That’s because we never really tap into those strength reserves under normal circumstances. It’s possible that in some of these extreme cases where people have lifted massively heavy objects like cars off of people that there was some leverage involved that made the task easier.
The Bottom Line?
You may not be a superhero with superhuman strength powers but even when you have to struggle to eke out that last repetition in your strength workout, you’re probably not tapping into your full strength potential. What’s limiting you is your brain and a lack of adrenalin to some degree. Keep this in mind. It’s true what people tell you-you’re stronger than you think.
References:
Psychology Today. “Superhero Science: Tapping Into Our Super-Strength with Adrenaline”
Scientific American. “When Fear Makes Us Superhuman”
Related Articles By Cathe:
Absolute vs. Maximal Strength: Why You’re a Lot Stronger Than You Think
Coffee and Strength Training: Does Caffeine Make You Stronger?
History of Push-Ups: They’ve Been Around Longer Than You Think!
