People have always been interested in what lies beyond ordinary perception, in what is inaccessible to the majority. However, along with interest there was also fear due to the lack reliable information and the unknown.
Recently, paranormal or unusual abilities of people have become the subject of social and scientific research, philistine gossip and newspaper publications. What kind of abilities are these? Where do they come from?
Despite the fact that the human body has already been well studied by doctors and scientists, still...
...mysteries remain that are beyond our understanding.
There are many amazing cases that happened to ordinary people and were published in the press. Some events simply cannot be explained by modern science.
So, perhaps the most famous case occurred when a mother was walking with her little son and got distracted. The child ran out onto the road and was hit by a car. Seeing this picture, the baby’s mother rushed to his aid and lifted the car. It is this case that in our time is most often described by scientists as proof that the human body has hidden abilities.
Another fairly famous incident occurred during the war. The pilot's steering became jammed due to a bolt caught in the mechanism. Fearing death, the pilot began to pull the handle with all his strength and miraculously was able to right the plane. After landing, the mechanics carefully examined the controls and found a sheared bolt. As a result of the examination, it turned out that in order to cut such a bolt, a force of 500 kilograms would be required.
One man was walking through the forest and accidentally came across a sleeping bear. Out of fear, he grabbed a log lying nearby and rushed to run towards the nearby village. When the danger was over, he threw the log to the ground, caught his breath and looked at it. It turned out to be a huge tree trunk, which he later could not drag alone from the road. The man couldn’t even explain to himself why he grabbed this log.
But such incredible stories happen not only when it comes to one’s own salvation.
There is another case. When the child fell out of the 7th floor window, his mother managed to grab him with one hand, and with the other she held on to the brick of the cornice, with only two fingers - the index and middle. She held on like that until the rescuers arrived, and then with difficulty they unclenched her fingers.
A 70-year-old woman carried her 40-year-old son, who was involved in an accident, for 13 kilometers on her back, never stopping or lowering him to the ground.
Some researchers claim that a person uses only 10% of his abilities. And this applies to both the body and the brain.
The hypnologist Vul demonstrated an amazing ability - he had the ability to suggest at a distance. Wool sent a letter by mail, in which the word was written in his handwriting: “Sleep!” If the patient had already been to see this doctor before, then upon receiving the letter he immediately fell asleep.
The French pop artist Michel Lotito had an amazing ability - he can eat everything he sees. When he was still a child, he “ate” a TV, and from the age of 15 he began to entertain people for money, eating rubber, glass and metal. Because Michel ate the plane (although it took about 2 years to eat it), he was included in the Guinness Book of Records. Biologist K. Richardson can spend an entire night in a cage with lions. For unknown reasons, the lions accept Richardson as one of their own. Thai Ngoc from Vietnam has not slept at all since 1973 - it started after he had a fever.
The phenomenon of Monica Tejada
Similar unexplained phenomena there are many in our world. An amazing phenomenon is demonstrated to scientists by Monica Tejada from Spain. Even metal objects bend under her gaze.
There are no tricks here. The scientists placed steel wire in a sealed glass vessel. However, this did not stop Monica from bending the solid thread into the shape of a dinosaur with a closed mouth. During this process, instruments recorded an increase in the girl’s body temperature and a decrease in its temperature. blood pressure. This combination leads doctors to a dead end. At the same time, the electroencephalograph showed biocurrents characteristic of a sleeping person. Monica has another gift - she can diagnose diseases.
In New Jersey, on the outskirts of Trenton, in the 40s, there lived a 90-year-old man named Al Herpin. There was neither a trestle bed nor a bed in his shack - Al Herpin had never slept in his entire life. The old man, who lived to that age, outlived the doctors who examined him. Al Herpin's appetite and health were good, and his mental abilities were average. Of course, after a day's work he was tired, but he could not sleep. The old man would simply sit in a chair and read until he felt rested. After regaining his physical strength, he returned to work. Doctors were unable to explain their patient’s chronic insomnia, just as they could not explain the source of his longevity.
There is a known case that occurred in a Russian village. There lived an old sick woman named Matryona. She could not hear well, could not see, and could hardly walk. One night her house caught fire. The whole village ran to the fire. Imagine the surprise of the people when they saw this old woman climbing over the high fence. Moreover, she was holding a large chest in her hands, which several men later could not lift. Where are the limits of human capabilities? And do they exist at all?
In Mexico City at the Olympic Games in 1968, an athlete named Robert Beamon was able to jump almost 9 meters. Of course, it seems impossible, but Robert's record was broken. And the record, which was set in 500 BC in Ancient Greece, looks absolutely fantastic - the athlete Fail then jumped almost 17 meters in length.
In New York in 1935, an absolutely normal-looking child was born. However, he lived only 26 days. After an autopsy, it turned out that the child had no brain. Although it is known that even the slightest damage to the cerebral cortex can lead to death.
The fact that there are people in the world who live with foreign objects in their bodies does not surprise anyone now. But an incident that occurred in one of the New York hospitals seems simply incredible. A person came to the hospital with a slight illness. Doctors conducted an examination and found more than 250 objects in his body. There were only 26 keys in the patient’s body. The man did not say where there were so many objects in his body.
An equally striking case occurred with a 12-year-old Russian boy who went to the hospital in a small town with complaints of dizziness and weakness. Upon examination, doctors discovered a bullet wound in the heart area. It is unknown how the boy received such a wound, and most importantly, how he survived. X-ray determined that the bullet was in the solar artery. The boy was urgently sent to Moscow, where the bullet was removed from his body. She made an incredible journey in the body - she pierced the lung and entered the heart, which pushed her into the aorta. The bullet moved along the vessel until it hit the solar artery.
The famous psychiatrist and neuropathologist Cesare Lombroso had a very solid reputation in scientific world. In his book “What After Death,” he told an incident that happened to a 14-year-old girl. She became blind, but at the same time she had a completely new and amazing ability to see.
Dr. Lombroso conducted research, which revealed that the girl sees through her left earlobe and nose. To exclude the slightest possibility of the girl’s eyes being involved, during the experiment the doctors covered them with a bandage so that peeking was completely excluded. However, despite the measures taken, the girl could easily read blindfolded and distinguish colors perfectly.
When a bright light flashed near her earlobe, she blinked, and when the doctor wanted to put his finger to the tip of her nose, she jumped back screaming that he wanted to blind her. There was an astonishing shift in the senses that affected more than just vision. When the experimenter brought a solution of ammonia to the girl’s nose, she did not react. But as soon as he brought the solution to her chin, she jerked in pain. She could smell scents with her chin.
It must be said that some people are able to completely control the abilities of their body. These include primarily Indian yogis. Perhaps the most amazing ability of yogis is that they can stop the beating of their own heart. Yogis can put themselves in a state of “death” - the work of the heart and breathing slow down, and other vital processes stop.
A yogi can remain in this state for quite a long time. So what powers are hidden in a person? Based on the above, we can assume that the capabilities of the human body are limitless. You just need to learn to control them.
Diamond tears
A woman named Hanuma, living in Africa, earned the nickname "Diamond" for her unusual ability to cry diamonds. Since childhood, Hanuma has not cried. The first time this happened was at the age of nine, when the girl peeled onions for the first time. Imagine the surprise of the girl’s parents when hard crystals began to fall from her eyes instead of tears.
The girl's father was a jeweler and, having examined the small crystals, he easily determined that they were real diamonds. The parents decided to keep Hanuma's unusual abilities a secret, and the father used his daughter's crystals to make jewelry, which was in great demand. One of the clients suspected something was wrong and submitted the diamond for examination, as a result of which it turned out that the stone was of organic origin. The girl became famous throughout the world. But scientists have not yet been able to uncover the secret of diamond tears.
Ice man
Dutch resident Wim Hof is not sensitive to any cold. Thanks to his unusual abilities, the Dutchman conquered Mountain peaks wearing only his underwear, swam for a long time in icy water and performed many similar feats.
Doctors carried out examinations of the body of an amazing person, but the results of the studies did not show any deviations from the norm in Vim’s body after cold procedures. The Dutchman's unusual abilities allow him to feel comfortable in conditions that would be fatal for any other person.
"Perpetual motion machine"
The baby, named Ret Lamba, who is three years old, has never slept in his life. He is awake around the clock. Ret’s parents, of course, were not delighted with their son’s abilities, but most of all they were concerned about the child’s health. However, as repeated medical examinations have shown, lack of sleep does not affect Ret’s health in any way; the boy is absolutely healthy.
Recent research has cleared up the picture a little. It turned out that the brain and nervous system of the amazing child are arranged in a special way, thanks to which the boy does not need sleep, his brain rests while awake.
Man is a reptile
History knows of cases where people had the ability to replace their skin with a new one, just like reptiles do. Born in 1851 in Missouri, S. Buskirk began changing his skin as a child. The most amazing thing is that this always happened on the same day - June 27th. The skin began to become rough, and then fell off in large pieces. She came off her arms and legs like gloves or socks.
After the old skin fell off, one could see in its place young, pink and tender skin, similar to that of newborn babies. Over the course of several years, Mr. Buskirk assembled a “leather” collection.
Glowing patient
Anna Monaro, who suffered from asthma, began to look like a fluorescent lamp in 1934. During her illness, a bluish glow emanated from her chest. This phenomenon lasted for several weeks and was documented by doctors. Sometimes the color of the glow changed to red and green. No one has been able to explain this phenomenon.
One psychiatrist suggested that "the phenomenon is caused by electrical and magnetic organisms that have become quite developed in this woman's body and are therefore emitting a radiance" - in other words, another way of saying, "I don't know." Another doctor proposed the theory of electromagnetic radiation, linking it with certain chemical components found in the patient’s skin, which was close to the then fashionable theory of bioluminescence.
Dr. Protti, who made a lengthy statement regarding his observations of Signora Monaro, suggested that her poor health, together with fasting and piety, had increased the amount of sulphides in the blood. Human blood emits rays in the ultraviolet range, and sulfides can be made to luminesce by ultraviolet irradiation, which explains the glow emanating from Signora Monaro's breast (The Times, May 5, 1934).
Anna Monaro
The proposed theory did not explain the strange periodicity or localization of the bluish flashes, and soon the confused researchers fell completely silent.
