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Well, these silverbacks are real real big, they're supposed to be really strong as well. A normal guy wouldn't have a chance against one, in fact the other day in a newspaper it shown a tourist getting dragged away across the floor by a silver back.
So how would a bodybuilder fare? Is it possible for a human to equally match a male silverback gorilla?
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No contest! Any adult (male or female) chimpanzee or orangutan much less a gorilla could tear any human limb from limb!
ETA: In 1924, the Bronx Zoo tested grip strength. The best any human could do was 210 pounds (160 lb. male). A 120 lb. female chimp did 1260 lbs.!
Last edited by Kaptain K; 2008-Jan-06 at 02:05 PM.
Banned
The OP suggests a weight for weight- size of muscle comparison.
Which makes Kaptain K dead on. In such a case it has to do with more than just how big one is, but the way the muscles work and use energy, the ligaments and the bone structure.
A simple chimp can squeeze your hand and crush it. No human can do that. A chimp (If I recall correctly) can squeeze to about 1200 lbs of pressure where as a human can only max out at a couple hundred or so.
Secondly, a body builder can heft weight, but can they do serious work with those muscles?
(ETA: Kaptain K did an ETA too confirming my vague memory. ROCK! My Alzheimer's isn't advanced yet!)
Let's consider a brawny powerful man that wasn't a body builder per say but a hard worker, seasoned under hard labor. Can he match a silverbacks strength? No. Can he beat a silverback? Yes. And under the right circumstances- so can you or I.
The human still has the advantage in spite of the silverbacks greater strength.
The same advantage we have had all along that led us to dominance on the planet.
Big Strong Brain.
A fast, powerful seasoned human fighter can even give a silver back a run for his money.
The gorilla has a lot of brute force but the human fighter can employ martial arts, strategy and quick attacks to avoid getting his arms yanked out of their sockets and still do damage to the gorilla.
Simply put, even the average Joe has a chance.
How so?
Because these things have happened. Many folks were in trouble, but some of the quicker thinkers managed to fight off their attackers.
I mentioned in another thread about the 73 year old jogger who singlehandedly defeated a 6 foot long (Not including the tail) mountain lion in hand to paw combat.
I recall watching a baboon on the Discovery channel do similar- fighting off three hungry leopards.
Determination, survival instinct and quick wits can do wonders even when outmatched.
Last edited by Neverfly; 2008-Jan-06 at 02:38 PM.
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That body builder certainly looks as strong as a gorilla.
Humans and gorillias have different kinds of strengths. Humans can make quick movements and can throw, stab and punch and kick. Gorillas aren't as fast, but once they get their hands on you, their more efficiently levered joints will enable them to exert much more strength than an comparably muscled human. So the moral is, don't try to wrestle a gorilla.
I'd advise any weightlifter who might want to try to fight a gorilla to buy him a beer instead. You probably have a lot in common and might end up the best of friends.
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How much weight is that body builder holding in that picture anyway?
Ronald Brak, good point!
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Hey I'm a weightlifter, and I like beer too. No need to get fresh.Originally Posted by Ronald Brak
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Bodybuilders concentrate on appearance, not combat skills. A fairer match would be gorilla vs. a human combat expert, say a SEAL or a martial artist.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
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I've seen your picture. You are about the same size as me. Light haired too... Someone else happened to comment on it- we look somewhat vaguely similarHey I'm a weightlifter, and I like beer too. No need to get fresh.
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You guys can say what you will, but in hand to hand combat my money is on the gorilla unless the human has a Desert Eagle .50 in each hand!
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at my last job- building wooden trusses for houses and industrial buildings- the most worthless workers were the body building guys that have big arms and 6 pack abs.. they tended to whine the most about aches and pains at the end of a 12 hour shift throwing 20 foot 2X8's and 2X10's around. they also had the most trouble actually picking things up. apparently, they don't lift too many pieces of lumber at the gym. of course, the cornfed farm boys outworked everyone...
meanwhile, we had 140 pound guys that could lift as much as the 200+ pound body builders, and never complain about hurting at the end of the shift.
so, in conclusion, i think a small orangutan would kill the average "body builder", whereas a smaller guy that's good with focusing his energy and keeping his distance will fight a silverback to at least a draw under the right conditions.
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This has been discussed before:
http://www.bautforum.com/general-sci...so-strong.html
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I agree. Most large (220+ lbs) body builders, power-lifters, and olympic-style lifters are way too slow - too much body mass - although the olympic-style lifters are the fastest due to the explosive nature of their lifts (snatch and clean-and-jerk). Also, as the body weight of a lifter increases the strength-per-pound decreases. As the weight classes get lighter (198, 181, 165, 148, 132, etc) the guys get much stronger per pound. I've known 148 pounders who could clean-and jerk 350+ lbs which is well over twice body weight. Another proof of this is tug-of-war contests, which usually limit both teams to a total body weight: The team that has 15 smaller guys will beat the team that has 10 large guys every time, even though the total body weight for each team is the same.
