Pop Quiz:
Are the Mona Lisa’s eyebrows black or brown?
What is the strongest muscle in the human body?
Do men blink more than women, or vice versa?
Early in life I learned that people naturally gravitate towards those who are interesting. I believe this is true in love, business, and life. The more interesting you are, the more entertaining you can be. The more entertaining you become, the more people will enjoy being with you.
Back in 2020 I wrote a few articles in a series I called The Key to Captivating. I shared some fascinating facts to liven up conversations with others.
Over the years I learned that the key to captivating someone’s attention isn’t necessarily about what’s interesting to me, but rather what would be interesting to most people.
This is achieved by talking about the extraordinary aspects of ordinary things. For instance, you might be enthralled by quantum physics, but very few people you meet will want to discuss subatomic particles. To be a captivating conversationalist, it’s better to share what people don’t know about the things most people think they know about.
In one of my previous articles entitled Birds and Bones, I wrote some cool riffs on what very few know about human bones. Literally every person on earth has them, which makes it a fun topic to discuss with anyone you meet.
A quick recap: Adults have 206 bones, but babies have 270 bones at birth. They fuse together over time. The hands and feet comprise more than half the bones in your body, and pound for pound, bones are actually stronger than steel.
Sure beats talking about the weather, doesn’t it?
So let’s stick with something we all have in common for today’s topic…the human body.
Do you know the correct answer to the second question in the pop quiz at the beginning of this article? What is the strongest muscle in the human body?
If you answered tongue, jaw, calf, or heart…you’re right.
The real answer is – it depends on how you define “strongest.”
Force
If we’re talking about which muscle exerts the most force, the winner is the soleus, which is actually located just below the calf muscle. The soleus constantly pulls against gravity to keep us up right when walking, running, and most importantly, dancing!
Pressure
But if we’re talking pure pound for pound pressure, the masseter, or jaw muscle, takes the cake. Pressure is different from force in that it accounts for the area over which force is exerted. In conjunction with other jaw muscles, the masseter is primarily responsible for an average human bite strength pressure of about 200 pounds per square inch.
Resilience
However, when it comes to resilience, the tongue could be considered the strongest. The tongue has a combination of force and elasticity unrivaled by any other. Furthermore, it’s renowned as having the most stamina due to its unique “muscle architecture.” It’s constantly involved in all day tasks like eating, swallowing and speaking. It’s resilient to fatigue. Think about it…when’s the last time your tongue got tired or sore? Probably never.
Stamina
But if slow and steady wins the race, the heart is definitely the victor. Your heart beats about 40 million times per year, and will beat 2.5 billion times by your 70th birthday. It’s about the size of your fist, weighs less than 1 pound, and has a sophisticated electrical system that controls the rhythm of your heartbeat. And not to gross you out, but the human heart can keep beating even when disconnected from the body! Now that’s strong!
I hope these Key to Captivating articles make you the most intriguing person at the party, and just in case you need a couple of engaging extras…
Do men blink more than women, or vice versa? Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Are the Mona Lisa’s eyebrows black or brown? Neither…she doesn’t have any eyebrows at all.
