Experts discover secret muscles key to strength of world's strongest man

Scientists have discovered “surprising” secret muscles that give the world’s strongest men their huge strength.

Looking at a strongman, you’d be forgiven for thinking the bulk of their strength comes from the massive muscles in their arms, legs and core.

However, scientists have uncovered that the key actually lies in an unassuming set of three long, thin muscles that are located in the legs.

The three muscles are known as “guy ropes” and serve a similar function that guy ropes have when putting up a tent, by stabilising the pelvis and thighs.

Individually, the muscles are called sartorius, gracilis and semitendinosus and are located in the upper leg. Researchers found that in the world-class strongman Eddie Hall, these muscles were between 140 per cent to 202 per cent larger when compared to men who do not strength train.

Speaking about the results, Jonathan Folland, professor of neuromuscular performance at Loughborough University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, said: “You would anticipate that someone who is extraordinarily strong, like Eddie Hall, would have very big muscles - and you can, kind of, discern that by looking at him.

“We expected the big muscles involved in extending the knee and hip would show the greatest development. Whilst these muscles were certainly well developed, we were surprised that the greatest muscular development was of the long, thin ‘guy ropes’ muscles.”

Folland continued, explaining that there has been very little scientific attention paid to such muscles, but that their role seemed to be significant.

He said: “These muscles have had very little attention scientifically, so we don’t really know how important they are in different tasks.

“But to find that they were really very well developed in someone who has spent decades lifting and carrying heavy loads - and is very good at that - was really interesting.

“These muscles clearly are more important for lifting and carrying very heavy loads than we previously thought.”

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings