WEBVTT - Can People Really Get Hysterical Strength?

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

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<v Speaker 1>from how stuff works dot Com? Hi, and welcome to

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<v Speaker 1>the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot Com with me today is fellow staff

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<v Speaker 1>writer an extraordinary guy, Charles Bryant. How are you, Chuck.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm great, I'm extraordinary. Thanks for having me, Chuck. I

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<v Speaker 1>am so jazz. I've got like all this adrenaline pumping

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<v Speaker 1>through right now. I feel like I lived a car.

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<v Speaker 1>I could throw this table across the room and you

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<v Speaker 1>might Yeah, have you heard of these stories about people

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<v Speaker 1>like picking cars up of all other people? Yeah? I have.

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<v Speaker 1>It's you know, you might think it's an urban legend.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, you hear these stories about people just chunking

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<v Speaker 1>a buick off of their son when they're trapped underneath it.

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<v Speaker 1>But it's actually true. There's plenty of documented cases. Uh.

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<v Speaker 1>When you were researching this, you found a bunch of

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<v Speaker 1>good ones. My favorite was the Granny and Texas. This

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<v Speaker 1>is my favorite to actually. Yeah. Murray Peyton, who her

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<v Speaker 1>nickname is Boots. We call her Bootsy around the office,

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<v Speaker 1>right and I think everyone calls her boot lovingly. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>we love Bootsy. So Bootsy was cutting her grass in

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<v Speaker 1>Texas one day on a riding more. Um, I don't

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<v Speaker 1>know if she fell off or what, but somehow the

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<v Speaker 1>Lawmar got away from her and it kind of kept

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<v Speaker 1>on going, and her little granddaughter, Evie, thought it might

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<v Speaker 1>be a good idea to stop the riding more with

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<v Speaker 1>I guess superpower. She jumped in front of it, all

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<v Speaker 1>a super girl. It was the impression I have, and um,

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<v Speaker 1>I imagined. Poor Evie suffered quite a start when she

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<v Speaker 1>found that her superpowers had failed her and she was

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<v Speaker 1>suddenly pinned beneath a running rider motor right. She suffered

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<v Speaker 1>more than that, Josh. She lost four of her little

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<v Speaker 1>toes as a result, and she probably would have lost

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<v Speaker 1>a lot more if it hadn't have been for super

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<v Speaker 1>Granny coming in there. Yeah, yeah, Marie. Yeah, So Bootsy

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<v Speaker 1>flies in there, well not literally, but she she runs

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<v Speaker 1>in there and she picks up this Lawmar and throws

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<v Speaker 1>it off of her granddaughter, you know, saving her life.

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<v Speaker 1>Threw it off of her like it was a piece

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<v Speaker 1>of cardboard, like a piece of cardboard or maybe something

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<v Speaker 1>even lighter. And actually after the I imagine after the

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<v Speaker 1>tremblings have decided and eve these injuries have been attended to. Uh,

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<v Speaker 1>Marie went back over kind of curious and tried to

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<v Speaker 1>pick up the lawnmoard again, couldn't budget. She couldn't even

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<v Speaker 1>pined over. No, I'm sure. And what what we're talking

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<v Speaker 1>about here and what boots he experienced is something called

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<v Speaker 1>hysterical strength, and it's not actually recognized by the medical community.

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<v Speaker 1>Did you know that? Yeah? I did, because you know,

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<v Speaker 1>there's no way you can really follow up and do

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<v Speaker 1>a study on something like this, right, and and and

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<v Speaker 1>for something to be experimented on, it has to be

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<v Speaker 1>you know, it has to be able to be replicated.

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<v Speaker 1>And you you can't just throw a kid beneath the

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<v Speaker 1>car in a lab and see what the parents do.

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<v Speaker 1>You could? You could, It's unethical and you'd lose your

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<v Speaker 1>funding very quickly. Yeah, but so you know, medical science

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<v Speaker 1>hasn't taken many steps to explain it. But these cases

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<v Speaker 1>are widely documented. There's lots of witnesses that kind of thing,

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<v Speaker 1>and it seems to be an extension of the fight

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<v Speaker 1>or flight response. You know much about this? Yeah? I do? Okay, Well,

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<v Speaker 1>I'll tell everybody else. Then you just sit there quietly.

