Human Body: Strength - Superhuman

" It's a little steep here."

" Pinned beneath a rock weighing more than 200 kilos, sliding towards a cliff in a deadly fall, a climber was able to find power in his muscles far beyond normal limits. It was May the 9th, 1999. The Sandia Mountains in New Mexico test many climbers. Their granite faces are notoriously unstable."

" It's a little steep here."

" Mark was in front and I lost my footing just a little, and by instinct, to catch myself, I reached over and put my hands on the wall, and that's when all hell broke loose. The wall essentially came off in my hands."

" Sinjin!"

" This thing was huge and how it didn't crush him to death, I don't know, but I just watched him and I couldn't believe he was actually still alive."

" The rock slab had trapped Sinjin Eberle. It could have crushed his ribs, but with his arm muscles, he was able to hold it off, but only just. To make matters worse, he was on a sloping ledge, sliding towards a high cliff. If he went over the edge, he would die. He was in shock that his body had gone into overdrive. Sinjin's survival depended on the muscles of his arms, chest, and shoulders. But how could mere muscles move something so massive? Muscle tissue works by contracting, pulling on bone, creating a lever. These contractions occur microscopically. Each muscle has thousands of individual fibers, bundled like the strands of a cable. Muscles can get bigger or smaller, but we are born with every muscle fiber we will ever have. Within each fiber, a smaller filament. To activate the muscle, chemicals trigger neighboring filaments to ratchet together into meshing like locked fingers. As they slide past each other, the whole muscle fiber shortens. These contractions drive our muscle movement. Under normal circumstances, we use only about a third of our muscle fibers at any one time even when we feel we're exerting ourselves. It's the way our muscles deliver power most efficiently. If Sinjin was going to stay alive, he had to do something different to move the rock weighing a quarter of a ton. He had to unleash all the power locked in his muscles. Sinjin managed to lift the boulder weighing more than 200 kilos."