6 ms·

Grip Strength by Age and Sex

38 points by version_five 5y ago

hirundo 5y ago
The age distribution is as interesting as the sex distribution. I wouldn't have guessed that the peak is around 30 years. At 60 years I have an even shot at out-squeezing an 18 year old. I would have bet on the 18 year old.
rayiner 5y ago
Of course this is no surprise to anyone whose family hunted or farmed or went to war within living memory. It wasn’t because of arbitrary gender roles that my wife’s grandpa was the one in charge of dressing the deer carcass and hauling it to the truck. Likewise it was my uncle that killed a bunch of Pakistanis to win his country’s independence, not his sisters. I must admit I’m a bit puzzled by the (I must assume fringe minority) of folks who insist that the equality of men and women is literal, not moral. We’re lucky today that most jobs don’t implicate men’s natural advantage in strength. It’s not relevant to doctors and lawyers and engineers. So what’s the point of denying the obvious? I sometimes wonder whether it’s motivated by a need to make the past seem more irrational and unfair than it really was. (Traditional gender roles probably seemed much more fair when men were regularly getting injured bringing home game animals or dying to protect the homestead.)
- bobkazamakis 5y ago
  - rayiner 5y ago
    When you read a study saying “grass is green” do you try to put aside your preconceived “worldview” and be prepared to “reconcile your stance with new data?” Also, I’m using the terminology correctly. The point is that gender roles are shaped by real sex differences in physical strength.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      You would if you were Japanese for whom the grass is "blue". But me? I like to call a spade a spade myself.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  It sounds like you are just trying to make an unnecessary point about gender roles which isn't actually universal. Among many Native America/First Nations tribes, dressing a carcass was a task performed by women...
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I said “dressing and dragging”—my wife’s grandpa would field dress the deer and bring it back home. Her grandma knew how to dress the deer, which doesn’t require much upper body strength. But she wasn’t the one who was dragging it back to the truck and loading it on. To my knowledge Native American women weren’t doing that either.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  >folks who insist that the equality of men and women is literal As far as I can tell, this opinion, held without qualification, is beyond fringe - it is vanishingly rare, and frequently pointed to as a strawman in arguments about [in]equality (see the dead sarcastic comment in this very thread: "This is considered highly controversial in 2022"). I hate to say "non-existent", because somebody will find some example, but even then, usually when I see a supposed example of it, it is actually an example of something dramatically lesser, like "women can be as strong as men", or "women are just as [metaphorically] strong as men", not the ridiculous "women and men have no inherent differences, literally", which can only exist as a form of provocation, not an earnest opinion. It seems like a distraction to insinuate otherwise, designed to create an easily mocked image to be projected onto people who don't actually match the description.
  - JamesBarney 5y ago
    https://twitter.com/shereebekker/status/1504899936843935746 https://twitter.com/shereebekker/status/1504899936843935746 Just saw this tweet this morning. A professor arguing women's sports exist to protect men from having to compete with women.
    - bennyelv 5y ago
      You have either misunderstood or misrepresented this. My grok of what has been said here is quite different. The tweet author has pointed out some quite legitimate examples of when women have been excluded for reasons that can't be justified by "different strength capabilities": - Skeet shooting - Womens professional football being banned - Figure skating I don't agree with her broader points, but I don't think this is an example of what this particular thread is about.
- dekhn 5y ago
  the literal physical equality things was a sad side effect of the gender/sexuality wars of the mid-to-late 2010s. IIUC it came about because of twisted logic tryng to say that "women and men are capable of doing all the same jobs" and following that to a logical conclusion, rather than questioning the premise. for a while it was hard to even push back against this (for example, inside a large FAANG filled with employees who are terrified of the progressive wing) and there is even a fair amount of scientific literature (mostly opinion articles in nature) that seem to continue to propagate these ideas.
thrill 5y ago
I hope to never shake hands with that one 35 yr-old dude on the chart.
throw0101a 5y ago
On the topic of grip strength, "Grip Strength: An Indispensable Biomarker For Older Adults": > Several authors have recommended grip strength as a “useful indicator for overall health,”[16] a vital sign[4,5] and as a biomarker of health status.[3,138,139] The purpose of this literature review was to provide an up-to-date, thorough and balanced synopsis of evidence for using grip strength as a biomarker of current and future health status. Based on the review it appears that there is adequate evidence to support the use of grip strength as an explanatory or predictive biomarker of specific outcomes such as generalized strength and function, bone mineral density, fractures, and falls, nutritional status, disease status and comorbidity load, cognition, depression, and sleep, hospital-related variables, and mortality. Based on this evidence and the promotion by others,[140] the routine implementation of the measurement of grip strength can be recommended for older adults in the community and health-care settings. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6778477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6778477/ (There are notes on some limitations of the metric.)
entropicgravity 5y ago
Between males and females most female muscles are about 90% as strong as males, except for wrist/hand strength which is about 60% as strong. It's hard to come up with an evolutionary advantage for this anomalous result.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  I assume that the higher wrist/hand strength in males was necessary for handling the weapons during hunting. Humans had been dependent on hunting during more than 1 million years, enough time for this characteristic to be improved by selection.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    What evolutionary advantage would required that males did the hunting and fighting? If you’re going to walk the “just so” path of evolutionary biology, you may as well walk the path to its end. Alternatively - and much more unsettling - hand strength could have had a direct selective advantage by making it easier to restrain females without their consent.
    - popcube 5y ago
      in more happiness way, more power mean that guy can take more food to home -- better husband or father.
      - Ancapistani 5y ago
        Sure - but again, why would that advantage apply disproportionately to males?
    - lukas099 5y ago
      Sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive.
bluenose69 5y ago
A quick websearch uncovered the following, which might be of interest to those who want to know more about such data. * Wang, Ying-Chih, Richard W. Bohannon, Xiaoyan Li, Bhagwant Sindhu, and Jay Kapellusch. “Hand-Grip Strength: Normative Reference Values and Equations for Individuals 18 to 85 Years of Age Residing in the United States.” Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy 48, no. 9 (September 2018): 685–93. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2018.7851 https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2018.7851.
sterlind 5y ago
when I went on estrogen I was surprised how much strength I lost, especially grip strength. I couldn't open jars that I'd been previously able to brute-force through. I hadn't been working out either before or during transition. I've heard muscles are "use it or lose it" on hormones - you can retain the increased strength from testosterone - somewhat - through training, but if you don't it's gone for good.
- sverona 5y ago
  The age-old joke is that trans girls want pickles (spironolactone gives you salt cravings) but can't open the jars. Also, even with regular weight training I've still lost about 20% of my pre-HRT strength.
- clove 5y ago
  Have you considered balancing out your estrogen with some testosterone? You could go on a low dose and get your strength back.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    I should consider it. I have EDS, which disproportionally affects women for hormonal reasons. T might help me build muscle to compensate for my elastic connective tissue. but I remember feeling like I'd been poisoned when I had to go off hormones for a while and felt T come back. couldn't hurt to try though.
    - actuallyalys 5y ago
      A blood test might be a good start. My suspicion is that if you're at or below the typical range for cisgender woman, you might have more room for adjustment before feeling poisoned.
JoeyBananas 5y ago
lazyant 5y ago
(on a first date?) "men are afraid to be rejected, women are afraid of being killed" or "it's like dating a bear" given the disproportion in strength
zs234465234165 5y ago
Curious if the mid 30s distribution is from carrying infants around