Gould and Pyle's 1937 book Anomalies and Curiosities in Medicine describes the case of a woman suffering from breast cancer. The light emanating from the sore area of the chest was sufficient to see the dial of a clock several feet away...
In Hareward Carrington's book Death: Its Causes and Related Phenomena, there is a mention of a child who died of indigestion. After death, the boy's body began to emit a bluish glow and spread heat. Attempts to extinguish this radiance led to nothing, but it soon stopped on its own. When the body was lifted from the bed, it was discovered that the sheet under it was burned... The only case of light emission was practically healthy person(not counting, of course, the saints) is described in the magazine “English Mechanic” dated September 24, 1869:
“One American woman, going to bed, discovered a glow on the top of the fourth toe of her right foot. When she rubbed her leg, the glow increased and some unknown force pushed her fingers apart. A stench emanated from the leg, and both the light emission and the smell did not stop even when the leg was immersed in a basin of water. Even soap could not extinguish or reduce the glow. This phenomenon lasted three quarters of an hour, and was observed by the woman’s husband.”
The Church views the phenomenon of “firefly people” approvingly. Pope Benedict XIV wrote: “...It must be recognized as a fact that there is a natural flame that sometimes becomes visible around the human head, and it also seems true that sometimes fire can emanate from the whole body of a person, but not like a fire rushing upward, but rather in the form of sparks flying in all directions.”
People are lightning
The body of an ordinary person is capable of generating small amounts, but not storing electricity. However, there are people whose unusual abilities are that they can accumulate electricity within themselves, and, when appropriate, release it onto surrounding objects.
For example, the journal Prediction published an article in 1953 that talked about a baby who electrocuted doctors. For another whole day, he retained tension within himself and was dangerous to others.
But it also happens that unusual abilities awaken in people only with age. A Chinese worker in 1988 began to notice some changes in his body, but could not understand what it was until he accidentally shocked his colleague, knocking him down with a shock.
Rif Mukharyanov is one of those people who were able to survive a lightning strike.
Back in 1965, Reef was struck by ball lightning, and he miraculously survived. Over time, he began to see strange dreams, which soon began to come true - his psychic abilities began to awaken.
When he had completely recovered from his illness, he became seriously ill good friend. The doctors did not know what to do and just shrugged, and it was then that Reef decided to take advantage of his new opportunities. Literally two weeks later, the friend stood firmly on his feet.
Living magnet
There are also people who have magnetism. The most amazing case of manifestation of magnetic abilities is the case of the American Frank McKinstry. His body was pulled towards the ground. Magnetism manifested itself especially strongly in the mornings. Frank had to move very quickly, without stopping, because his body would stick to the ground if he stopped for a couple of seconds, and then the man could no longer continue moving without outside help.
Often people do not realize that they have some unusual abilities. A resident of Germany, Erika Zur Strindberg, discovered the magnetic abilities of her body after watching a TV show that talked about the magnetism of a Russian woman, Natalia Petrasova.
Just for fun, the German woman put a spoon to her chest and it “stuck” to the woman. Then Eric was hung with almost all the cutlery to make sure he had an unusual ability.
Unusual abilities remain to be unraveled
Many scientists agree that this kind of ability is potentially inherent in every person, but they manifest themselves only in extreme situations or after severe life shocks. An example of this hypothesis is the fortuneteller Vanga, who, having lost her sight, gained the ability to foresee the future, the present of people and their past.
Also, the famous German clairvoyant Wolf Messing became the owner of his unusual abilities after staying for a long time in a state of clinical death. This happened when Messing was eleven years old.
There are many cases where people, having recovered from clinical death, acquired the ability to read minds and speak in previously unknown or even dead languages. An amazing incident happened to the polar explorer pilot Grigory Popov. While repairing the plane, Grigory heard some rustling behind him, turned around and saw a polar bear - one of the most dangerous predators. The pilot did not have time to understand anything, as he already found himself at a two-meter height - on the wing of the plane. He climbed there in one leap.
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09.12.2012 gost.vvv
Today we have already crossed the era of technological progress and are marching through the information era of humanity. In such an environment, we must make the most of our potential reserve - .
Now the task arises not so much of obtaining knowledge in the education system, but rather of teaching strategies, tactics for obtaining them in the practical activities of a person, and specifically rationally applicable knowledge (useful in life and work). In other words, you need to learn to think, receiving knowledge from the noosphere (sphere of the mind), your subconscious.
Science continues to explore the phenomenal capabilities of the human physical shell (body), but reliable knowledge is virtually absent. Therefore, many do not know how to improve, what needs to be done to release limitless possibilities person.
Today, even politicians understand that the main emphasis in the 21st century should be on the development of human abilities, which we have somewhat lost sight of in the development of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies.
It has now become obvious that it is no longer possible to effectively manage production, the economy, education, and science based on knowledge of managing systems and structures formed in previous centuries.
The use of computerization only slightly speeds up the execution of simple operations for statistical collection, processing, exchange of constantly outdated information, and process automation.
The most effective methods of personal self-development are based on self-knowledge and the disclosure of one’s abilities. For those who find it difficult to master them on their own, there are special schools developments using a variety of psychological methods impact.
Among pedagogical development methods, we can highlight the technology of individualization of training (Unta I.E., Granitskaya A.S. Shadrikova V.D.), based on the preservation and further development of a person’s individuality, his. Here it is assumed:
— formation personal qualities: hard work, creativity, independence, adequate self-esteem;
— development of motivation, development of cognitive interests;
— formation of skills, based on the zone of proximal development (optimal interests).
We can also highlight the theory of problem-based learning by T.A. Ilyin, based on:
— creation problematic situation, exit from it through independent activity, analysis;
— development of creative independence;
- active cognitive activity, which consists of searching and solving complex issues.
Theory of developmental learning Zankova L.V. Elkonina D.V. Davydova V.V., relies on:
— inclusion in the process of rational and emotional sphere;
— multivariate learning and cognition process;
- independent mental activity;
— creating an atmosphere of interest in each activity;
— selectivity in ways of knowing and working;
— rational choice significant species, forms of educational material, useful information;
- study of phenomena from various possible positions.
In addition, there are by means of which limitless human possibilities are becoming more and more subject to our minds. We can say that today the time has come to create centers and laboratories for discoveries in the field of human capabilities, which will mark the transition of humanity to a new round of civilizational development.
so that people think about their possibilities!
Human capabilities are limitless!
They took a glass jar into which they placed the fleas and then put a lid on them. The fleas, in their usual habit, jumped high, but they realized that it hurt because they hit their heads on the lid, and they began to jump a little short of reaching it so as not to hit their heads on obstacles.
The fleas stay in the jar for three days; after the lid is opened, not a single flea can jump higher than this limit! It is surprising that their behavior now will not change until the end of their lives, and what is most terrible is that even with further reproduction, all their offspring will follow their example.
Man acts according to absolutely the same principles. A man, trying not to bang his head against the wall, obeys many life situations and begins to restrain himself.
All sorts of difficult situations in life frighten us and can shake our truth and self-esteem. Just like fleas in a jar, we may not even realize that the lid has been gone for a long time and it has been removed, and now we have a choice!
Think about whether this invisible lid is slowing you down, in the form of TV, radio news, the media, your favorite environment, all these stupid stereotypes and templates. All this can form beliefs about our limitations, puts us in open jar where we can't afford to jump. Answer yourself, maybe you are sure that this or that idea can only bring you bruises and abrasions?!
How can you get rid of imaginary restrictions?
Analyze your life and highlight all your failures and achievements. Get it out of your head, no goals achieved, which are no longer relevant. And “reanimate” those you once selected important goals, which were desired with all your heart, which still light you up and with confidence in your strength and victory, set about implementing them. It will be very cool if you feel new inspiring dreams and goals, and see a new picture of your life.
Throw away the gray one and everyday life! Enjoy life and enjoy what you do! Be happy and indecently happy! Be free! You can do a lot! There is no lid, like that spoon in the movie "The Matrix".
For a long time people have been attaching great value their development and assessment of their own abilities. Centuries ago, there was an opinion that people chose the wrong vector of development. In what sense? Instead of making efforts and engaging in self-development, people do not stop working on what surrounds them. With little or no attention to self-care, a person tries to make the conditions around him as comfortable as possible. On the other hand, not all people have a materialistic mindset. Many people value things that money cannot buy. It is important to realize that the best "investment" is the effort made to improve a person's spiritual, social and physical capabilities.
Do you have potential?
One famous philosopher and psychologist William James, who lived in the 20th century, came to the conclusion that most people do not realize the potential that was originally inherent in them. According to him, every baby has prospects that its parents do not even think about. This is why most people remain at a low level of development of their talents - they do not realize how wide the horizon of their abilities is.
Let's look at examples of how human capabilities develop. New social skills are formed quite quickly. If people understood that they could learn something so quickly, their lives would turn out completely differently. For example, to be able to play well musical instrument and to become known as a master of his craft, it will take the average individual about one year. Is this too much? Not at all! The possibilities are so incredible that even in such a short period of time he can learn something truly wonderful. Therefore, thoughts that you will not achieve a certain level of development or a specific goal are often formed on the basis of stereotypes lazy people. To see how amazing they are, you just need to set a goal and pursue it. But what will help you achieve your goals and reveal new human capabilities?
The importance of systematic effort
Most people never achieve success because they are not persistent enough in their aspirations.
Patience and a little effort. This proverb accurately emphasizes the importance of systematic effort. Even if, in an effort to develop some kind of talent or quality, the attempts look unconvincing, and the results cannot be called victorious, it is important to continue to push the road in the intended direction every day and not give up.
Many people believe that they are special from birth.
So, people celebrate talented individuals. This is how many justify themselves. Don't think that talented people were born that way. In most cases, we see not so much gifted people, but hardworking and purposeful ones. It is important to make every effort to develop your personality. Such efforts bring great inner satisfaction.
Human physical capabilities develop according to the same principle. In this regard, of course, much does not depend on us. For example, a person whose height is 160 centimeters cannot become a professional basketball player, no matter how hard he tries. However, he is still capable of succeeding in this matter if he persistently strives for the goal.
Concentration
To stimulate the development of human capabilities, it is important to make the right choices and be able to concentrate efforts. Let’s remember the proverb again: “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either.” To develop individual abilities and talents, it is important not only to follow your own path, no matter what, but also to choose this path correctly, completely focusing on it.