Last edited by Tucson_Tim; 2008-Jan-06 at 05:49 PM. Reason: Punctuation
Banned
Same here. That's why I said what I said in my first post about a labor guy
I dunno... These guys have the stamina to repeatedly lift heavy weights in the gym... But try to get them to do an honest days hard work and they act like you are trying to get them to build a cathedral in a week.
ETA: Tucson_Tim.. Jinx.
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After further contemplation, I will admit that after months (or maybe years) of special training about the strengths and weaknesses of "great apes", a martial arts expert might have a 50-50 chance against a chimp and maybe one in ten against a gorilla.
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That's hand to gun combat.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
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Work smart, not hard.That applies to just about everything. There are little tricks you learn that make things a bit easier, and let you get more done with less effort. Any time I do something that I haven't done in a long time, say using the example above of building something and having to toss lumber around and nail it down and all that stuff, I am amazed at how slow I am at first, and how sore I am afterwards. Do it long enough and I soon get back in the groove and get faster and less sore.
If you've been doing task A and then switch to B, you use your muscles differently, and exert different muscles more and less than before. The muscles you're using more in the new task get sore. It takes time to adjust, and time for your brain to adjust to the new "algorithm". Once it gets it the pattern of movement down pat, you do it without thinking. You learn the task B algorithm and promptly displace the task A algorithm, if you don't switch back and forth.
A funny story about this is from my college days. A buddy of mine there was on one of these physical fitness kicks, working out and trying to get some hunk body to make become a chick magnet. You know the type, I'm sure. He was always telling me how out of shape I was and how I ought to work out and all that crap.
I told him that back home I did real work, not play work at some gym, and he wouldn't last 5 minutes trying to do real work. He came home with me one weekend, just when we had to clean out an old grain bin that had no sweep auger in it. When the level got nearly to the bottom, you had to get in there and shovel the last bit out. The last bit was about 500 bushels roughly, and it was hard work. And hot and dusty.
Well, I put him in there with me and some others. He lasted about 15 minutes. Soaked in sweat with a layer of dust stuck to it, he crawled out, panting, went to the water hose and gulped down a bit, then just crashed and lay on the ground for another 15 - 20 minutes.
Told you so, I said later. He never got on me about working out again.
His trouble was he had never shoveled grain before and worked himself into a tizzy, yet doing very little actual output. The ratio of his effort to grain moved was much greater than mine. There's a knack to shoveling it, and a knack to walking in grain. As you walk, your legs sink in up to your shins and knees and you'll expend a lot of energy just trying to move around until you get the knack of it.
Had he known all that and learned how, he probably could've outworked me.
-Richard
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Really? I've never had my picture up on here before, except that I did use a picture of me for my avatar for about 1 minute.I've seen your picture. You are about the same size as me. Light haired too... Someone else happened to comment on it- we look somewhat vaguely similar
And you're right, I have light hair too.
You can see my build in this pic, bear in mind I used to be really skinny. I think my build is actually bigger now though.
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Make that hand to handgun combat.
All's fair in love and war!
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It's a complicated tale...Really? I've never had my picture up on here before, except that I did use a picture of me for my avatar for about 1 minute.
And you're right, I have light hair too.
You can see my build in this pic, bear in mind I used to be really skinny. I think my build is actually bigger now though.
But my name is Ross. When you first joined the forum was during the time I was on suspension and you saw "BANNED" next to my name.
Several people had thought that I had made a sock puppet and asked me if you - were me
A quick google of your Nickname produced your posts on other forums as well- and that is where I saw your picture.
Your comparison...
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The gorilla would tear that guys head off and do things to his neck that I'm not at liberty to say here
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Agreed. I'd even pay to watch - one less narcissistic body-builder.
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First of all, not in direct response to this, but we also have to remember that gorillas have longer claws and teeth than we do. So it's not just the muscles. I wouldn't want to get bitten by one of them.
Then, in response to Neverfly, I think there's more than just brains. A predator always have to make a choice. There's this piece of meat in front of me. But how troublesome will it be to get it? Is it going to kick me back? There are some rabbits over there -- they're easier to kill, and if I get enough of them. . . So with the old man and the cougar, it was not a question of a fight to the death. The cougar didn't have to fight him. It chose to try an attack, and perhaps was surprised at the ferocity of the response and decided it wasn't worth the effort. I remember seeing a video of a fairly small cougar fighting off a grizzly bear, which I think would have easily destroyed her if it had seriously wanted to. But the cougar was defending her cubs, ferociously, and the bear just gave up.
As above, so below
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True, but in this particular case the mountain lion attacked the jogger and got its tongue ripped out. It 'gave up the fight' because it was more than incapacitated and death was imminent.
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I think gorillas, in common with many other animals, do most of their fighting without ever touching each other - they size each other up, trying to figure out whether they have a chance at winning or whether they're going to lose. If they think they're going to lose they just run away. After all, they don't have their pride to think about like humans do, animals are mainly interested in not being seriously injured or killed.