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<v Speaker 1>So basically, let's say you're walking down the street and

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<v Speaker 1>you're eating a hot dog and you come upon a

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<v Speaker 1>lion and he is loose and he's hungry. That happens

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<v Speaker 1>all the time, all right, Well, that this hot dog

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<v Speaker 1>is being digested until your fight or flight response kicks in,

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<v Speaker 1>which is from the sympathetic system. Uh, it takes over

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<v Speaker 1>all of a sudden, adrenalinees released. That hot dog is

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<v Speaker 1>no longer being digested. Instead, all the energy on stuff

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<v Speaker 1>that's that's peripheral, all of a sudden to this danger

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<v Speaker 1>is transferred over to things like increasing your heart rate,

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<v Speaker 1>your respiration, your pupils dilate so you can take in

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<v Speaker 1>more visual information, that kind of thing. And basically you

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<v Speaker 1>go from the dull stare of the dairy cow to

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<v Speaker 1>the eye of the tiger, and seconds flat, you're ready

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<v Speaker 1>to go. The way this connects to hysterical strength, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>like lifting a car is in this fight or flight response,

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<v Speaker 1>your muscles contract, They shorten and tighten um so that

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<v Speaker 1>you can run faster, throw a harder punch, you know

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<v Speaker 1>that kind of thing. Um and your skeletal muscles actually

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<v Speaker 1>contract by receiving electrical impulses from your brain. Yeah, exactly.

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<v Speaker 1>They you know, have you ever been electrocuted twice? Well,

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<v Speaker 1>if you if you get a sudden surge of electricity,

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of times you'll be shot across the room

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<v Speaker 1>or across the street or you know, who knows where

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<v Speaker 1>you could land. Uh. And a lot of people think

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<v Speaker 1>this is probably just like a blast from the electrical box,

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<v Speaker 1>but that's not the case. It's actually your own muscles

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<v Speaker 1>doing all the work. You just get such a surge

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<v Speaker 1>of electrical impulse that you tap into this energy and

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<v Speaker 1>and your muscles you didn't know you had. Yeah, you're

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<v Speaker 1>you're actually throwing yourself, which which illustrates this kind of

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<v Speaker 1>untapped reserve of of muscular strength. Well yeah, and it

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<v Speaker 1>makes you kind of wonder why, you know, you don't

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<v Speaker 1>walk around like that all the time and just be

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<v Speaker 1>you know, a race of you know, superheroes, right or

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<v Speaker 1>people ready to beat up a line at any given moment.

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<v Speaker 1>Right right, Well, I'll tell you why, Chuck. The short

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<v Speaker 1>answer is that it would kill us, uh in fairly

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<v Speaker 1>short order. The whole goal to our body is homeostasis,

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<v Speaker 1>which is like this balance between you know the eye

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<v Speaker 1>of the tiger and the dulstair of the dairy cow.

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<v Speaker 1>That kind of thing. Um and uh. If we don't

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<v Speaker 1>achieve homeostasis, if we're in the state of hyper arousal,

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<v Speaker 1>we get worn down, our hearts, wear down, more susceptible

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<v Speaker 1>the illness. That kind of thing. Well, and you can

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<v Speaker 1>feel that, you can and you can see it actually too.

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<v Speaker 1>You and I both know from being overworked you you

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<v Speaker 1>get worn down and you'll eventually die because you're in

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<v Speaker 1>a state of stress well exactly, Josh, Like you know,

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<v Speaker 1>like a stress induced or a work related heart attack exactly.

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<v Speaker 1>And you can avoid a stress related heart attack or

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<v Speaker 1>work related heart attack by taking some time out of

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<v Speaker 1>your day and reading how can adrenaline help you lift

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<v Speaker 1>a thirty pound car? On how stuff works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

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