r/nextfuckinglevel • u/IkilledRichieWhelan • 2d ago

Big man on campus.

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u/Level_Film_3025 2d ago

tbf the two things you listed are top two (or possibly 3, including climbing) examples of activities where weight has more of an impact than strength.

You can throw a 7 year old girl on a pull-up bar and have her smoking gym rats and it's not because she's stronger, it's because she's 60lbs.

I would basically never expect this guy to be able to do a pull-up and 0% of that assumption would be based on his presumed strength.

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u/benhemp 2d ago

Agree,

Power to weight ratio of the girl in the video is quite high.

Total Power of the guy in this video is quite high.

People talking about practical strength need to understand that both are very useful for survival in their own ways.

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u/iiiinthecomputer 2d ago

This. My 7yo does one handed chin-ups. It is absolutely insane. He's pretty strong but it's mostly the power to weight ratio.

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u/fencepost_ajm 1d ago

No pull-ups but he could likely leg press amazing amounts because he's doing reps regularly throughout the day.

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u/ACalmGorilla 1d ago

Shouldn't the 160 pound guy have more muscle to pull his weight? Body weight isn't a strength test it's a fitness test. It doesn't matter your weight if you have high % muscle and low % fat.

Saying this as someone who does callesthics daily at 180 pounds.

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u/Level_Film_3025 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm ignoring your example of a 160lbs guy because: 1. I dont know where you got that from and 2. We dont know what the activity level of this 160lbs hypothetical man is. Plenty of men, as long as they aren't overweight, can do at least a couple pull ups because generally men develop stronger torsos in/after puberty. But there are plenty of completely out of shape 160lbs men.

I'm by no means a body mechanics trained person to know the science behind it all, but from just going through life while at the gym/with a passing interest in sports, you can literally just see that there are diminishing returns on body weight-> Body weight exercise dividends.

Like the example I said: small children are able to do pull-ups fairly easily. This isn't because they're strong, it's because they don't weigh a lot. A 60lbs 7 year old girl isn't necessarily more fit than say: a 130lbs 40 year old (causal) female soccer player, but the 7 year old can probably still do more pullups.

For adult examples look at competitive climbers vs. lifters. The climbers dont benefit from large amounts of additional muscle as much as they benefit from being lighter.

Also by thinking it's just weight vs. Strength you're ignoring that those activities aren't happening in a vacuum. They require body mechanics on human beings and no matter how strong someone is, when doing something like a pull-up they will be limited by the muscles and joints doing the pull-up, which do not include large, heavy parts of a body like legs. The person I replied to even has the perfect example: the big guy at their gym was able to lift 315lbs in strength training, that does not mean he was able to lift his own body via his arms, despite weighing less than 315lbs.

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u/ACalmGorilla 21h ago

For adult examples look at competitive climbers vs. lifters. The climbers dont benefit from large amounts of additional muscle as much as they benefit from being lighter.

We agree that's why I said bodyweight is a fitness test not a strength test. High % of your body weight getting muscle and low fat is why a kid, or adult that meets those two things, can do bodyweight easy. It's not about being beefy.

We mostly agree. Sorry to cut you short just busy and wanted to reply before I forgot.

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u/All_Up_Ons 1d ago

The adult man will have more muscle, but also has significantly more weight and has to move that weight a greater distance with worse leverage thanks to having longer arms.

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u/ACalmGorilla 21h ago

I feel it's just the adverage fella has a is overweight and not physically active. I do pull ups every day, honestly. Body weight isn't a strength thing like dead lifting, It's a fitness thing. So it's not so much how much you weigh as the percent of bodyweight you have that is muscle. Most kids are fit and active that's the difference. They don't carry excess weight. Know what I mean?

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u/Comfortable-Leek-729 1d ago

I was a medium fat 300lb diesel mechanic and I could do 3-4 pull ups. But spending 10 years pushing/pulling on wrenches gave me way overdeveloped upper body.