Let's return to the example of a short man who is confident that human capabilities are limitless. He set his goal to become a professional basketball player. What can be noted on the positive side in this situation? Firstly, the fact that a person is not afraid to set ambitious goals. Secondly, he makes every effort and does not give up, despite the difficulties that he will definitely have to face. However, a person will still not be able to achieve his goal and become a professional basketball player. What's wrong? It's all about taking the wrong road.
To best realize their opportunities, people should soberly assess their abilities and circumstances in order to set achievable goals. At the same time, it is important not to be distracted by extraneous tasks, the incidental solution of which can stop development and interfere with conquering peaks.
Motivation
Opportunities can only be revealed if he is able to overcome such qualities of any personality as laziness and inertia. Understanding the value of the task at hand - motivation - will help you cope with such obstacles on the path to developing your personality. In sports, people are motivated by the desire to be a winner, to gain fame, fame, and wealth. All this helps them constantly improve and become more self-confident.
Unusual Potential
It is much more interesting for most people around to see social opportunities man, but his unusual talents and abilities of the body. This happens because extraordinary mental qualities do not catch the eye, while the phenomenal capabilities of the human body are noticed by everyone.
People are used to thinking that they have their limits. According to scientists, it is partly for this reason that a person sometimes cannot overcome some obstacle or height, although he has the potential for this. The limits of human capabilities can be tested in stressful situations, when the mental boundary - that which is holding back - ceases to function as usual. This is proven by many examples. Surely you have heard more than once about people who, out of fear of danger, covered a height of more than two meters in seconds or showed strength tens of times greater than their usual strength. All this suggests that human capabilities are much greater than we used to think. With this in mind, we shouldn’t think that we can’t do anything.
Let's consider what human capabilities have been demonstrated in different areas. These real cases confirm that almost anything is achievable.
Being in a cold environment
The time a person can spend in water is an hour or an hour and a half. During this short period, death occurs due to shock, difficulty breathing or cardiac arrest. It would seem that human physical capabilities simply do not allow expanding this boundary. But there are other facts.
During WWII Sgt. Soviet troops swam in cold water 20 kilometers, thereby completing its combat mission. It took the soldier 9 hours to cover such a distance! Doesn't this mean that the world of human possibilities is much greater than we imagine?!
One British fisherman proves this fact. Within 10 minutes of the shipwreck in cold water, all his comrades died due to hypothermia, but this man survived for about five hours. And after he got to the shore, he walked for another three hours barefoot. Indeed, as regards cold environment, human capabilities are much wider than is commonly believed. What can be said about other areas?
Feeling hungry, or How long can you live without food
There is a general consensus among experts that a person can survive without food for about two weeks. However, doctors in some countries have witnessed amazing records that help to realize the fantastic potential of the human body.
For example, one woman fasted for 119 days. During this period, she received a daily dose of vitamins to maintain the functioning of her internal organs. But such a 119-day hunger strike is not the limit of human capabilities.
In Scotland, two women registered at a clinic and began fasting in order to lose excess weight. It’s hard to believe, but one of them did not eat food for 236 days, and the second for 249 days. The second indicator has not yet been surpassed by anyone. The resources of our body are indeed very rich. But if a person can go without eating for so long, the question arises of how long he can go without drinking.
Is water life?
They say that without water a person can survive no more than 2-3 days. In fact, this indicator depends on the individual capabilities of a person, his physical activity and ambient temperature. Scientists say that under optimal circumstances, the maximum you can live without water is only 9-10 days. Is it so? Is that the limit?
In the fifties, in the city of Frunze, a man was found who had suffered a head injury and had lain without help for 20 days in a cold and deserted place. When he was found, he was not moving, and his pulse was barely palpable. However, the next day the 53-year-old man could speak freely.
And another case. A steamship sank in England at the end of World War II. shipwrecked in the Atlantic Ocean, he escaped on a boat and stayed on it for four and a half months!
Other fantastic records
People can achieve much greater results than what is considered the norm, and sometimes an incredible achievement. It's all about our brain, which on a subconscious level shows a person his limit. This mechanism undoubtedly brings benefits to our body. However, by understanding how such a system works, we can achieve much greater success in the area in which we have decided to develop.
It is impossible to list all the records that show that human capabilities are incredibly great. Such achievements have been made in sports, including in the field of strength training. There are also people who cannot breathe for a very long time. Extraordinary abilities indicate the broadest opportunities and prospects.
The fact that a person’s potential is greater than he thinks is shown by one category of people, which many, unfortunately, do not treat with due respect. These are people with disabilities. How do such individuals confirm that the human body has great potential?
Showing strengths
Many people with disabilities are adept at how to pursue their goals and not give up despite great obstacles. Human development in such difficult conditions not only produces results, but also strengthens character. Thus, among the disabled there are a huge number of excellent writers, poets, artists, musicians, athletes, and so on. All these talents are largely the result of heredity, but it is the character that people with certain characteristics exhibit that makes them professionals in their field.
History knows many great people who achieved success in various fields of activity, although they were sometimes considered inferior. Here's just one example. Polina Gorenshtein was a ballerina. After she fell ill with encephalitis, she became paralyzed. The woman lost her sight. Despite all the troubles that arose in connection with a serious illness, the woman began to engage in artistic modeling. As a result, her few works are still among the exhibits of the Tretyakov Gallery.
Where is the limit?
We can rightly believe that our capabilities are truly limitless, both physically and mentally. Therefore, the level of development at which a person is at a given moment in time depends solely on his desires and efforts. It is important to strive for excellence at all costs, despite the obstacles that arise.
We have heard more than once that human possibilities are limitless. That in an emergency situation or after self-hypnosis, a person can, as it seems to us, do the “impossible.” But we forget that in every person (in me, in you, in all the people around us) there are huge reserve capabilities that we do not use. If we believe in ourselves and begin to move forward no matter what, we will achieve something we never even dreamed of.
What is the greatest distance a person can run continuously? The record in this area belongs to the Indians - representatives of the Tarahumara tribe. “Fast foot” is the translation of the name of this tribe living in Western Sierra Madre in Mexico. Yuri Shanin’s book “From the Hellenes to the Present Day” (M., 1975) describes a case in which one nineteen-year-old Tarahumara carried a forty-five-kilogram parcel over a distance of 120 km in 70 hours. His fellow tribesman, carrying important letter, covered a distance of 600 km in five days. A well-trained messenger is capable of running at least a hundred kilometers in 12 hours and can run at this pace for four or even six days.
But the American Stan Cotrel ran 276 km 600 m in 24 hours without rest.
In the 70s 19 in the Swiss doctor Felix Schenk performed such an experiment on himself. He didn't sleep for three days straight. During the daytime, he continuously walked and did gymnastics. For two nights he made 30-kilometer treks on foot at an average speed of 4 km/h, and one night he lifted a stone weighing 46 kg above his head 200 times. As a result, despite eating normally, he lost 2 kg in weight. The results of this experiment were presented by him in 1874 in a study on the influence of muscle work on the breakdown of protein.
Our contemporary E.M. Yashin preferred to conduct similar experiments every morning in the form of intense continuous physical exercise at the limit of his capabilities - a kind of 25-minute super aerobics. To this is added a Sunday run of 20 - 40 km, one meal (vegetarian), 4 - 5 hours of sleep. With a height of 178 centimeters, Yashin’s body weight is only 67 g. His resting pulse immediately after waking up is 36 beats per minute. Well, what can skiers do? In 1980, the Finnish athlete Atti Nevala managed to ski a distance of 280 km 900 m within 24 hours, and his compatriot Onni Savi holds the record for non-stop skiing for 48 hours. In 1966, he covered 305 in this time. 9 km.
More than two centuries ago, the horse racing marathon was born in Holland. In general, in this country, according to local residents, children first start skating and then walk. Marathon participants skate 200 km without rest. In 1985, the record in this type of competition was set by 49-year-old Dutchman Jaan Kruytof - 6 hours 5 minutes 17 seconds. It is interesting that in 1983, in a marathon run on the ice of Lake Memphremagone from the USA to Canada, seventy-six-year-old A. Devries, a veteran of this sport, successfully ran a 200-kilometer distance.
A trained person can swim for as long as he can run. For example, forty-three-year-old Argentinean Antonio Albertino swam the English Channel in both directions without stopping. Overcoming strong currents, he actually traveled about 150 km (the width of the strait is 35 km) and was continuously in the water for 43 hours and 4 minutes.
However, this distance was far from the greatest for swimmers. 67-year-old Walter Poenisch from the USA managed to swim 167 km from Havana to Florida, and his compatriot, New York policeman Ben Haggard, even conquered 221 km - the distance between the USA and the Bahamas. The record for the longest swim in the ocean belongs to the American Stella Taylor - 321 km!
There are also curious examples of a person’s peculiar super-endurance. In 1951, one enthusiast managed to walk 25 km in 4 hours without stopping... backwards! And at the chattering competition, a certain Shikhin, originally from Ireland, did not close his mouth for 133 hours.
In our country, in 1980, during the World Olympics, Yuri Shumitsky completed a walking journey along the route Vladivostok - Moscow. During the year, he walked 12 thousand km. But A.R. Ivanenko, who was disabled at the age of 30, managed to run a distance of 11,783 km from Leningrad to Magadan in a year at the age of 64!
In 1986, forty-year-old French doctor Jean-Louis Etienne, on skis in less than 2 months, alone covered a distance of 1200 km from the coast of Canada to the North Pole. On his way, the brave traveler had to overcome broken ice with a lot of crevices from a collision with the shore, and 52-degree cold, and, finally, a feeling of complete loneliness. Twice he fell into icy water, lost 8 kg in weight, but achieved his goal.
There is a known case when a rickshaw carried a man weighing 54 kg at a run in 14.5 hours from Tokyo to the town of Nikko, located in the mountains 100 km from the Japanese capital.
Finally, one cannot fail to mention a special type of triathlon, known as " iron Man". The next such super tournament took place on the Hawaiian Islands. The first stage is swimming. The distance of 4 km along the Waikiki River consists of two parts: 2 km - downstream, the second half - against the current. We got out of the water - and immediately into the saddle of a bicycle. 180 km along tropical heat is no joke, but there is still a third stage ahead - running the classic marathon distance of 42 km 195 m. It is interesting that the winners of such an unusual triathlon manage to overcome the grueling route in 9 hours.
