What's the Maximum Weight A Human can Lift: Researchers Ponder

The record for an overhead lift stands at 263.5 kilograms.

Even as sports experts believe weightlifters have reached a saturation point, the imminent question deals with finding the maximum weight a human could ever lift.

Brit strongman Andy Bolton set the heaviest dead lift record when he lifted 457.5 kilograms from the floor to his thigh.

Do You Want to Win an Olympic Gold? Then Change Your Name!
Thai weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon owes her first Olympic gold in the women's 53kg class to a fortune-telling nun's advice to change her name to improve luck.

The record for an overhead lift stands at 263.5 kilograms.

According to Dan Wathen, an athletics trainer at Youngstown State University, Ohio, Bolton and weightlifters like him are nearly five or six times stronger than the average man, who will struggle to lift 45 kilograms over his head, reports the New Scientist.

Todd Schroeder at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, says: "If you look over time at the records for maximal lifts, they have crept up but are starting to plateau.

Weightlifting Builds Self-Esteem Among Breast Cancer Survivors
A new study by researchers has revealed that in addition to building muscle, weightlifting is also a prescription for self-esteem among breast cancer survivors.

"Today's weightlifters, including those that use steroids, are near the limit of human potential."

It is the muscles that set the limit.

Weightlifting Could Enhance Glaucoma Risk
According to Geraldo Magela Vieira, MD, and his colleagues, weightlifting may increase eye pressure, thus risk of glaucoma is also enhanced.

Most failures to lift a given amount do not damage the body: the weightlifter simply cannot overcome a load.

But in cases where something does give way, it is usually the muscle fibres that tear, often near the tendon.

Women Lifters and the Beauty Stakes
In women's weightlifting, it's possible to have beauty as well as brawn. That's the defiant message coming from the bar belles of the Beijing Olympics. World and Olympic champion

Similarly, it is control of the muscles that gives weightlifters their advantage.

The body has natural inhibitory mechanisms designed to keep us from hurting ourselves by trying to lift too much.

These work by controlling how many muscle fibres are activated at any one time.

Weightlifters learn to suppress these signals, enabling them to use a larger fraction of the muscle's potential in lifting.

Beyond that, the key to success is training, though genetics plays a role.

Short limbs favour strength, says Wathen, a former weightlifter, and some people have more muscle fibres than others.

Source-ANI
TAN