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I don't know how many of you have
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noticed but men and women have physical
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differences I know you're shocked and
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appalled but it gets worse men have
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physical advantages when it comes to
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fighting today I want to explore the
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specific biological differences that
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give men such notable advantages in
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Combat Sports we'll discuss what these
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differences are what biological factors
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caused them and why these differences
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might have evolved I don't really have
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an argument I'm trying to make in this
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video it's just cool information and I
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wanted to talk about it while none of
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you should be surprised that men have
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physical advantages you probably will be
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surprised at the sheer volume and
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severity of these advantages and I
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guarantee that there will be information
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in here that you haven't heard before
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first of all why would men have these
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physical advantages what evolutionary
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pressures would have caused this well
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much of the sexual dimorphism found in
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mammals is due to maleon male
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competition essentially males fighting
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for access to females it's why certain
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male animals have tusks horns and other
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weapons it's also why so many male
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animals are larger than their female
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counterparts now human males obviously
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don't have tusks or horns instead we
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have a myriad of physiological
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adaptations that drive Peak Force
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production and durability and many of
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these adaptations really don't help help
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us hunt food or fight off Predators they
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just help us fight other humans the idea
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that men evolve to fight each other in
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pre-agricultural societies is currently
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just a theory since we don't have a lot
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of examples of pre-agricultural
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societies that we can observe however I
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think you'll find that the evidence does
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seem to point in that direction so let's
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get into it first of all men are
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physically stronger than women we all
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know this but the question is why are
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men stronger is it just because they're
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bigger or is it because they are
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proportionally made up of more muscle
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are male muscles any stronger
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pound-for-pound or men just able to push
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their muscles harder the answer is yes
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men are obviously larger on average with
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that being so obvious that I refuse to
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get into the specifics because it's
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boring what's slightly more interesting
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is that men are leaner the average body
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fat percentage in the US is
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28.1% for men and
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39.9% for women so on average 150 lb man
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would have 42 LB of fat and 150 lb woman
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would have almost 60 lb of fat and while
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individual amounts of body fat are about
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diet and exercise the sex differences in
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body fat aren't essential body fat is
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how much fat you need for your body to
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function properly and not die or have
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serious health complications for a man
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this number is 2 to 5% however for a
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woman this number is 10 to
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133% pound for pound the average woman
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needs over three times as much body fat
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as men do in order for their bodies to
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function properly this means that men
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typically have a higher lean body mass
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which is the mass of your body if we
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sucked all the fat off of it if a man
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and a woman were both in the same weight
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class the man's lean body mass would
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likely be significantly greater so even
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men and women of the same weight aren't
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really the same size unsurprisingly it's
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also been found that men have higher
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muscle cross-sectional area which is
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just how thick your muscles are if we
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were to cut your limb in half and
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measure the thickness but even when you
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account for lean body mass or muscle
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cross-sectional area meaning that you
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compare men and women with the exact
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same amount of muscle men are still
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stronger this is because there are
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different types of muscles the most
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common ones being type 1 type 2 a and
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type 2B type one is slower and weaker
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but much more efficient it's what we use
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for most daily tasks and for better fine
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motor control type 2A is stronger and
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more explosive but less efficient and
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type 2B is like type 2A but even more
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explosive and even less efficient type 1
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fibers are broken up into small bundles
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of muscle fibers called motor units with
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a single nervous system impulse
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activating each bundle type two muscles
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on the other hand are divided into
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larger motor units allowing a single
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nerve impulse to activate more muscle
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fibers at once this means that type 2A
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and type 2 B fibers give more power when
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they sense a nerve impulse but those
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larger motor units use up a ton of
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energy fatigue quickly and allow less
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Precision of movement men have larger
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type 2A and type 2B muscles than women
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do resulting in higher Peak strength
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meaning that a man might be able to curl
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More Than a Woman even if their biceps
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are the same size however those type two
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fibers use up a ton of energy and
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quickly fatigue giving women noticeably
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better muscular endurance women might
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not be able to lift weights that are as
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heavy but they have an advantage in
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lifting lighter weights more times
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differences also present themselves when
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looking at individual motor units
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research consistently shows that men
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have a larger range of motor unit
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discharge rates which is the frequency
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at which your nervous system tells your
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muscles to contract you see every nerve
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impulse only contracts a motor unit for