In literature, people often remember the best runner of the ancient Greek army, Philippides, who ran in 490 BC. the distance from Marathon to Athens (42 km 195 m) to report the victory of the Greeks over the Persians, and died immediately. According to other sources, before the battle, Philippides “escaped” through the mountain pass to Sparta to enlist the help of the allies, and ran over 200 km in two days. Considering that after such a “run” the messenger took part in the famous battle on the Marathon Plain, then one can only be surprised at the endurance of this man. Let us give some interesting examples demonstrating the enormous reserve potential of transforming a person with the help of running from a seriously ill patient into a marathon runner.
Nikolai Ivanovich Zolotov. Born in 1894. Retired in 1945, suffering from heart failure, severe spinal contusion and many other serious ailments. But Zolotov decided that living out his life sitting on a bench was not for him, and he began to “recreate himself.” Overcoming acute pain in the spine, instead of two or three jumps on poorly bending legs, through systematic training he learned to do 5 thousand jumps on each leg without any stress. Then he began to run regularly and took part in many competitions, cross-country events, races, including the marathon. In the traditional race along the Pushkin - Leningrad highway in 1978, he won his fifth gold medal.
47-year-old dock worker from Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka Valentin Shchelchkov, 5 years after myocardial infarction and the associated two-month hospitalization, ran the marathon distance at the International Peace Marathon in Moscow in 2 hours 54 minutes.
In 1983, a 100 km race took place in Odessa. The winner was Vitaly Kovel, a biology and singing teacher from Terskol, who covered this distance in 6 hours 26 minutes and 26 seconds. There were other winners in the race who defeated themselves: Yu. Berlin, A. Sotnikov, I. Makarov... They had to run continuously for 10 - 15 hours, but they were already over 60 years old! Two had a history of angina and overweight from 13 to 20 kg.
In another 100-kilometer race, a person who had suffered in the past from angina pectoris and a whole bunch of vascular diseases and gastrointestinal tract fifty-five-year-old A. Bandrovsky from Kaluga ran this distance in 12.5 hours. It took sixty-year-old N. Golshev from Ulyanovsk only 10 hours and 5 minutes to cover a 100-kilometer distance in continuous running, but in the past he suffered from osteochondrosis with severe impaired joint mobility. In addition to jogging, Golshev was helped to get rid of this illness by training in volitional breath-holding, switching to a vegetarian diet and hardening the body, leading to “winter swimming”.
In 1973 A unique marathon race was organized in the Hawaiian Islands. Its participants were exclusively persons who had suffered a myocardial infarction in the breach. However, not a single accident occurred during the race.
A person is capable of running a marathon distance both in childhood and in childhood. old age. For example, a certain Wesley Paul ran a marathon at the age of 7 in 4 hours 4 minutes, and two years later he improved his result by an hour. G.V. On his 70th birthday, Tchaikovsky spent 3 hours 12 minutes and 40 seconds running the marathon. The age record without taking into account time belongs to the Greek Dimitar Jordanis. At 98 years old, he ran the marathon in 7 hours 40 minutes.
The once famous English athlete Joe Deakin, whom journalists long ago dubbed the “grandfather of running,” ran about 7 km every Sunday at over 90 years old.
Even more surprising is the athletic longevity of the American Larry Lewis. At 102 years old, he ran 10 km every morning. Larry Lewis covered the 100-yard (91 m) distance in 17.3 seconds (0.5 seconds faster than at 101 years old).
Some marathon runners are not deterred by serious injuries. For example, American runner Dick Traum continued to participate in marathon competitions after surgeons amputated his leg, damaged in a car accident, above the knee. After that he ran on a prosthesis. 42-year-old Werner Rachter from Germany, being completely blind, showed an excellent time at the marathon distance - 2 hours 36 minutes 15 seconds.
Cold resistance
The body's resistance to cold largely depends on whether a person regularly engages in cold hardening. This is confirmed by the results of forensic experts who studied the causes and consequences of shipwrecks that occurred in the icy waters of the seas and oceans. Unseasoned passengers, even with life-saving equipment, died from hypothermia in icy water within the first half hour. At the same time, cases were recorded of individual people struggling for life with the piercing cold of icy waters for several hours.
According to Canadian physiologists who studied the problem of humans in cold water, fatal cooling should occur no earlier than after 60 - 90 minutes. The cause of death may be a kind of cold shock that develops after immersion in water, or a violation of respiratory function caused by massive irritation of cold receptors, or cardiac arrest.
Thus, the pilot Smagin, who ejected over the White Sea, spent 7 hours in water whose temperature was only 6°C.
During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet sergeant Pyotr Golubev swam 20 km in icy water in 9 hours and successfully completed a combat mission.
On August 9, 1987, American athlete Lynn Cox swam in 2 hours 6 minutes across the four-kilometer strait separating the Little and Big Diomede islands at a water temperature of 6°C.
In 1985, an English fisherman demonstrated his amazing ability to survive in icy water. All his comrades died from hypothermia 10 minutes after the shipwreck. He swam in the icy water for more than 5 hours, and having reached the ground, he walked barefoot along the frozen lifeless shore for about 3 hours.
A person can swim in icy water even in very cold weather. At one of the winter swimming festivals in Moscow, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General G.E. Alpaidze, who hosted the parade of its “walrus” participants, said: “I have been experiencing the healing power of cold water for 18 years now. That is how long I have been constantly swimming in winter. during his service in the North he did this even at an air temperature of - 43 ° C. I am sure that sailing in frosty weather - highest level hardening of the body. One cannot but agree with Suvorov, who said that “ice water is good for the body and mind.”
In 1986, “The Week reported on a 95-year-old “walrus” from Evpatoria, Boris Iosifovich Soskin. At the age of 70, sciatica pushed him into an ice hole. After all, correctly selected doses of cold can mobilize a person’s reserve capabilities.
Until recently, it was believed that if a drowned person is not pulled out of the water within 5–6 minutes, he will inevitably die as a result of irreversible pathological changes in the neurons of the cerebral cortex associated with acute oxygen deficiency*. However, in cold water this time can be much longer. For example, in the state of Michigan, a case was recorded when 18-year-old student Brian Cunningham fell through the ice of a frozen lake and was rescued from there only after 38 minutes. He was brought back to life using artificial respiration with pure oxygen. Even earlier, a similar case was registered in Norway. Five year old boy Vegard Slettumoen from the city of Lilleström fell through the ice of the river. After 40 minutes, the lifeless body was pulled ashore, artificial respiration and cardiac massage began. Soon signs of life appeared. Two days later, the boy regained consciousness, and he asked: “Where are my glasses?”
Incidents like this with children are not that uncommon. In 1984, four-year-old Jimmy Tontlevitz fell through the ice of Lake Michigan. After 20 minutes of exposure to ice water, his body cooled to 27°C. However, after 1.5 hours of resuscitation, the boy’s life was restored. Three years later, seven-year-old Vita Bludnitsky from the Grodno region had to stay under the ice for half an hour. After thirty minutes of cardiac massage and artificial respiration, the first breath was recorded. Another case. In January 1987, a two-year-old boy and a four-month-old girl, having fallen into a Norwegian fiord to a depth of 10 meters, were also brought back to life after a quarter of an hour of being under water.
In April 1975, the 60-year-old American biologist Warren Churchill conducted a fish survey on a lake covered with floating ice. His boat capsized, and he was forced to stay in cold water at a temperature of +5°C for 1.5 hours. By the time the doctors arrived, Churchill was no longer breathing, he was all blue. His heart could barely be heard, and the temperature of his internal organs dropped to 16°C. Nevertheless, this man remained alive.
An important discovery was made in our country by Professor A.S. Konikova. In experiments on rabbits, she found that if the animal’s body is quickly cooled no later than 10 minutes after death, then within an hour it can be successfully revived. This is probably what explains the amazing cases of people reviving after a long stay in cold water.
The literature often contains sensational reports about human survival after a long stay under a block of ice or snow. It’s hard to believe, but a person can still endure short-term hypothermia.
A clear example of this is the incident that happened to the famous Soviet traveler G.L. Travin, who in 1928 - 1931. traveled alone on a bicycle along the borders of the Soviet Union (including across the ice of the Arctic Ocean). In the early spring of 1930, he settled down for the night as usual, right on the ice, using ordinary snow instead of a sleeping bag. At night, a crack appeared in the ice near his overnight stay, and the snow that covered the brave traveler turned into an ice shell. Leaving some of the clothes frozen to it in the ice, G.L. Travin, with frozen hair and an “icy hump” on his back, reached the nearest Nenets tent. A few days later he continued his cycling journey across the ice of the Arctic Ocean.
It has been repeatedly noted that a freezing person can fall into oblivion, during which it seems to him that he finds himself in a heavily heated room, in a hot desert, etc. In a semi-conscious state, he can take off his felt boots, outerwear and even underwear. There was a case when a criminal case of robbery and murder was opened regarding a frozen man who was found undressed. But the investigator found that the victim undressed himself.
And here's what extraordinary story occurred in Japan with the driver of a refrigerated truck, Masaru Saito. On a hot day, he decided to rest in the back of his refrigeration machine. In the same body were blocks of “dry ice”, which are frozen carbon dioxide. The van door slammed shut, and the driver was left alone with the cold (-10°C) and the rapidly increasing CO2 concentration as a result of the evaporation of “dry ice”. The exact time during which the driver was in these conditions could not be determined. In any case, when he was pulled out of the truck, he was already frozen, however, a few hours later the victim was revived in a nearby hospital.
At the moment of clinical death of a person from hypothermia, the temperature of his internal organs usually drops to 26 - 24°C. But there are also known exceptions to this rule.
In February 1951, a 23-year-old black woman was brought to a hospital in the American city of Chicago, who, in very light clothing, lay for 11 hours in the snow when the air temperature fluctuated from - 18 to - 26 ° C. Her internal temperature at the time of admission to the hospital was 18°C. Even surgeons rarely decide to cool a person to such a low temperature during complex operations, because it is considered the limit below which irreversible changes in the cerebral cortex can occur.
