I was just reading the article on “Does knuckle-cracking cause arthritis?” and the theoretical ceiling given therein for the number of combined hand and foot pops is 56. I can get 56 just using my hands. So, on a good day, it’d look like this:
Hands: 56
Feet: 20
Neck: 14
Back: 15+
Wrists: 2
Elbows: 2
Knees: 2
Coccyx/sacral area: 1 (I don’t know how I do it either)
giving us a grand total of… uh… um… I don’t count so good… over 100 full-body joint-pops. Man. I’m disgusting.
Somebody call Guinness, I think we’ve got a record for the greatest number of non-chiropractically induced and non-injury precipitated joint cracking sounds. You should hear me in the morning. Or not.
-Urn “it makes my mom mad” Napkintosh
Hey, napkin, welcome to The Straight Dope Message Boards, we’re glad to have you with us.
We try to organize these forums (mostly), so when you are starting a topic with a comment on a column that Cecil wrote (such as yours), we prefer it go in the forum called COMMENTS ON CECIL’S COLUMNS, along with a link so that everyone else can follow what you’re talking about. There’s a lot of columns, and without a link, we’d wind up with even more confusion and repetition than usual.
So I’ve moved your comment to the forum where it will have a better chance of evoking response; and RM has kindly provided the link.
hey napkin,
are you really serious? where the heck do you crack your hands to create 56? i can only do three per finger, giving me a total of 30. and maybe i’m just really rough in my anatomy knowledge, but are there even any more movable joints in the hand? and also, what about your ankles and hips? and can you do all of these 100+ cracks yourself or do you need the help of someone?
I presume you (and napkin) only have two knuckles in each thumb, not three, giving a total of 28. Napkin’s total presumes he is cracking each knuckle two different ways, or else has four hands, or perhaps hyper-elongated fingers.
One could in theory get the same number in the feet, since the number of joints in the toes is equal to that in the fingers. The figure of 56 given in the column is correct.
The number napkin gives for the neck is also peculiar, sicne there are only 7 cervical vertebrae.
It’s also possible that he’s able to re-crack some joints, or at least do something that seems like re-cracking. I can produce a similar sound and feeling in my right ankle indefinitely, although it starts to get a little sore after a little while. I’ve never counted consecutive pops, but I’ve also never found myself suddenly unable to do it.
I can definitely crack at least some of my knuckles in two different ways, though, forward and backwards, so maybe that’s what napkintosh is doing.
well i’m glad someone’s knowledge of anatomy is worse than mine. now let’s remember what makes us different from chimps…opposable thumbs? yep. thus there are 3 joints in the thumb:
just below the thumbnail
at the base of the thumb
just above the inside of the wrist
now you can try to crack this knuckle by having someone grasp their hand around your thumb, and press with their fingers on this last joint. or you can try it yourself by pressing on it with your other thumb. when i was a kid, other kids would always come up to me and do this when they were shaking your hand as a joke. maybe that was a regional thing or something. so anyway, this makes a total of 30 possible cracks on both hands.
now with feet i’m not too sure. i can only crack each toe in two places, and i’m not sure if this is below the possible or not.
and as for the neck, this is a place where you can have tons of cracks. you can usually crack each vertabrae twice, by twisting the neck in each opposite direction. you can also crack several lower vertabrae by twisting your neck as well, not just the top section.
i am familar with this, and am able to do it as well. but i believe that it is not the same process, though i admit i have nothing to back this up. but for one, it doesn’t feel the same, and two, i find i can do it almost indefinately.
FYI, I used to teach Human Anatomy, at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I was talking specifically about knuckles, not the other joints in the hand. The thumb has two knuckles, and each of the other fingers has three, giving 14 knuckles in each hand.
The third joint you mention is not a “knuckle,” which can pertain to either an interphalangeal or a metacarpophalangeal joint (between two phalanges, or between a metacarpal and a phalanx), but rather the metacarpotrapezial joint between the metacarpal bone at the base of the thumb and the trapezium bone of the wrist. All five digits have metacarpals at their base (together forming the palm), so there are five such joints. If you want to count these, there are then 19 joints in each hand, for a total of 38 (not counting the many joints within the wrist itself). There are in all eight wrist bones (the scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, and hamate). I refuse to speculate on whether it is possible to crack the other carpometacarpal joints (besides the one at the base of the thumb), or the many joints within the wrist.
The foot bones are arranged in the same way (two phalanges in the big toe, three in each of the other toes, and a metatarsal at the base of each), with the exception that the ankle is made up of seven bones (tarsals) rather than eight as in the wrist.
you’re right, my bad. but i had simply assumed that the conversation was about joints in general rather than knuckles, since napkintosh’s original post was about all the joints he could crack. but the thread is called “knuckles” and the original question cecil answered was pertaining only to knuckles. my apologies. but what i still want to know is, how does napkintosh get 56 pops??? and by the way, impressive anatomy skills, man.