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a split second which doesn't do a whole
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lot in practice but a bunch of really
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fast impulses keeps that motor unit
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Contracting continuously this means that
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discharge rates are one of the main
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things that can determine how hard your
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muscle is working when lifting at 20%
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intensity men have a lower discharge
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rate than women meaning that women are
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getting more performance out of their
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muscles but at a 100% intensity men have
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a higher discharge rate giving the male
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nervous system a wider range of
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intensity signals that they're able to
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send to the muscles this is evidence
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that male nervous systems might be able
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to push their muscles harder than female
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nervous systems and therefore have a
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wider range of strength settings that
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they can set their muscles to so if you
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pick an average man and an average woman
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the man is obviously stronger if you
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make sure that they're the same weight
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the man is still stronger if you find a
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man and woman with the same total amount
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of muscle the man is still stronger if
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you then make sure that man and woman
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have the same types of muscle in the
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same exact amounts the man might still
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be stronger of course having larger
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muscles that are less efficient and are
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able to work harder has some pretty
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predictable metabolic costs to fuel this
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machine men have to consume about 25%
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more calories per pound of body weight
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in a modern first world country that
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might not matter too much cuz I can go
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to the grocery store but in times of
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food shortage and starvation as was
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commonly experienced throughout most of
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human history meaning 25% more food than
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someone else the exact same size as you
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might become a big problem and to add to
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men's starvation woses women are also
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better at metabolizing fat meaning they
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can break down their excess fat stores
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which they had more of anyway for energy
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more efficiently than men can break down
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their fat stores while men have clear
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advantages in strength that's not the
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only variable that matters in a fight
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it's also about where that strength is
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located while women have about 80% of
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male strength in their lower bodies they
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only have about 50% in their upper
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bodies this disproportionate advantage
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in upper body strength allows men to
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Grapple and punch harder men also have a
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higher center of gravity allowing them
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to put more of their body weight behind
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upper body strikes the trade-off is that
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men can't do this because their Center
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of mass is now too far forward to
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balance in fact researchers have even
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found that men have a greater advantage
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in a punching motion compared to a spear
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throwing motion implying that male
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physicality involved less for hunting
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purposes and More For Fighting purposes
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proportionally men have considerably
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thicker necks than women do and the male
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skull even has more prominent mastoid
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process giving these large neck muscles
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a better attachment point a thick
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muscular neck by the way is one of the
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very few
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visible signs of an experienced fighter
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as fighting is one of the few activities
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that makes heavy use of the neck muscles
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meaning that one of the biggest
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differences in male and female
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musculature is in the one spot where
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Extra Strength is almost only useful for
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interpersonal combat so not only do men
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have more muscle and stronger muscle but
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they also pack on muscle in areas that
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are likely to be more beneficial for
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fighting now to feed oxygen to all that
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questionably efficient muscle men also
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have greatly increased cardiovascular
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systems male lungs are 30% larger which
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are able to fit because men have
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significantly larger rib cages however
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men have larger lungs even when you
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adjust for the size of the rib cage
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because women's organs have to be small
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enough to allow pregnancy to shove
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everything into the rib cage male torsos
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have to make no such concessions and
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that extra passenger space is instead
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used for a bigger gas tank when
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breathing men and women also favor
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different mechanisms with men making
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heavier use of the diaphragm to pull the
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lungs down and women making
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comparatively greater use of the rib
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muscles to expand the rib cage and lungs
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outwards women rely Less on the
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diaphragm pulling down because once
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again their body has to make allowances
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for pregnancy and pulling your lungs
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down isn't very easy when there's a baby
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in the way of course facilitating these
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larger lungs means that men also have
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larger nasal cavities and even larger
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cranial Airways built into the shape of
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their skulls this allows more air to
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flow through their heads and into their
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trachea which is also significantly
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larger in men these adaptations give men
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a lower air flow resistance meaning the
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air flows more easily between the mouth
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and lungs lower resistance and larger
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lungs means that men have greater flow
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volume loops meaning they can move a lot
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more air than women typically can and
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they can do so at a greater
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physiological efficiency you see the
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muscles that manage breathing use energy
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but breathing is necessary to get the
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oxygen to use energy male respiratory
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activity actually uses less energy for
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the same given volume of oxygen and not
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only can men suck in more oxygen more
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efficiently but they also get it to
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their muscles more efficiently they have