First of all, the doctors were surprised by the fact that with such pronounced cooling of the body, the woman was still breathing, although rarely (3 - 5 breaths per minute). Her pulse was also very rare (12 - 20 beats per minute), irregular (pauses between heartbeats reached 8 seconds). The victim's life was saved. True, her frostbitten feet and fingers were amputated.
Somewhat later, a similar case was registered in our country. On a frosty March morning in 1960, a frozen man was taken to one of the hospitals in the Aktobe region, found by workers at a construction site on the outskirts of the village. During the first medical examination of the victim, the report recorded: “A numb body in icy clothes, without a headdress and shoes. The limbs are bent in joints and it is not possible to straighten them. When you tap on the body, there is a dull sound, like hitting wood. Temperature of the body surface below 0°C. The eyes are wide open, the eyelids are covered with an icy edge, the pupils are dilated, cloudy, there is an ice crust on the sclera and iris. Signs of life - heartbeat and breathing - are not detected. The diagnosis is made: general freezing, clinical death."
It is difficult to say what motivated doctor P.A. Abrahamyan - either professional intuition, or professional reluctance to come to terms with death, but he still placed the victim in a hot bath. When the body was freed from the ice cover, a special set of resuscitation measures began. After 1.5 hours, weak breathing and a barely perceptible pulse appeared. By the evening of the same day the patient regained consciousness.
Let's give one more interesting example. In 1987, in Mongolia, the child of M. Munkhzai lay for 12 hours in a field at 34 degrees below zero. His body became numb. However, after half an hour of resuscitation, a barely noticeable pulse appeared (2 beats per minute). A day later he moved his arms, two days later he woke up, and a week later he was discharged with the conclusion: “There are no pathological changes.”
The basis of such an amazing phenomenon is the body’s ability to respond to cooling without turning on the mechanism of muscle tremors. The fact is that the activation of this mechanism, designed to maintain a constant body temperature under cooling conditions at all costs, leads to the “burning” of the main energy materials - fats and carbohydrates. Obviously, it is more beneficial for the body not to fight by a few degrees, but to slow down and synchronize vital processes, make a temporary retreat to the 30-degree mark - this way, strength is preserved in the subsequent struggle for life.
There are cases when people with a body temperature of 32 - 28 ° C were able to walk and talk. The preservation of consciousness in chilled people at a body temperature of 30 - 26°C and meaningful speech even at 24°C have been recorded.
A person can withstand combat with 50-degree frost, almost without resorting to warm clothing. It was precisely this possibility that was demonstrated in 1983 by a group of climbers after climbing to the top of Elbrus. Wearing only swimming trunks, socks, mittens and masks, they spent half an hour in the thermobaric chamber - in severe cold and a rarefied atmosphere corresponding to the height of the peak of Communism. For the first 1 - 2 minutes, the 50-degree frost was quite bearable. Then I began to shiver violently from the cold. There was a feeling that the body was covered with an ice shell. In half an hour it cooled by almost a degree.
When the fingers are cooled, due to the narrowing of the capillaries, the thermal insulating properties of the skin can be increased by 6 times. But the capillaries of the scalp (with the exception of the facial part) do not have the ability to narrow under the influence of cold. Therefore, at a temperature of -4°C, about half of all the heat generated by the body at rest is lost through the cooled head if it is not covered. But immersing the head in ice water for more than 10 seconds in untrained people can cause a spasm of the blood vessels that supply the brain.
All the more surprising is the incident that occurred in the winter of 1980 in the village New Tura(Tatar ASSR). In 29-degree frost, 11-year-old Vladimir Pavlov without hesitation dived into the lake’s wormwood. He did this in order to save a four-year-old boy who had gone under the ice. And he saved him, although to do this he had to dive under the ice three times to a depth of 2 m.
IN last years Speed swimming competitions in icy water are becoming increasingly popular. In our country, such competitions are held in two age groups at distances of 25 and 50 m. For example, the winner of one of the competitions of this type was 37-year-old Muscovite Evgeniy Oreshkin, who swam a 25-meter distance in icy water in 12.2 seconds. In Czechoslovakia, winter swimming competitions are held at distances of 100, 250 and 500 m. Those who are extremely hardened swim even 1000 m, staying in ice water continuously for up to 30 minutes.
"Walruses", of course, are seasoned people. But their resistance to cold is far from the limit of human capabilities. The aborigines of central Australia and Tierra del Fuego (South America), as well as the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert (South Africa), are even more immune to cold.
The high resistance to cold of the indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego was observed by Charles Darwin during his journey on the Beagle ship. He was surprised that completely naked women and children did not pay any attention to the thickly falling snow that melted on their bodies.
In 1958 - 1959 American physiologists studied the resistance to cold of the aborigines of central Australia. It turned out that they sleep completely calmly at an air temperature of 5 - 0 ° C naked on the bare ground between fires, sleep without the slightest sign of trembling and increased gas exchange. The body temperature of Australians remains normal, but the skin temperature decreases on the body to 15°C, and on the limbs - even to 10°C. With such a pronounced decrease in skin temperature, ordinary people would experience almost unbearable pain, but Australians sleep peacefully and feel neither pain nor cold.
Doctor L.I. lives in Moscow. Krasov. This man received a severe injury - a fracture in the lumbar region. As a result, atrophy of the gluteal muscles and paralysis of both legs. His surgeon friends patched him up as best they could, but they did not hope that he would survive. And “to spite all deaths” he restored the damaged spinal cord. The main role, he believes, was played by the combination of cold hardening with dosed fasting. Of course, all this would hardly have helped if this man did not have extraordinary willpower.
What is willpower? In fact, this is not always conscious, but very strong self-suggestion.
Self-hypnosis also plays an important role in cold hardening of one of the nationalities living in the mountainous regions of Nepal and Tibet. In 1963, a case was described of extreme resistance to cold of a 35-year-old mountaineer named Man Bahadur, who spent four days on a high-mountain glacier (5 - 5.3 thousand m) at an air temperature of minus 13 - 15 ° C, barefoot, in bad weather. clothes, no food. Almost no significant violations were found in him. Research has shown that, with the help of self-hypnosis, he could increase his energy metabolism in the cold by 33 - 50% through “non-contractile” thermogenesis, i.e. without any manifestations of “cold tone” and muscle tremors. This ability saved him from hypothermia and frostbite.
But perhaps the most surprising observation is the famous Tibetan researcher Alexandra David-Nel. In her book “Magicians and Mystics of Tibet,” she described a competition that was carried out by naked-to-the-waist yoga-respas near holes cut in the middle of a high-mountain lake. The frost is 30°, but the spawns are steaming. And no wonder - they compete to see how many sheets pulled out of the ice water each one can dry on his own back. To do this, they cause a state in their body where almost all vital energy is spent on generating heat. Resps have certain criteria for assessing the degree of control of the thermal energy of their body. The student sits in the “lotus” position in the snow, slows down his breathing (at the same time, as a result of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood, the superficial blood vessels dilate and the release of heat by the body increases) and imagines that a flame is flaring up more and more along his spine. At this time, the amount of snow that has melted under the person sitting and the melting radius around him are determined.
Cold can promote longevity It is no coincidence that the third place in terms of the percentage of centenarians (after Dagestan and Abkhazia) is occupied by the center of longevity in Siberia - the Oymyakon region of Yakutia, where frosts sometimes reach 60 - 70 ° C. Residents of another center of longevity - the Hunza Valley in Pakistan - bathe in icy water even in winter at 15 degrees below zero. They are very frost-resistant and only heat their stoves to cook food. The rejuvenating effect of cold against the background of a balanced diet is reflected primarily in women. At 40 they are considered still young, almost like our girls; at 50-60 they retain a slim and graceful figure; at 65 they can give birth to children.
Some nationalities have traditions of accustoming the body to cold from infancy. “The Yakuts,” wrote Russian academician I.R. Tarkhanov at the end of the 19th century in his book “On Hardening the Human Body,” rub their newborns with snow, and the Ostyaks, like the Tungus, immerse babies in snow and pour ice water and then wrapped in deer skins.
The kind of perfection and endurance that can be achieved with cold hardening is evidenced by observations during one of the last American-New Zealand expeditions in the Himalayas. Some of the Sherpa guides made a multi-kilometer journey along rocky mountain paths, through a zone of eternal snow... barefoot. And this is in 20-degree frost!
High temperature resistance
Foreign scientists conducted special experiments to determine the highest temperature that the human body can withstand in dry air. Temperature 71°C a common person maintains for 1 hour, 82 °C - 49 minutes, 93 °C - 33 minutes, and 104 °C - only 26 minutes.
However, the literature describes and seems completely incredible cases. Back in 1764, the French scientist Tillet reported to Paris Academy science that one woman was in an oven at a temperature of 132 ° C for 12 minutes.
In 1828, a case was described of a man spending 14 minutes in an oven where the temperature reached 170°C. English physicists As an auto-experiment, Blagden and Chantry were placed in a bakery oven at a temperature of 160°C. In Belgium in 1958, a case was recorded of a person being able to tolerate a 5-minute stay in a heat chamber at a temperature of 200°C.
Research in a thermal chamber conducted in the USA has shown that a person’s body temperature during such a test can rise to 40.3 ° C, while the body is dehydrated by 10%. The dogs' body temperature was even raised to 42°C. A further increase in the animals’ body temperature (up to 42.8°C) was already fatal for them...
However, with infectious diseases accompanied by fever, some people are able to tolerate even higher body temperatures. For example, an American student from Brooklyn, Sofia Sapola, while suffering from brucellosis, had a body temperature exceeding 43°C.
When a person stays in hot water, the possibility of heat transfer through the evaporation of sweat is excluded. Therefore portability high temperatures V aquatic environment significantly lower than in dry air. “The record in this area probably belongs to one Turk, who, like Ivan Tsarevich, could plunge headlong into a cauldron of water at a temperature of +70 ° C. Of course, to achieve such “records” long and constant training is necessary.
