That's all well and good but did they find out what happened to Annie?
Boffins: Michael Jackson's tilt was a criminally smooth trick
New research from India into Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal tilt has concluded that, yes, it is physically impossible and dancers should really stop trying to recreate it because Achilles tendon and spinal injuries are not fun. The paper, "How did Michael Jackson challenge our understanding of spine biomechanics?" published …
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Wednesday 23rd May 2018 12:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
"you also need a lot of core strength"
...relative to your body mass because the inverse cubed law applies here, and Michael Jackson didn't have much body mass.
Light people are relatively stronger, in proportion to their mass, than heavy people, so the strongest weightlifter might be able to raise a far greater absolute mass than a comparatively fit skinny person but they'd struggle to manage a couple of pull-ups/chin-ups. The skinny person, on the other hand, would be able to do the pull-ups/chin-ups with relative ease but wouldn't be able to lift anywhere near the same absolute mass as the weightlifter.
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Wednesday 23rd May 2018 15:45 GMT disgruntled yank
skinny and bulky
That could be true at the limits--I've never considered what the Olympic weightlifter types can manage in the way of chin-ups. On the other hand, I imagine that if I were to take a sample of 6' Marines weighing 220 lb and 6' distance runners weighing the canonical 144 lb (2 lb x inch of height), the jarheads would manage considerably more chin-ups.
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Wednesday 23rd May 2018 18:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: skinny and bulky
I imagine that if I were to take a sample of 6' Marines weighing 220 lb and 6' distance runners weighing the canonical 144 lb (2 lb x inch of height), the jarheads would manage considerably more chin-ups.
I'm sure you're right. But particularly because when told to do so, the jarheads would go "SIr!YesSir!" and get stuck in, whereas the distance runners would look puzzled and ask "Why the eff would I want to spend an hour or even five minutes doing chin ups?"
However, the Marines WOULD take part in a distance race, and then look puzzled as the (probably) Kenyans* disappeared in a cloud of dust. Horses for courses. And if I was going to be rescued from terrorist kidnap, I'd want the marines rather than Wilson Kipsang.
* Other nationalities of distance runner also available, enquire for further details.
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Wednesday 23rd May 2018 19:14 GMT 2Nick3
Re: skinny and bulky
If asked to run with 40 pounds of gear the Marines would look at you like "Is that all?" while the marathoners would say "No."
Heck, even if asked to carry the marathoners the 26.2 miles the Marines would just ask what you want them to do with the other half of their day (14 hour duty day, ~4mph march speed, with a couple of water breaks).
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Thursday 24th May 2018 09:03 GMT Allan George Dyer
Re: skinny and bulky
Rather than Marines vs. distance runners at chin-ups, you could try Marines vs. Rings gymnasts at chin-ups. Specialist vs generalist, it all depends on whether the competition is the specialist's speciality.
How about Marine in a pentathlon? The Marines have the training for everything except the equestrian show jumping.
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Thursday 24th May 2018 09:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
> "Light people are relatively stronger, in proportion to their mass, than heavy people..."
Surely this can't be true? Assuming a similar skeleton and the same percentage of fat then organ weight will be constant and so any additional weight will be muscle and so they must be "stronger" (depending on how you want to define strength).
Unless you're just saying they're all fat?
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Thursday 24th May 2018 14:39 GMT Eddy Ito
Surely this can't be true? Assuming a similar skeleton and the same percentage of fat then organ weight will be constant and so any additional weight will be muscle and so they must be "stronger" (depending on how you want to define strength).
The problem with muscle is that it gets stronger in proportion to the cross sectional area but the weight goes with the volume. Also a stronger musculature will necessarily require a stronger skeletal frame to withstand the increased stress which also adds weight so a slight person will have both lighter muscles and a lighter skeleton. As to their organ weight, it too will be different because both their caloric and pulmonary requirements to sustain their frame and musculature will differ substantially as well as their overall blood volume. So even if we assume their activity levels and fat percentages are even the balance equation changes simply so the person with more muscle doesn't break their own bones. It's why Superman is the man of steel, he kinda has to be.
I give you the ridiculous comparison: ants (~10 mm long) can lift 20-30 times their own weight but it's only because they are tiny. A man sized ant wouldn't survive because it wouldn't be able breathe adequately much less lift it's own weight. In the same way a human (say 1.75 m, 75 kg) who can lift their own weight shrunk to ant size would be able to lift 175 times their weight but would be blind in a sense as they would only see wavelengths near the X-ray band. Sorry for ruining all those '50s & '60s B movies.
In short, yes, more muscle equals more strength but the associated support infrastructure that goes with it also necessarily changes.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