38 points by version_five 5y ago

The age distribution is as interesting as the sex distribution. I wouldn't have guessed that the peak is around 30 years. At 60 years I have an even shot at out-squeezing an 18 year old. I would have bet on the 18 year old.

rayiner 5y ago

Of course this is no surprise to anyone whose family hunted or farmed or went to war within living memory. It wasn’t because of arbitrary gender roles that my wife’s grandpa was the one in charge of dressing the deer carcass and hauling it to the truck. Likewise it was my uncle that killed a bunch of Pakistanis to win his country’s independence, not his sisters. I must admit I’m a bit puzzled by the (I must assume fringe minority) of folks who insist that the equality of men and women is literal, not moral. We’re lucky today that most jobs don’t implicate men’s natural advantage in strength. It’s not relevant to doctors and lawyers and engineers. So what’s the point of denying the obvious? I sometimes wonder whether it’s motivated by a need to make the past seem more irrational and unfair than it really was. (Traditional gender roles probably seemed much more fair when men were regularly getting injured bringing home game animals or dying to protect the homestead.)

bobkazamakis 5y ago
- rayiner 5y ago
  When you read a study saying “grass is green” do you try to put aside your preconceived “worldview” and be prepared to “reconcile your stance with new data?” Also, I’m using the terminology correctly. The point is that gender roles are shaped by real sex differences in physical strength.
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    You would if you were Japanese for whom the grass is "blue". But me? I like to call a spade a spade myself.
gamblor956 5y ago
It sounds like you are just trying to make an unnecessary point about gender roles which isn't actually universal. Among many Native America/First Nations tribes, dressing a carcass was a task performed by women...
- rayiner 5y ago
  I said “dressing and dragging”—my wife’s grandpa would field dress the deer and bring it back home. Her grandma knew how to dress the deer, which doesn’t require much upper body strength. But she wasn’t the one who was dragging it back to the truck and loading it on. To my knowledge Native American women weren’t doing that either.
happytoexplain 5y ago
>folks who insist that the equality of men and women is literal As far as I can tell, this opinion, held without qualification, is beyond fringe - it is vanishingly rare, and frequently pointed to as a strawman in arguments about [in]equality (see the dead sarcastic comment in this very thread: "This is considered highly controversial in 2022"). I hate to say "non-existent", because somebody will find some example, but even then, usually when I see a supposed example of it, it is actually an example of something dramatically lesser, like "women can be as strong as men", or "women are just as [metaphorically] strong as men", not the ridiculous "women and men have no inherent differences, literally", which can only exist as a form of provocation, not an earnest opinion. It seems like a distraction to insinuate otherwise, designed to create an easily mocked image to be projected onto people who don't actually match the description.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  https://twitter.com/shereebekker/status/1504899936843935746 https://twitter.com/shereebekker/status/1504899936843935746 Just saw this tweet this morning. A professor arguing women's sports exist to protect men from having to compete with women.
  - bennyelv 5y ago
    You have either misunderstood or misrepresented this. My grok of what has been said here is quite different. The tweet author has pointed out some quite legitimate examples of when women have been excluded for reasons that can't be justified by "different strength capabilities": - Skeet shooting - Womens professional football being banned - Figure skating I don't agree with her broader points, but I don't think this is an example of what this particular thread is about.
dekhn 5y ago
the literal physical equality things was a sad side effect of the gender/sexuality wars of the mid-to-late 2010s. IIUC it came about because of twisted logic tryng to say that "women and men are capable of doing all the same jobs" and following that to a logical conclusion, rather than questioning the premise. for a while it was hard to even push back against this (for example, inside a large FAANG filled with employees who are terrified of the progressive wing) and there is even a fair amount of scientific literature (mostly opinion articles in nature) that seem to continue to propagate these ideas.