Resistance to hunger, thirst and lack of oxygen
During the Great Patriotic War, in July 1942, four Soviet sailors found themselves in a boat far from the shore in the Black Sea without water or food supplies. On the third day of their voyage they began to taste the sea water. In the Black Sea, the water is 2 times less salty than in the World Ocean. Nevertheless, the sailors were able to get used to using it only on the fifth day. Everyone now drank up to two flasks of it a day. So they, it would seem, got out of the water situation. But they could not solve the problem of providing food. One of them died of starvation on the 19th day, the second on the 24th, and the third on the 30th day. The last of this four is captain of the medical service P.I. Eresko - on the 36th day of fasting, in a state of darkened consciousness, was picked up by a Soviet military vessel. During 36 days of sea wandering without eating, he lost 22 kg in weight, which was 32% of his original weight.
For comparison, let us recall that even with voluntary fasting in a calm environment, even in 50 days a person, according to various authors, loses from 27 to 30% of weight, i.e. less than in the example given.
In January 1960, a self-propelled barge with four Soviet servicemen (A. Ziganshin, F. Poplavsky, A. Kryuchkovsky, I Fedotov) was carried away by a storm to Pacific Ocean. On the second day, the barge ran out of fuel and the radio broke down. After 37 days, the very meager supply of food ran out. It was replaced by the fried leather of the harmonica and boots. Daily norm fresh water was first 5, and then only 3 sips per person. However, this amount was enough to last 49 days until the moment of rescue.
In 1984, 52-year-old Paulus Normantas had to live alone for 55 days on an uninhabited island in the Aral Sea because his boat sailed away. This was in March. The food supply was: half a loaf of bread, 15 g of tea, 22 lumps of sugar and 6 onions. Fortunately, spring floods bring a lot of fresh water to the sea, which is lighter than salt water and floats on the surface. Therefore, he was not thirsty. The eggs of seagulls, turtles and even fish (thanks to hunting with an underwater gun), and young grasses were eaten. When the water in the sea warmed up to +16°C in May, Normantas swam over a distance of 20 km in 4 days, resting on 16 intermediate islands, and safely reached the shore without outside help.
Another case of prolonged forced fasting. In the winter of 1963, a private plane crashed in a mountainous desert region in Canada. Its crew consisted of two people: 42-year-old pilot Ralph Florez and 21-year-old student Helena Klaben. The plane landed successfully, but getting to the nearest settlement through hundreds of kilometers of snowy desert was completely unrealistic. All that was left was to wait for help, wait and fight the bone-piercing cold and hunger. There was some food supply on the plane, but after a week it ran out, and after 20 days this couple ate their last “food” - 2 tubes of toothpaste. Melted snow became their only food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “During the following weeks,” Helen Klaben later explained, “we lived on the water. We had it in three forms: cold, hot and boiled. Alternation helped to brighten up the monotony of the menu of the only “snow dish.” Miss Klaben, who was “pretty "fat" at the time of the disaster, after difficult ordeals she lost 12 kg in weight. Ralph Florez lost 16 kg. They were rescued on March 25, 1963, 49 days after the accident.
An unusual case of voluntary fasting was recorded in Odessa. To the specialized department of fasting and dietary therapy of one of the hospitals to see doctor V.Ya. An extremely emaciated woman was delivered to Davydov. It turned out that she had been starving for three months... with the aim of committing suicide, having lost 60% of her weight during this time. An experienced doctor managed to restore the woman’s love of life and, with the help of a special diet, restore her to her previous weight.
The fact that a person can go without food for a very long time is evidenced by the case of a “hunger strike” recorded more than half a century ago in the Irish city of Cork. A group of 11 imprisoned Irish patriots, led by the mayor of Cork, Lord Terence MacSweeney, decided to starve themselves to death as a protest against British rule in their country. Day after day the newspapers carried news from the prison, and on the 20th day they began to claim that the prisoners were dying, that the priest had already been sent for, the relatives of the prisoners gathered at the gates of the prison. Such messages were transmitted on the 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th and 70th days. In fact, the first prisoner (McSweeney) died on the 74th day, the second on the 88th day, the remaining nine people gave up hunger on the 94th day, gradually recovered and remained alive.
An even longer fast (119 days) was recorded by American doctors in Los Angeles: they observed the obese Elaine Jones, who weighed 143 kg. She drank 3 liters of water every day while fasting. In addition, she received vitamin injections twice a week. Within 17 weeks, the patient's weight decreased to 81 kg, and she felt great.
Finally, in 1973, the seemingly fantastic periods of fasting of two women, recorded in one of the medical institutions in Glasgow, were described. Both of them weighed more than 100 kg, and to normalize it, one had to fast for 236 days, and the other for 249 days (a world record!).
American nutritionist Paul Bragg in 1967, in his book “The Miracle of Fasting,” described a walk he made in old age through California’s Death Valley. In the July heat, in 2 days of fasting, he walked 30 miles through the desert, spent the night in a tent and returned hungry the same way. But the 10 strong young athletes who competed with him these days, who ate and drank whatever they wanted (including chilled drinks and salt tablets), could not even walk 25 miles. And no wonder. After all, when everyone went on a hike, the temperature was 40.6, and at noon - even 50.4°C.
In 1982 - 1983 Over the course of 8 months, 6 brave northern explorers completed a 10,000 km trek along the Arctic edge of our country. In the last two weeks of this unprecedented campaign, two of its participants voluntarily fasted (they drank only rosehip decoction with multivitamins). During the fasting period they lost 4.5 kg in weight.
In 1984, a group of volunteers led by Genrikh Ryzhavsky and candidate of medical sciences Valery Gurvich made a 15-day “emergency” kayak trip along the Belaya River. They set out on their journey without food and ate nothing but water. They had to work with oars for 6-8 hours a day. All participants successfully passed this test, although the oldest of them was 57 years old. A year earlier, another group of enthusiasts made a similar two-week “hungry” raft trip across the Caspian Sea.
But the Moscow geologist S. A. Borodin, thanks to running training against the backdrop of frequent hunger strikes, on the 5th day of fasting, ran a 10-kilometer cross-country race with the same maximum speed, as in the “well-fed” period.
Speaking about the “records” of starvation in the animal world, one cannot fail to mention a new species of spider discovered in India. This spider differs from all living creatures in that it can survive without food for as long as 18 (!) years.
How much and what kind of food can a person eat at one meal?
At one of the traditional holidays in Rouen (France), participants in a glutton competition for a short time managed to absorb each: 1 kg 200 g of boiled chicken, 1 kg 300 g of fried lamb, a head of Livaro cheese, an apple cake, two bottles of Alsace wine, four bottles of cider and two bottles of Burgundy wine.
In 1910, an American from Pennsylvania was considered the world's first glutton. He ate 144 eggs at breakfast. But his compatriots - the obesity record holders twin brothers Billy and Benny McGuire - preferred the following daily breakfast: 18 eggs, 2 kg of bacon or ham, a loaf of bread, 1 liter of fruit juice, 16 cups of coffee; for lunch they ate 3 kg of steak, 1 kg of potatoes, a loaf of bread, and drank 2 liters of tea; dinner consisted of 3 kg of vegetables and fish, 6 baked potatoes, 5 servings of salad, 2 liters of tea, 8 cups of coffee. And it’s no wonder that Billy weighed 315 kg, and Benny weighed as much as 327 kg.
At the age of 32, the fattest man in the world, American Robert Earl Hudges, died of a myocardial infarction. With a height of 180 cm, he weighed 483 kg and had a waist circumference of 3 m.
Probably the same fate awaited the 250-kilogram British citizen Rollie McIntyre. However, he decided his fate differently: by switching to a vegetarian diet in 1985, he lost 161 kg!
Another way to lose weight was proposed by the famous Greek pop singer Demis Roussos. Using his personal example, he showed that if during meals you give preference to only one product and do not overuse potatoes and flour products, then in one year you can reduce your body weight from 148 to 95 kg.
How long can a person not drink?
Research conducted by the American physiologist E. F. Adolph showed that the maximum duration of a person’s stay without water largely depends on the ambient temperature and the mode of physical activity. So, for example, being at rest in the shade, at a temperature of 16 - 23 ° C, a person can not drink for 10 days. At an air temperature of 26°C this period is reduced to 9 days, at 29°C - to 7, at 33°C - to 5, at 36°C - to 3 days. Finally, at an air temperature of 39°C at rest, a person can not drink for no more than 2 days.
Of course, when physical work, all these indicators are significantly reduced. It is known from history, for example, that in 525, when crossing Libyan desert The fifty thousand army of the Persian king Cambyses died of thirst.
After the earthquake in Mexico City in 1985, a boy aged 9 was found under the rubble of a building, who had not eaten or drunk anything for 13 days and yet remained alive.
Even earlier, in February 1947, in the city of Frunze, a 53-year-old man was found who, having received a head injury, had been left without food and water in an abandoned unheated room for 20 days. At the time of discovery, he was not breathing and had no palpable pulse. The only sign indicating the survival of the victim was a change in the color of the nail bed when pressed. And the next day he could already talk.
Is it possible to drink salty sea water without harm to the body? Yes you can. This was experimentally confirmed by the French doctor Alain Bombard, who, swimming alone on an inflatable rubber boat The Atlantic Ocean did not take with it any reserves of fresh water. He found that salty sea water can be drunk, but in small portions, no more than 1 liter per day, and no more than 7 - 8 days in a row. When drinking sea water, up to a tragic outcome, i.e. Until the 7th - 8th day, the kidneys are the “scapegoat”, and as long as they are able to do their job of “desalinating” water, the person retains consciousness and performance. But during this time you can use fresh rainwater, morning dew, or catch fish and quench your thirst with its fresh tissue juice. This is exactly what Alain Bombard did on her solo journey across the Atlantic. Just two days of drinking fresh water is enough for the kidneys to “come to their senses” again and be ready for “desalination” work again, if you have to drink sea water again.
In 1986, 45-year-old Norwegian E. Einarsen was left alone with the Atlantic Ocean for four months, while on an uncontrollable small fishing boat. For the last three weeks, having been left without food supplies and drinking water, the sailor ate raw fish and washed it down with rainwater.
WITH similar problem back in 1942, the steward of the English steamship Pun Leamy had to face. When his ship sank in the Atlantic, the sailor escaped on a boat and spent 4.5 months on the open sea.
How long can a person go without air?
If you have tried to hold your breath while inhaling or exhaling, you are probably convinced that you can do without air for two or three minutes at best. True, this time can be increased if, before holding your breath, you breathe deeply and often, especially with pure oxygen.
