Many cases have been described when, having found themselves in an extreme situation, a person showed enormous strength, in particular, he was able to lift a passenger car in order to free a person trapped by it. We decided to check whether a person really becomes so strong under critical conditions.

For example, in 2012, ABC toldthat 22-year-old Lauren Kornacki lifted a BMW 525i passenger car, which fell off the jack and fell on her father. The girl was able not only to free him, but also to perform resuscitation, which allowed him to survive until the doctors arrived. At the same time, she never engaged in strength sports. Even earlier, in 1982, reportedthat in the city of Lawrenceville (Georgia), Angela Cavallo freed her son from under a 1964 Chevrolet Impala that had fallen on him. She was able to lift a car weighing 1.75 tons 10 cm above the ground.

Such phenomena are manifestations of the so-called hysterical force. Several dozen such situations have been described in which people allegedly lifted not only cars, but also SUVs, as well as agricultural equipment. technique. Scientists are extremely skeptical about such manifestations of endurance, since such situations cannot be simulated artificially and this phenomenon cannot be proven experimentally. “You can’t organize such an experiment in a laboratory - after all, people need to believe that their lives are in real danger,” explains E. Paul Zehr is a lecturer in neurobiology and kinesiology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

Awakening such physical strength in extreme conditions connected with an adrenaline rush. A stressful situation stimulates the hypothalamus, an area of the brain that is also responsible for the balance of tension and relaxation. It sends a signal to the adrenal glands, which begin to intensively produce adrenaline (scientifically called epinephrine) and norepinephrine (norepinephrine). These two hormones increase your heart rate, speed up your breathing, dilate your pupils, and slow down your digestion. The level of oxygen saturation in the blood increases sharply. Adrenaline also speeds up the conversion of glycogen into glucose, which gives a huge boost of energy. All these processes are evolutionarily adjusted and occur almost instantly, which allows you to quickly begin to act in critical situations, including lifting heavy objects.

In sports, an exercise where an athlete bends down and lifts a barbell with several plates from the ground is called a deadlift. World record belongs Lithuanian athlete Zydrunas Savickas, who was able to lift 523.8 kg. It turns out that in cases of hysterical strength, an ordinary person should be two to three times the athlete's record.

However, researchers converge in the opinion that in such stories the weight lifted is most often overestimated. If we consider the example of a car, then the weight of the entire car is taken as the lifted weight. At the same time, in order to free a trapped person, it is necessary to lift only one side of it. In this case, the weight is distributed to those wheels that remain on the ground. It is also worth considering that the machine is not uniform in weight: the heaviest part - the cylinder block - is usually located in the front central area, and is usually lifted from the outer parts. Thus, the most realistic weight seems to be 150–200 kg.

One of those who experienced a surge of hysterical strength is 32-year-old Nick Harris. To free his six-year-old neighbor, he raised Mercury sedan. After the incident, he tried to repeat this several times, but he never managed to even slightly lift the other cars off the ground. This indirectly confirms that outside of extreme situations a person without special training is not capable of this.

Robert Girandola, professor of kinesiology at the University of Southern California, confirms: “Obviously, we have this potential within us; there is nothing supernatural in such a manifestation of power. Although, of course, no one lifts the whole car.”

Thus, stories about heroes lifting cars to save people trapped under them did happen, but the weight being lifted was incorrectly indicated in them. A person in an extreme situation is quite capable of lifting the edge of the car a few centimeters, which is usually enough to remove the victim. At the same time, no one has ever lifted entire cars into the air.