thrill 5y ago

I hope to never shake hands with that one 35 yr-old dude on the chart.

throw0101a 5y ago

On the topic of grip strength, "Grip Strength: An Indispensable Biomarker For Older Adults": > Several authors have recommended grip strength as a “useful indicator for overall health,”[16] a vital sign[4,5] and as a biomarker of health status.[3,138,139] The purpose of this literature review was to provide an up-to-date, thorough and balanced synopsis of evidence for using grip strength as a biomarker of current and future health status. Based on the review it appears that there is adequate evidence to support the use of grip strength as an explanatory or predictive biomarker of specific outcomes such as generalized strength and function, bone mineral density, fractures, and falls, nutritional status, disease status and comorbidity load, cognition, depression, and sleep, hospital-related variables, and mortality. Based on this evidence and the promotion by others,[140] the routine implementation of the measurement of grip strength can be recommended for older adults in the community and health-care settings. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6778477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6778477/ (There are notes on some limitations of the metric.)

entropicgravity 5y ago

Between males and females most female muscles are about 90% as strong as males, except for wrist/hand strength which is about 60% as strong. It's hard to come up with an evolutionary advantage for this anomalous result.

adrian_b 5y ago
I assume that the higher wrist/hand strength in males was necessary for handling the weapons during hunting. Humans had been dependent on hunting during more than 1 million years, enough time for this characteristic to be improved by selection.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  What evolutionary advantage would required that males did the hunting and fighting? If you’re going to walk the “just so” path of evolutionary biology, you may as well walk the path to its end. Alternatively - and much more unsettling - hand strength could have had a direct selective advantage by making it easier to restrain females without their consent.
  - popcube 5y ago
    in more happiness way, more power mean that guy can take more food to home -- better husband or father.
    - Ancapistani 5y ago
      Sure - but again, why would that advantage apply disproportionately to males?
  - lukas099 5y ago
    Sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive.

bluenose69 5y ago

A quick websearch uncovered the following, which might be of interest to those who want to know more about such data. * Wang, Ying-Chih, Richard W. Bohannon, Xiaoyan Li, Bhagwant Sindhu, and Jay Kapellusch. “Hand-Grip Strength: Normative Reference Values and Equations for Individuals 18 to 85 Years of Age Residing in the United States.” Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy 48, no. 9 (September 2018): 685–93. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2018.7851 https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2018.7851.

sterlind 5y ago

when I went on estrogen I was surprised how much strength I lost, especially grip strength. I couldn't open jars that I'd been previously able to brute-force through. I hadn't been working out either before or during transition. I've heard muscles are "use it or lose it" on hormones - you can retain the increased strength from testosterone - somewhat - through training, but if you don't it's gone for good.

sverona 5y ago
The age-old joke is that trans girls want pickles (spironolactone gives you salt cravings) but can't open the jars. Also, even with regular weight training I've still lost about 20% of my pre-HRT strength.
clove 5y ago
Have you considered balancing out your estrogen with some testosterone? You could go on a low dose and get your strength back.
- sterlind 5y ago
  I should consider it. I have EDS, which disproportionally affects women for hormonal reasons. T might help me build muscle to compensate for my elastic connective tissue. but I remember feeling like I'd been poisoned when I had to go off hormones for a while and felt T come back. couldn't hurt to try though.
  - actuallyalys 5y ago
    A blood test might be a good start. My suspicion is that if you're at or below the typical range for cisgender woman, you might have more room for adjustment before feeling poisoned.

JoeyBananas 5y ago

lazyant 5y ago

(on a first date?) "men are afraid to be rejected, women are afraid of being killed" or "it's like dating a bear" given the disproportion in strength

zs234465234165 5y ago

Curious if the mid 30s distribution is from carrying infants around