To the original poster I’ve got a question. Did they phrase the question to the effect “If you adjust for body weight the average woman is stronger than the average man” ? I’ve heard that one before and I figured it was true because the average woman is smaller than the average man. (I just figured it’s that old thing about proportionally speaking a smaller animal is stronger than a larger one. You know, like how insects and spiders are able to lift 40-50 times their own weight. It’s a mechanical thing they get from simply being small.)
Excellent username/post combo, but I’m not sure this holds up either. The square/cube law isn’t the only effect in play - pound for pound men have proportionately more muscle. I’m unsure how we’d ever get a figure for the average man and average woman, but this list of weightlifting records shows how marked the difference is at the top end. Compare the women’s snatch (stop that) for the highest weight category with the men’s in the lowest - the women win by only 2.5 kg; the men’s record holder under 62 kg beats any woman. And the 77 kg men’s aggregate (375 kg) beats the 75 kg women’s (282 kg) by 33%!
Did they say physically stronger? Maybe they were talking about pain tolerance or something else?
Well, my mother can’t even do the “get your forehead to the floor” bit, but she’s built like Santa.
We did a similar exercise in “fitness for non-fitness people” a few times; the people who could get down but who had problems getting up would try to move sideways. Maybe their problem was having strong side dominance.
The person you’re responding to wasn’t arguing women are as strong as men. She was illustrating the fact that this fact holds merely “on average.”
I would expect however that a far smaller proportion of women take up weightlifting, or ever consider becoming professional at it.
Not that I’m arguing women are as strong as men on average just that extrapolating from sports is maybe misleading.
ETA - and what he said about the top end and the average being too different things.
I getcha now. The thing is, this isn’t a strength trick. It’s a center-of-gravity trick. For men, the center of gravity is higher, so we cannot blance things out in a way which let’s us rise from this position. But it doesn’t really say much other than saying you can find a position that people can’t rise from if you strength them out enough.
Then perhaps you need to:
- explain how your first sentence would lead to the figures misrepresenting the true position by such a huge margin;
b) explain what better objective comparison is available;
iii) explain how your ETA is consistent with your second sentence, and what point you actually are making.
I’m still not getting it. I’ve tried all the variations described and had no problem rising back up. I also tried the wall trick and had no problem. You just have to use your stomach and lower back to pull you up over the center. I suspect that this is combination of center of gravity and just plain core weakness on the part of guys.
It just depends on where your CG is. If you are flexible enough you can contort your body to maintain a low enough CG to maintain your balance. I would be able to do there tricks because I have short legs and narrow hips, and the majority of my considerable weight is above my waist. Also, with the wall trick, your feet would have to be touching. It’s very easy to lower your CG by spreading your legs apart. But if your CG is above your waist (defined as the point where you bend), and the weight of your body above that point exceeds that below it to the extent it can’t be countered by the length of your feet (which moves the fulcrum forward) no amount of strength can keep you from tipping over.
I am having a hard time understanding this. So I kneel on the ground, hold my hands behind my back and put my forehead on the ground. I just tried this several times in a row. No problem at all getting up.
Was this a joke or was some part of it left out?
EDIT: I am male, 29, 5’9" and about 185lb
I can’t even get my forehead off the ground. I’ll try to get my wife to do it when I get home tonight.
The argument that “It’s all social” fails spectacularly with comparisons among Olympic athletes, and world championships in various professional and amateur sports. The social filter is inherently eliminated when comparing these elite levels of accomplishment. Yes, girls are not encouraged to engage in athletics. But the world’s championship has some women present. That lack of encouragement is not a factor. No one gets to world class competition without extensive encouragement, not even the men. All the athletes being compared are extensively trained, and encouraged to the greatest fitness possible. Both sexes are already selected for exceptional strength, among many other exceptional aspects. World class athletes are much less than the top tenth of a percent of the population. In the 99.9[sup]th[/sup] percentile, all the men are stronger than all the women. (OK, so maybe one of the male marksmen is not as strong as one of the female weightlifters, but all the male weightlifters are stronger than she is.)
In these groups it is well understood, and completely demonstrated that in the area of strength, men have a significant advantage over women. In some specific areas of competition there are advantages in lower center of gravity, or lower muscle tone, which can give advantages to women, but the advantage of strength, is always there for men.
Tris
You’ll just have to remain there until she gets home, bummer. How did you type this response?
Yes, that is the underpinning of the trick - it relies on the typical man’s COG being higher than the typical woman’s. You’ll certainly find guys who can do it (in our small sample size of 6 we still found one, though he’s been the only guy over 18 years old I’ve seen in person able to do it), and women who can’t.
My point in bringing it up originally was how easy it was to use some physical act that requires “strength” on the part of the doer to achieve, then use it as false compare between the sexes.
See my second post clarifying the position which as a picture linked - your back should be straight and your body leaned forward as a result. It could be that you can do this with no problem, I’m sure there are guys who can - but I’m definitely not, and so far my ex-roommate in college has been the only 18+ year old guy I’ve seen do it in person
True, if you have really strong abs and lower back muscles it probably can be done - just like I could still manage to win out over a bunch of 4-6 year olds at a science center tug-of-war demonstration of leverage - but it sounds like you’re an outlier here
What angle do your thighs make with the ground when it is done properly? If your thighs are at a 90 degree angle it is near impossible, if your thighs are flatter it becomes super easy. I suspect this is what is causing all of the differences.
I can not even move my head if my thighs are at a 90, but can get up without any trouble if they are flatter.
As to the earlier comment about her wording, it was worded in a way to clearly talk about physical strength.
if only 5% of the population tries something in one society, and 100% tries it in another, you can expect the second society will be much more proficient at whatever the subject is. It would be impossible to measure what effect this has, and for that reason we credit this as altering the results but cant say by what amount.
I just read the rest of the thread. I tried it that way and you are right, I can;t do it. But like others have said, it has nothing to do with strength, just center of gravity.
I put my feet under my couch and got down in the strict position you mentioned and was able to get up no problem. Kind of like glute-ham raise.
It is just a position that makes it impossible for a person who’s upper half outweighs there lower half to get up unanchored.
Is the lawn chair exercise a bit like carrying plastic carrier-bags - the type used in all UK supermarkets and in at least a few US ones - over your arms or in your hands?
Women tend, on average, to be better at that, because of the way the different genders’ wrists grow: if a woman stands at rest with her hands loose by her side, her palms will point towards her thighs, but men’s palms will point towards the back or at least partly towards the back (source: a book about the science of being a teenager whose title I can never remember, and general observation of people after reading the passage in said book). This makes it easier for women to carry things in their hands and arms.
That’s just as an aside - I think the OP has been comprehensively answered. TBH, as a feminist I’d never claim that the average woman is as physically strong as the average man, because that’d make it seem strange that it’s hard for women to fight men off even when the man is the same height. Well, I’d also never say it because it’s not true.
Metaphorically it’s true. Perhaps that’s what they meant.