After such a procedure, Californian Robert Foster managed to stay under water without scuba gear for 13 minutes 42.5 seconds. If you believe the report of the English travel doctor Gorer Geoffrey, then some divers from the Wolf tribe in Senegal are able to stay under water for up to half an hour. They are even called "water people."
American physiologist E.S. Schneider in 1930 observed two pilots, one of whom, after preliminary breathing with pure oxygen, could hold his breath during inhalation for 14 minutes 2 s, and the other - 15 minutes 13 s. The pilots tolerated the first 5-6 minutes of holding their breath freely. In the following minutes, they experienced increased heart rate and a significant increase in blood pressure to 180/110 - 195/140 mm Hg. Art., while before holding the breath it was 124/88 - 130/90 mm.
Power tricks
What reserves does it have? physical strength human body? This can be judged at least on the basis of the achievements of famous strongmen - athletes and wrestlers who shocked the imagination of their contemporaries with their strength tricks. One of them is the champion of Russia in weight lifting.
Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin (1880-1949), famous Russian athlete, wrestler, one of the first Russian pilots. Zaikin's athletic numbers caused a sensation. Foreign newspapers wrote: “Zaikin is the Chaliapin of Russian muscles.” In 1908, Zaikin toured in Paris. After the athlete’s performance, in front of the circus, on a special platform, the chains that Zaikin had broken, the iron beam bent on his shoulders, and the “bracelets” and “ties” he had tied from strip iron were displayed. Some of these exhibits were acquired by the Paris Cabinet of Curiosities and were displayed along with other curiosities.
Zaikin carried a 25-pound anchor on his shoulders, lifted a long barbell onto his shoulders, on which ten people sat, and began to rotate it (“a living carousel”). He fought, inferior in this area only to Ivan Poddubny himself.
Multiple world champion in wrestling Ivan Poddubny ("champion of champions", 1871 - 1949) had great physical strength. It should be noted that he left the wrestling mat at the age of 70. Without specially training in athletic routines, he could, by bending his arms along his body, lift 120 kg on his biceps!
But, according to his own statement, his father, Maxim Poddubny, possessed even greater physical strength: he easily took two five-pound bags on his shoulders, lifted a whole heap of hay with a pitchfork, fooling around, stopped any cart, grabbed it by the wheel, and threw it to the ground by the horns of hefty bulls.
Ivan Poddubny’s younger brother Mitrofan was also strong, who once pulled an ox weighing 18 pounds out of a pit, and once in Tula amused the audience by holding on his shoulders a platform with an orchestra playing “Many Years...”.
Another Russian hero, the athlete Yakub Chekhovskaya, carried 6 soldiers in a circle on one arm in 1913 in Petrograd. A platform was installed on his chest, along which three trucks carrying the public drove.
Several decades from circus posters different countries The name of the Russian athlete Alexander Ivanovich Zass, who performed under the pseudonym Samson, did not go away. What kind of power numbers were not in his repertoire! With his own weight of no more than 80 kg, he carried a horse weighing up to 400 kg on his shoulders. He lifted with his teeth an iron beam weighing 135 kg, at the ends of which two assistants sat, a total of 265 kg, caught a 90-kg cannonball flying out of a circus cannon from a distance of 8 m, lay with his naked back on a board studded with nails, holding a stone on his chest (500 kg). For fun, he could lift a taxi and drive the car like a wheelbarrow, break horseshoes and break chains. He lifted 20 people on the platform. In the famous "Projectile Man" attraction, he caught an assistant who, like an artillery shell, flew out of the muzzle of a circus cannon and described a 12-meter trajectory above the arena. A truck ran over him. Here's how it went:
This happened in 1938 in the English city of Sheffield. As the crowd watched, a truck loaded with coal ran over a man sprawled on the cobblestones. People screamed in horror as the front and then rear ears ran over the body. But the next second a cry of delight was heard from the crowd: “Hurray for Samson!”, “Glory to the Russian Samson!” And the man to whom this storm of jubilation was concerned, stood up from under the wheels, as if nothing had happened, smiling, and bowed to the audience.
Here is an excerpt from the poster of Samson, who performed in England: “Samson offers 25 pounds sterling to the one who knocks him down with a punch to the stomach. Professional boxers are allowed to take part. ... A prize of 5 pounds sterling is given to the one who bends the iron rod with a horseshoe.” . By the way, the famous English boxer Tom Burns, who tried his strength during Samson’s performance, broke his hand on his stomach. And the iron rod in question was a square rod approximately 1.3X1.3X26 cm.
In July 1907, the Ukrainian hero, circus wrestler Terenty Koren gave an unusual performance in the circus arena of the American city of Chicago. He calmly entered the cage with a huge lion. The predator quickly rushed at the man. The claws and fangs of the “king of beasts” dug into the athlete’s body. But Terenty Root, overcoming inhuman pain, with a powerful jerk lifted the lion above his head and threw it onto the sand with enormous force. A few seconds later the lion was dead, and Terenty Koren won a one-of-a-kind award: a large gold medal with the inscription “To the winner of lions.”
The world record holder, Russian athlete Sergei Eliseev, took a weight weighing 61 kg in his right hand, lifted it up, then slowly lowered it to the side with a straight arm and held the hand with the weight in a horizontal position for several seconds. Three times in a row he pulled out two untied two-pound weights with one hand.
Not only people of the common class, but also many prominent figures Russian culture and art - A. Kuprin, F. Chaliapin, A. Blok, A. Chekhov, artist I. Myasoedov, V. Gilyarovsky and others - were passionate fans of circus athletes and wrestlers, moreover, many of them were passionate about sports .
Kuprin often judged wrestling competitions and was his own man in the circus. Gilyarovsky, an athletically developed man, loved to demonstrate strength exercises among his friends (he bent coins with his fingers). English writer Arthur Conan Doyle was also a fan of strength and in 1901 he participated in the jury at an athletic competition in England.
Dmitry Alexandrovich Lukin. Mikhail Lukashev, in his story “The Glorious Captain Lukin,” describes this strongman as follows: “This man had remarkable popularity in the Russian fleet, and not only in it. Writers V.B. Bronevsky, A. Y. Bulgakov, F. V. Bulgarin, P. P. Svinin, Admiral P. I. Panafidin, Count V. A. Sologub, Decembrists N. I. Lorer, M. I. Pylyaev and others.
V.B. Bronevsky, who went through the 1807 campaign with Lukin, said this: “His experiments in strength produced amazement... For example, with a slight strain of strength he broke horseshoes, could hold pound cannonballs in outstretched hands, raised a gun with a machine with one hand; with one finger pressed a nail into the ship's wall."
The captain always behaved independently and fearlessly, appearing in the most dangerous places. In Crete he was attacked by a gang of armed bandits. But after the strong man tore the heavy marble tabletop from the table and threw it at the raiders, the latter fled in all directions.
In another remote and deserted place - there Lukin was walking with his beloved dog named “Boms”, a robber suddenly put a gun to his chest. The second accomplice stood a little to the side. But the captain’s usual composure did not change here either.
“I don’t have money, but I’ll give you an expensive watch,” he said and put his right hand in his pocket, pretending to take out the watch, but at the same moment with his left he unexpectedly pulled the pistol away and tightly squeezed the bandit’s hand along with the handle of the pistol. The robber howled from this squeeze. His accomplice rushed to help, but Lukin, without letting go of his captured hand, briefly commanded: “Boom, drink!” And the well-trained dog rushed at the second robber, knocked him to the ground and did not allow him to move. Lukin released the unlucky and badly injured robbers, advising them to “be more careful next time.” And he kept a pistol as a souvenir for himself, with both the trigger and the trigger guard turned out to be bent and crumpled.
In not a single fight did Lukin strike his opponents. Indeed, he was truly amazing, the only boxer in the world who feared not his opponent’s fists, but his own. And here's the thing. When Lukin was still very young, robbers on one of the streets of night Petersburg tried to tear his parade ground away. But Lukin was not Gogol’s Akaki Akakievich. He held the cloak with one hand, and with the other, without even turning around and not very hard, he hit the attacker in the face. But this was enough for the robber to collapse dead on the pavement with a broken jaw. It was after this incident that Lukin promised himself never to use his fists and firmly adhered to this rule even in boxing fights."
The enormous success of the Estonian strongman, world champion Georg Lurich, was brought not only by records, but also by the harmony and beauty of his physique. He posed more than once for sculptors such as Rodin and Adamson. The latter's sculpture "Champion" won first prize at the World's Fair in America in 1904. In the arena, Lurich demonstrated the following numbers: standing on the wrestling bridge, he held four men on himself, and at that time he held a 7-pound barbell in his hands. He held five people on one hand, and held two camels with his hands, pulling in opposite directions. He lifted a 105 kg barbell with his right hand and, holding it at the top, took a 34 kg weight from the floor with his left hand and lifted it up.
Hans Steyer (Bavaria, 1849 - 1906), standing on two chairs, raised 16 poods with his middle finger (threaded into a ring). His “live horizontal bar” was a hit with the audience: with straight arms, Steyer held a 70-pound barbell in front of him, on the bar of which his son, who weighed 90 pounds, was doing gymnastic exercises.
Steyer was also famous for his eccentricity. His cane weighed 40 pounds, the snuffbox he held in his palm when treating his friends weighed 100 pounds. Sometimes he would put a 75-pound top hat on his head and leave it on the table when he arrived at a café, then ask the waiter to bring his top hat.
Louis Cyr ("American Miracle", 1863 - 1912) This strongest man of the American continent amazed with his size. With a height of 176 cm, he weighed 133 kg, chest volume 147 cm, biceps 55 cm. A curious incident happened with 22-year-old Louis Cyr in Montreal, where he served as a policeman: one day he brought two hooligans to the station, holding them under his arms . After this incident, at the insistence of his friends, he began to develop strength and perform athletic performances in which for a long time he did not know competitors. He lifted 26 pounds to his knees with one hand, and lifted a platform with 14 adult men on his shoulders. He held a 143 pound load in front of him at arm's length for 5 seconds. He put a sheet of paper under a barrel of cement and offered to pull it out. Not a single athlete was able to complete this task, but Louis Cyr himself lifted this barrel every evening.
