Heavier Skeletons and Increased Strength Effects On Worldbuilding

[Spacescifi]

Scenario: Humanoids the same size of humans with skeletons 10x heavier than humans, yet strong enough that they act as if  they weighed only 1x like a normal human.

The average adult human skeleton is 20.5 kilograms, so 10× that is over 200 kilograms of skeleton.

 

How much stronger would they be? 10x more than a normal human?

 

How much stronger than a normal human would they have to be to walk around with a 200 kg skeleton as if it were only only 20.5 kg.

 

That brings their body full weight to... likely close to a ton!

Wow. The bones would have to be really strong not to crush under the super strong muscles.

Body heat would be a problem, so I would expect them getting a fever anytime they used their super strength.

Which means a colder climate would be preferred for any superheroic feats, but a hot day they would either need a cooling suit or just save it for swimming only.

Actually swimming may tire a person weighing about a ton fast, since even with 10x human strength they would be more inclined to sink like a stone since they would be so dense.

Could such a person even swim at all witj only human speed reaction times? Or would they just sink like a stone and drown?

Who knew? Drowning and overheating would be the greatest weakness of a humanoid no larger than a normal human but 10x stronger due to stronger and likely denser and heavier muscles, and with 200 kg skeleton.

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Spacescifi

[SOXBLOX]

Bones of pig iron and lead, huh?

It sounds like if they made any fast movement, their bones would fall through their flesh from inertia. You'd need much tougher ligaments and tendons and whatnot, I think. But I'm not a biologist/doctor/somethinglikethat, so...

[Spacescifi]

5 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Bones of pig iron and lead, huh?

It sounds like if they made any fast movement, their bones would fall through their flesh from inertia. You'd need much tougher ligaments and tendons and whatnot, I think. But I'm not a biologist/doctor/somethinglikethat, so...

 

Movement as quick as a normal human.

 

Physics indicates such a person would be better off being larger in size, to compensate for heat managment and density issues that make swimming really difficult if not impossible.

Still... going with the classic superhero who looks human instead and is no larger, physics indicates that 10x the strength and nearly as much heavier comes with a price.

Only swim in shallow pools and avoid the heat. Seek out cold climates.

Hopefully their homeworld is like Hoth or something.

[kerbiloid]

Their canned meat requires 10 times less volume.

Makes sense.

[lemon cup]

4 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Bones of pig iron and lead, huh?

It sounds like if they made any fast movement, their bones would fall through their flesh from inertia. You'd need much tougher ligaments and tendons and whatnot, I think. But I'm not a biologist/doctor/somethinglikethat, so...

That is the first place my mind went when reading this too. Think of the pressure being exerted on the bottoms of this humanoid’s feet, which are theoretically the same (surface area, flesh composition and thickness etc) to a regular human, just from standing still not moving.

So skin would have to be of a different composition than human skin, to avoid damage from the weight of standing, sitting, lying down. And blood vessels would also have to be stronger to resist being crushed or ruptured, cutting off circulation.

 

 

[Piscator]

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Physics indicates such a person would be better off being larger in size, to compensate for heat managment and density issues that make swimming really difficult if not impossible

Actually, a creature with bones made from osmium foam would rather benefit from small size. The strength/mass ratio of muscles decreases with size, so a cat-sized or even ant-sized organism would be substantially better off than a human-sized one.

Apart from that, while high density bones seem at least marginally physically possible, high-density muscle on the other hand seems much less so. At the very least, I don't see how high density would offer any strength benefits. In other words, you either find another way to strengthen your muscles sufficiently to lug your 260ish kg of body weight around or you add some layers of regular muscle, which would probably create thermal issues from the fact alone that you would rapidly approach sphere shape.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, Piscator said:

Actually, a creature with bones made from osmium foam would rather benefit from small size. The strength/mass ratio of muscles decreases with size, so a cat-sized or even ant-sized organism would be substantially better off than a human-sized one.

Apart from that, while high density bones seem at least marginally physically possible, high-density muscle on the other hand seems much less so. At the very least, I don't see how high density would offer any strength benefits. In other words, you either find another way to strengthen your muscles sufficiently to lug your 260ish kg of body weight around or you add some layers of regular muscle, which would probably create thermal issues from the fact alone that you would rapidly approach sphere shape.

 

 

I thought the strength ratio of muscles decreased with weight?

Weight increases faster than strength?

Anyway sounds like modding the humanoid shape can be done only in a very limited way without overhauling it entirely into something else.

Like you change the inner organs a bit, but not much else.

Examples: Take your lungs and increase the air sacs (avevoli or spelled close) and also increase you body's blood's ability to transfer oxygen.

 

Now you can hold your breath under water for several minutes without breaking a sweat.

 

That's hpw dolphins do it.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@Spacescifi as a 6'7" former Marine forced to compete with the typically short Jarheads I encountered in such things as pull ups and push-ups, let me share with you a little known fact... Short and stocky has an advantage.  Shorter levers mean less muscle mass is required to move a given weight to full extension, especially when the given weight is defined as their own weight/body mass - but it also holds true for two people lifting the same mass. 

"The longer the third class lever, the greater the force needed to support or move a given resistance"

http://www.takanoweightlifting.com/new-blogs/2019/11/12/the-height-to-bodyweight-relationship-for-weightlifters

"Bodyweight exercises become more difficult the taller you get, because muscle power tends to increase linearly, while mass increases exponentially. Basically, the bigger you are, the less efficient your power output is"

"Physics will tell you a shorter lever is more efficient than a long one, and efficiency is pretty damn important when it comes to muscular endurance" 

. https://www.google.com/amp/s/taskandpurpose.com/health-fitness/the-struggle-is-real-for-tall-people-in-the-gym/%3famp

 

. 

All of this aside - there was one area where I had a distinct advantage: the long distance Ruck March with a full load.  Take the proverbial 70 lb pack.  At 235 pounds (my 'fighting weight'), that pack was less than 1/3 of my weight.  Contrast that with the 185 lb short guys who crushed me in the pushup and pull up competition... In the long march, they got their butts kicked by the pack. 

 

I haven't done the work lately - but my past reading on the subject tells me that should humans land on and colonize a denser planet with greater gravity than ours, in very short order they will evolve to be shorter and stockier than we are here. Efficiency is a big part of why. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Basically, the bigger you are, the less efficient your power output is

Per mass unit, not the absolute.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Short and stocky has an advantage. 

LOTR is all about this.

[Piscator]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

because muscle power tends to increase linearly, while mass increases exponentially.

As far as I know, both grow exponentially, but with different exponents. Power increases quadratically while mass increases cubically.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 minutes ago, Piscator said:

As far as I know, both grow exponentially, but with different exponents. Power increases quadratically while mass increases cubically.

Source?  I'd like to read more into that, if possible.

[Piscator]

Wikipedia seems to support what I remembered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_architecture#Force_generation

Muscle force is essentially proportional to the muscle's cross-section (an area) while the mass is of course proportional to the volume. A person twice as tall (yeah, yeah) would therefore have four times the muscular cross-section but weigh eight times as much. (Amusingly, the tall person would also have twice the body mass index, but that's a tangent.)