If You Could Crush A Hand While You Were Armwrestling You Would Win Every Match…
Imagine having Superman-like strength when it came to shaking hands. Now imagine that strength translated to armwrestling. You would win every time if you could crush an opponent’s hand with your grip.
How Much Force Would It Take?
Bones crush and break depending on three key elements: surface area of the force (is it applied in a small area, or over a large area), the angle of the force, and the position of the force.
For most bones, it takes 100 lbs per square inch (PSI) to break bones—especially if it is a smaller bone with the force applied over a smaller area.
It takes roughly 1500 newtons of force to crush fingers—roughly 337 lbs of crushing strength. Also, it is essential to note that to break and crush all the bones in an opponent’s hand, you must equally apply 337 lbs of crushing strength across the entire hand. This is already panning out to be a herculean feat!
Is It Possible To Crush With 337 lbs Of Force?
For a moment in time? Yes! The closest we have is Brian Shaw, an incredible strongman athlete, who could grip a dynamometer for 162.4 kilograms of force. This is roughly 358 lbs of force. This is objectively outrageous!
The catch—it is only for a moment. It most likely would not be enough to break a hand outright if it is just a half-a-second at 358 lbs of force.
You Can Push The Limits
Is breaking someone’s hand with grip and crushing strength alone possible? Most likely not. If you find someone who can, you might have found Superman or a Gorilla. Silverback Gorillas have over 700 PSI of grip strength—they could crush your skull with one hand!