General

Exercise
Photo Source: Photorack

You have to wonder how strong can humans get? If a human were to develop his body to its peak what could he lift. I think that this question was answered by Ronnie Coleman in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 Coleman did a leg press of 2,300 pounds, not once but several times in a row. This can be seen on YouTube . He then went on in 2007 to dead lift 800 pounds, not once but two times in a row and he looked like he could have done more. That can also be seen on YouTube. When the efficiency of human muscle power was measured it came out between 14% to 27% efficient as defined as the ratio of mechanical work output to the total metabolic cost.

If humans eat correctly and exercise for many hours a day under the supervision of an experienced coach they can become muscle machines. Sometimes people can become so muscle bound that it is hard for ordinary people to look at them. This is especially true when we look at muscle bound women. I guess this shouldn't be, but sometimes it can't be helped. DNA research is said to be going on that will not only make humans smarter, but it is said that it will make them much stronger. There is talk that someday certain genes will be identified and then placed into embryos and these genes could improve the human race. These genes would not be inheritable by anyone, because they weren't there at birth and therefore would not be passed along naturally. They would have to be added at birth to future generations, if they are to keep the attributes of their ancestors.

The Nazis tried to improve the human race, not all humans, only those the denoted as Aryans. They used selective breeding and they didn't care about family values. German women were made available to Nazi officers for procreation purposes. It didn't matter if the officers were married or in fact if the women were either. The idea was to produce a pure Aryan. By doing this they thought that they could have a pure race that would be superior to all others. As we know today, it didn't seem to make any difference in the scheme of things.

There are other ways to make your body stronger and that is with chemicals. These are the same chemicals that have been getting baseball players in trouble for a few years. One group of chemicals is known as steroids. Anabolic steroids are a derivative of the male hormone testosterone. Anabolic steroids work by binding, or plugging into protein receptors in or on the cells that help create new proteins in the cells. This makes muscle size increase and along with that strength. There are many bad side effects and steroids should not be used unless a doctor prescribes them. There are a lot of chemicals, vitamin supplements and minerals that are advertised as muscle growth stimulators, but most of these effects are unproven.

Testing The Exoskeleton
Photo Source: DARPA

Another way to make humans stronger is to provide them with some sort of suit that will supplement the power of their own muscles and the U.S. Army has been working on just that for years now. The suit looks like something out of a Scifi movie. The suit is actually a double purpose device and it is not really a suit but a sort of metal frame that the wearer steps into. The device is an XOS. It will sense the movement of the wearer and supplement those moves with hydraulic joints capable of far more power than the human body. If one were to step into the suit, he would be able to lift hundreds of pounds all day long without breaking a sweat. Here is the really cool part. The wearer can step out of the suit and it becomes a robot that he can control, thus giving him far more flexibility on the battlefield. It is almost like turning one soldier into two.

Muscle power is not the only thing that we are going to be able to increase. There are devices that may be out soon that will allow humans to generate electricity just by walking and it will take no more effort to do. One device connects to the knees and as the person walks the device captures energy when the person slows down. How much electricity can be produced this way? So far scientists have been able to get the device to produce 13 watts from a person walking briskly for one minute. This would allow someone to operate a desktop computer for 6 minutes. One use for the device is to operate a pacemaker. As technology advances, look for these types of devices to produce far more power and store it more efficiently. One use that I can think of is recharging one of those new batteries that are said to be 100 times more efficient than Li-Ion. This could keep a small device going indefinitely.

Jellyfish
Photo Source: Public Domain

Are humans becoming stronger naturally? It turns out that global warming is making some creatures stronger. A deadly type of Amoeba is getting strong due to warming. A spider in Britain called the false black widow is getting stronger and increasing its numbers due to global warming as are certain jellyfish, mosquitoes and flesh eating bacteria. In 2006, a study by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services showed that humans were getting stronger, but it was because they wanted to. Twenty percent of the U.S. population was doing strength training. This was the highest figure ever. Are we getting stronger as a species? That is a tough question to answer. Some say yes we are and use as proof the fact that we live longer than our ancestors, but others say that is only because of diet and drugs and we are basically the same as people were thousands of years ago. I don't know what the answer is, but I think that certain humans can perform acts that no one was able to perform previously, like breaking the 4 minute mile and leg pressing 2,300 pounds.