about angus McAskill. I’m sure some of its false but there is probably some truth to the things he did physically. The stories of him pulling plows or wagons reminded me of WSM competitions where they would pull a semi or a railroad car. How many horsepower does a worlds strongest man competitor have exactly (you’d probalby have to know what the competitions look like to answer this and I don’t know the exact details of how fast they are going, the weight of the objects they are dragging, how far they travel or how much energy it takes out of them)
Generating 5.8 HP over a few seconds is exceptional.
It is vastly different from exerting effort on a continual all day basis.
Probably a fraction of 1 HP. Maybe 1/4 HP? At most.
My answer backs up what yabob said. A professional athlete that is trained in sustained sports like biking can generate about .4 HP. The Gossamer Albatross was the first human powered plane to make a circle controlled flight over a course over several minutes.
In developing his theory for the Gossamer Condor, MacCready realized that a hang glider requiring 1.2 horsepower would need only a third as much power if its dimensions were tripled without a weight increase. A good cyclist could generate .4 horsepower indefinitely. After working out hundreds of details, including maneuverability, he had the concept. The 84-pound Condor went on to stay aloft for 7.5 minutes in a flight that won the prize.
An athlete trained in explosive force may be able to produce multiples of a single horsepower rating in an instant but he would come not close to matching the power of a single horsepower engine even over the multiple second mark.
If you raise 550 pounds one foot in one second, you’ve done work at the rate of one horsepower. In the example quoted by TapiocaD, Mr. Chemerkin raised 556 pounds approximately 6 ft in some short period of time. He’d have to do that around 10 times a minute to maintain an output of 1 hp.