The Bohemian Anton Richa was famous for his ability to carry enormous weights. In 1891, he raised 52 pounds.
The French athlete Apollo (Louis Huny) lifted five weights of 20 kg each with one hand. I lifted a barbell weighing 165 kg with a very thick bar (5 cm). Only 20 years after Apollo, this barbell (the axle from the trolley) was able to be lifted by the champion olympic games 1924 Charles Rigoulot, who, by the way, holds the world record in the right-hand snatch of 116 kg. In the famous "break out of the cage" trick, Apollo uses his hands to push apart the thick bars and exit the cage.
At the beginning of the 18th century in England, the athlete Tom Tofan was very popular. Of average height, proportionally built, he easily lifted stones weighing up to 24 blows from the ground with his hands, tied an iron poker around his neck like a scarf, and in 1741, in a square crowded with spectators, he lifted three barrels of water with the help of straps put on his shoulders. weighing 50 pounds.
In 1893, a competition for the title of “world champion in weight lifting” was held in New York. The strongest athletes of that time came to the competition. Louis Cyr came from Canada, Evgeniy Sandov came from Europe, and American James Walter Kennedy twice lifted an iron cannonball weighing 36 pounds 24.5 pounds, tearing it off the platform by 4 inches. None of their athletes could repeat this number.
The set record turned out to be fatal for the 33-year-old athlete: he overstrained himself and after that was forced to perform only with a demonstration of his muscles. The athlete died at 43 years old.
In 1906, Englishman Arthur Saxon lifted a barbell weighing 159 kg to his shoulder with both hands, transferred it to his right hand and pushed it up. He carried a 6-pound barbell on his raised arms, with one person hanging at each end.
Eugene Sandow (F. Miller, 1867 - 1925) enjoyed enormous popularity among the British. He was called the “magician of poses” and “the strongest man.” Weighing no more than 80 kg, he set a world record by squeezing 101.5 kg with one hand. He did a backflip, holding 1.5 pounds in each hand. Within four minutes he could do 200 push-ups. In 1911, King George V of England awarded Sandow the title of Professor of Physical Development.
The tricks of the American jumper Palmey are interesting. Having placed a man weighing 48 kg on his shoulders, he jumped with him over a table 80 cm high and wide. Then he put his wife on his back and jumped over a barrel 90 cm high ten times in a row.
"Petersburg Leaflet" dated July 3, 1893 wrote about a certain Ivan Chekunov, who, in the presence of a crowd of people, freely lifted an anvil weighing 35 pounds (560 kg).
Georg Hackenschmidt ("Russian Lion"), world champion wrestler and world record holder in weightlifting, pressed a barbell weighing 122 kg with one hand. He took 41 kg dumbbells in each hand and spread his straight arms horizontally to the sides. I pressed a barbell weighing 145 kg on a wrestling bridge.
The athletes of antiquity had truly phenomenal strength. The Olympia Museum houses a stone that resembles a giant stone weight weighing 143.5 kg. On this ancient weight there is an inscription: “Bibon lifted me above his head with one hand.” For comparison, let us recall that the outstanding weightlifter of our time A. Pisarenko pushed a weight of 257.5 kg with both hands.
The Russian Tsar Peter I possessed enormous power. In Holland, for example, he stopped windmills with his hands by grabbing the wing.
Our contemporary power juggler Valentin Dikul freely juggles 80-kilogram weights and holds a Volga on his shoulders (the dynamometer shows the load on the athlete’s shoulders is 1570 kg). The most amazing thing is that Dikul became a power juggler 7 years after a severe injury, which usually makes people disabled for life. In 1961, while performing as an aerial acrobat, Dikul fell in a circus with high altitude and received a compression fracture of the lumbar spine. As a result Bottom part the torso and legs were paralyzed. It took Dikul three and a half years of hard training on a special simulator combined with self-massage to take the first step on his previously paralyzed legs, and another year to completely restore their movement.
In July 2001, Vladimir Savelyev completed a unique strength marathon on July 20, 2001 with an achievement that will be included in the Guinness Book of Records. Starting from July 18, the athlete lifted a 24-kilogram weight every day for 12 hours in a row. He pushed the weight from his chest above his head to his outstretched arm, resting no more than 10 minutes per hour. All this happened on a hot stone square in front of cultural center"Moskvich". In 36 hours, Savelyev squeezed the projectile 14,663 times, raising it to total more than 351 tons.
30-year-old strength gymnast from Dagestan Omar Khanapiev set such a record. Grasping the cable with his teeth, he moved the TU-134 plane and dragged it seven meters. This kind of talent appeared in him 20 years ago. Even then, with his teeth, he pulled out nails driven into boards and bent horseshoes. On November 9, 2001, in the fishing port of Makhachkala, Khanapiev moved a tanker with a displacement of 567 tons and dragged it across the water at a distance of 15 meters. On November 7, he used the same method to drag locomotives weighing 136 and 140 tons over distances of 10 and 12 meters. By the way, in appearance Omar Khanapiev does not look like a hero at all: his height is below average, and his weight is about 60 kilograms.
American researchers tried to establish the potential for increasing human strength. It turned out that the strength of the biceps muscle of the right arm during flexion increases under the influence of taking a moderate dose of alcohol by an average of 1.8 kg, with the introduction of adrenaline into the blood - by 2.3 kg, after the introduction of the stimulant drug afetamine - by 4.7 kg, and under hypnosis - even by 9.1 kg.
Our contemporary, the young Frenchman Patrick Edlinger, with a body weight of 63 kg and a height of 176 cm, is able to do pull-ups on any finger of both hands. His main ability is to storm steep cliffs without using any technical or safety equipment at all. He trains 6 hours a day, not only in rock climbing, but also in the yoga system. Among him outstanding achievements- climbing on your fingertips along the hot stones of the 800-meter steep peak of the Hand of Fatma, rising in the very center of the Malian desert.
The example of a brave climber was followed by a young French woman, Catherine Destival. At the age of 25 she received serious injury: As a result of a fall from a 35 m high cliff, she suffered a double fracture of the pelvis, fracture of several lumbar vertebrae and a rib. Nevertheless, just three months later, thanks to hard training, she conquered the sheer peak of El Puro in the Aragonese mountains in Spain in 2 hours without insurance or equipment.
Superpower
Physiologists have found that a person can use willpower to spend only up to 70% of his muscular energy, and the remaining 30% is a reserve in case of emergency. Let us give some examples of such circumstances.
One day polar pilot, while securing his skis to a plane that had landed on an ice floe, he felt a push on his shoulder, thinking that his comrade was joking, the pilot waved it off: “Don’t interfere with your work.” The shock was repeated again, and then, turning around, the man was horrified: standing in front of him was a huge polar bear. In an instant, the pilot found himself on the plane of the wing of his plane and began to call for help. The polar explorers ran up and killed the beast. "How did you get on the wing?" - they asked the pilot. “He jumped,” he answered. It was hard to believe. When jumping again, the pilot could not cover even half of this distance. It turned out that in conditions of mortal danger he reached a height close to the world record.
During the Great Patriotic War, during the defense of Sevastopol, a group of soldiers rolled a heavy weapon to the top of Sapun Mountain. Later, when the battle was over, even a much larger number of people could not move the gun from its place.
Here is an example from the practice of cosmonaut training that Hero of the Soviet Union N.P. recalls. Kamanin in his book “The path to space begins with charging.”
In August 1967, another cosmonaut training session was underway - parachute jumping. White domes bloomed from time to time over the Black Sea coast.
An emergency happened to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov: when the canopy filled with air, the parachute strap caught on the metal back attached to the backpack and wrapped around the cosmonaut’s leg. He hung upside down.
Landing on the crown or back of the head is a dismal prospect. And then a gust of wind carried the parachutist onto the coastal rocks... He tried in vain to free his leg. Then, straining all his strength, he bent the metal back and pulled out the strap from under it... On the ground, not alone, but with the help of three other cosmonauts, Alexei Leonov tried to straighten the metal, but could not. It just didn’t work out without extreme necessity.
In another case, a pilot, leaving a crashed plane, tore with his hands a hose connecting a high-altitude hose reinforced with a thick steel spiral; four hefty guys tried in vain to break it. How can one not recall the words of Napoleon: “A person’s spiritual strength is related to physical strength as three to one.”
Such a case has also been registered. A man, falling from a skyscraper, caught his hand on a pin in the wall and hung by one hand until help arrived.
An interesting example is described in the book by H. Lindemann " Autogenic training": "While repairing a heavy American limousine, a young man fell under it and was pinned to the ground. The victim's father, knowing how much the car weighed, ran to get a jack. At this time the screams young man His mother ran out of the house and lifted the body of a multi-ton car on one side with her hands so that her son could get out. Fear for her son gave the mother access to an untouchable reserve of strength."
A similar case was recorded during an earthquake in Iran, where a woman lifted a fragment of a wall weighing several centners, which crushed her child. During another disaster - a fire, an elderly woman pulled a forged chest with her goods out of the house. When the fire ended, she could not move him from his place, and the firefighters had difficulty dragging him back.
And here is an incident that occurred in December 1978 in the Mordovian village of Shein-Maidan with Antonina Semenova Grosheva:
“On the evening of December 12, I fed the calves for the night and was walking home from the farm. It was already dark. But I’ve been walking along this road for twenty-two years, and there was no fear at all. There was half a kilometer left to the last house when I shuddered from a push from behind, and immediately someone grabbed my leg. A dog? We have a huge angry dog in our village, the owners let it out at night to run around. I turned and swung my bag. And then I saw: a wolf! He knocked me down, and I thought: Well, that's death. If it weren't for the handkerchief, it would have been so, because the beast grabbed my throat. I grabbed his jaws with my hands and began to unclench them. And they were like iron. And I got the strength from somewhere - with my left pulled it back with my hand lower jaw, and when she wanted to grab it with her right hand, her hand slipped into the mouth. I pushed it deeper and caught my tongue. This must have hurt the wolf, because he stopped tearing and I was able to get to my feet. She screamed and called for help, but no one heard, or maybe they heard and got scared - you never know what happens at night." Then Antonina Semyonovna dragged the wolf by the tongue more than half a kilometer to her house and killed him with a heavy door bolt.