So I wonder about a real fight between the bodybuilder and the gorilla - would the gorilla look at that guy and worry about losing? The gorilla might not want to get involved in the first place.
clop
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Maybe he would look at those ridiculous short arms and die of laughter?
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i've seen a few Discovery Channel shows about apes and monkeys and what not, and when they do fight with each other, the loser is generally seen as inferior by the rest of the group, and as such, is shunned. which is just a simple way to say that they had no respect for him any more. i've seen the same in shows about lions, and tigers, and maybe even bears (oh my).
as humans, we like to think that what we do is more "evolved" than what goes on in the animal kingdom, but in reality, it's usually the same thing- only we have names for it...
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Some info from wiki:
A human may not be able to win against a gorilla but I know that humans can run faster than a cheetah. It's on the internet so it must be true:Adult male gorillas range in height from 165-175 cm (5 ft 5 in – 5 ft 9 in), and in weight from 140–200 kg (310–440 lb). Occasionally, a silverback of over 183 cm (6 ft) and 225 kg (500 lb) has been recorded in the wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRCYnufYlc
Here is a human vs gorilla video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOUZ8eGYLIY
Last edited by Tucson_Tim; 2008-Jan-08 at 01:57 AM. Reason: Add cheetah video
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Even at the same weight, the gorilla would still have advantages. Their center of gravity is lower, their quadripedal stance is more stable and offers more maneuvering control by putting more points in contact with the ground at all times (even when some of them are up), the main weapons (hands) are on their biggest and strongest limbs (which are bigger than our legs) and pretty much automaticly apply the animal's whole weight to anything they grab, and they have big pointy teeth that aren't for eating. The bottom line is that they're built for fighting, and it's not just in their size but also in their design. And humans are not. You predetermine the outcome any time you ask which of two things would be better at a task that only one of them is really designed for. It would be equally unfair to ask whether a gorilla could ever match humans at long-distance walking, weight carrying capacity, survival on limited resources in a drought/famine, or chess.
If there is a chance for the human at all, it probably lies in knowing exactly how gorillas fight. A gorilla charges straight forward toward his target, and the other gorilla responds by either charging as well, sitting still and waiting, or turning away and walking off slowly. The second and third responses usually stop the charge by telling the charging gorilla, in gorilla body language, that his target is not a threat. So those are probably the human's best bets right there, as Dian Fossey has instructed her guests who've gone out into gorilla territory with her. Quickly leaping up or to one side instead is not something gorillas do, so it might confuse a charging gorilla as well as get you out of the way, but it might irritate him; ANY sudden movement might just look to him like fighting back. While actually engaged, gorillas grab and strike each other with their arms, not their legs, so they wouldn't expect a human to kick them either. That might be enough of a surprise, and different enough from what the gorilla "knows" how to defend against, to get in good blows to his throat and face. Also, gorillas normally don't duck or dodge each other's blows; they defend by blocking while they're attacking, or completely retreat. So evading by stepping/leaping back or to the side or at an oblique angle for just a few feet at a time is something else that isn't in the gorilla's game plan. And it also makes use of one of the few kinds of physical activity that our design makes us better at: our low body mass to leg strength ratio and its resulting quick acceleration factor. If you can avoid getting hit or grabbed once, you can probably keep doing so pretty much indefinitely, until the gorilla quits bothering or you get an opportunity for a throat kick.
I don't know the odds of success this way, but I'm sure they'd be higher than any other way. (And keep in mind that I started with ways to aviod fighting at all, and the pontification about actually fighting was only secondary!)
Ironically, the people who'd be best at those tactics are practitioners of a set of martial arts that I ordinarily don't consider very useful in real combat (which normally means against other humans, of course): the ones that focus on a lot of jumping and kicking and boxing, like tae kwon do. Bodybuilders are strong, but strength is playing into what the gorilla's good at and we're not, at least not compared to them, not even the strongest of us; what you'd need to do instead is play into what we're good at and they aren't, and that, to sum it up quickly, is using the legs.
BTW, someone mentioned Navy SEALs a while ago... they have a reputation as hand-to-hand combat experts, but SEAL training involves rather little of that. It focuses instead on the tactical use of heavy firepower and explosives, and mental things like discipline and stubbornness in the face of discomfort and fatigue. The use of lower-tech things like knives and choking chords is for sneaking up on somebody who doesn't know the SEAL is there. Hand-to-hand fighting is to be avoided because it's not as effective as not letting the enemy fight you at all in the first place (and because getting good at it takes many times longer than their training program lasts). SEAL teams' effectiveness on missions is based not on hand-to-hand skill but on carrying more firepower and explosives and other technology than other units of the same number of men, and on how they use those devices.
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Obligatory Bonzo Dog Band Reference
"I was a four-stone apology -- now I'm two separate gorillas!" -- Mr. Apollo
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Wrestle poodles and win.
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