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proportionately larger Parts which moves
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the blood around higher red blood cell
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counts which carries oxygen to the body
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and higher amounts of hemoglobin which
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is the protein within red blood cells
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that carries the oxygen if you imagine
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the vascular system like a train male
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trains have a larger engine more cars on
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it and each car is also larger all of
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this means that men are able to suck in
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and use oxygen more quickly which is
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measured in V2 Max and overall it's
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about 20% % higher in men compared to
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women however it's not just about energy
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and power output as men are also more
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physically robust and durable starting
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with the fact that men have 25% thicker
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skin due to their higher levels of
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collagen that's literally thicker skin I
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don't know about figuratively thicker
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skin which sex is less vulnerable to
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verbal insults is outside the scope of
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this video however men also have
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significantly stronger tendons which is
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an important variable in netive tissue
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injuries the study I looked at examined
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the patellar tendon in physically
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trained and untrained people the
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patellar tendon being the thing that
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holds your kneecap to your shin in men
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that exercise the tendon was predictably
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thicker than in those that didn't
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exercise because it adapted to habitual
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mechanical loading it's the same thing
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that your muscles do when you work out
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they get bigger however in women the
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tendon was the same size in the trained
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and the untrained group meaning that
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women's tendons might not adapt to
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exercise as well as men's do however
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even when examining a tendon fasle of
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similar thickness a fasle being a tiny
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bundle of collagen fibers that make up a
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tendon researchers found the male
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phasical were also mechanically stronger
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so if you look at men and women of the
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same size men have stronger connective
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tissue same lean body mass men have
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stronger connective tissue same tendon
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cross sectional area still stronger
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connective tissue are you seeing a
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pattern here and these differences can
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have real effects on things like
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injuries with women reporting much
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higher rates of connective tissue
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injuries when compared with men this is
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exacerbated by the fact that men and
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women have differently angled limbs you
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see both your arms and your legs kick
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out at the elbow and knee joints in Arms
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This is called the carrying angle in the
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legs it's called The Q angle women
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actually have no noticeably larger
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carrying and Q angles than men do and
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that has consequences in sports
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performance when cutting or juking a low
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Q angle results in the force traveling
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straight up the leg while a high Q angle
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results in the leg attempting to fold in
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half laterally this puts extra stress on
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the ACL which is the ligament that
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primarily resists that folding motion
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when you combine this with the fact that
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women have proportionally weaker
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connective tissue anyway it's no
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surprise that women are at a much higher
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risk for ACL injuries than men are
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however some of the most obvious
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differences in durability can be found
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in the skeleton male bones are typically
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thicker even when adjusted for body size
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as testosterone is instrumental in
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promoting bone growth in addition they
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have a proportionally higher amount of
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cortical bone and a lower amount of
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tabular bone cortical bone being the
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dense compact bone you normally see on
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the outside of Bones and tricular Bone
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being the softer spongier bone that you
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normally see on the inside of Bones this
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means that men's bones are stronger and
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harder than a comparative woman's bone
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in the face men have a larger and wider
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jaw a more prominent brow Ridge and more
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robust maxilla and zygomatic bones you
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may notice that these are the bones
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commonly broken in fights which is
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another piece of evidence supporting the
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idea that some of the sex differences
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specifically evolved for fighting this
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buildup of bone also crows out the face
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giving male eyes the appearance of being
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smaller possibly protecting them from
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harm and this also likely explains why
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anime artists seem to think that women's
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eyeballs are twice as large as men's
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eyes when they're actually the same size
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and then you have whatever this is dear
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goodness someone put it out of its
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misery anyway there are plenty more sex
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differences that could affect physical
00:15:54
performance in a fight men have longer
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wingspans relative to their height
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giving men greater reach and a longer
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limb to swing and generate force with
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their hands are proportionally larger
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making the mass of their fists more
00:16:08
significant combined with their wingspan
00:16:10
this means they're essentially swinging
00:16:12
a hammer with a heavier head and a
00:16:14
longer handle men also have a higher
00:16:17
hand index which is the hand's width
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divided by its height time 100 higher
00:16:22
hand indexes are thought to be better at
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making more structurally robust fists as
00:16:28
shorter and wider hands can more easily
00:16:30
curl their fingers in to create Broad
00:16:32
and sturdy fists compare this orangutang
00:16:35
hand with this gorilla hand now guess
00:16:39
which species is known for being more
00:16:41
violent with each other it's also
00:16:43
thought that the hands of certain
00:16:44
primates evolved not just for grasping
00:16:46
and manipulation but also for causing
00:16:49
damage with the hand index being one of
00:16:51
the primary pieces of evidence even
00:16:54
brain and nervous system differences
00:16:56
between men and women are noteworthy men
00:16:59
have faster reaction times and are
00:17:01
better at visually tracking fast moving
00:17:03
objects both of these attributes have
00:17:06
pretty obvious advantages for striking
00:17:08
men also have better spatial
00:17:10
intelligence including better 3D
00:17:12
rotation which is very helpful for
00:17:14
visualizing and understanding grappling
00:17:16
moves you probably already know that men
00:17:19
have lower social and emotional
00:17:20
intelligence compared with women making
00:17:22
it more difficult for them to operate in
00:17:24
social groups which is a key human
00:17:27
evolutionary advantage however the only
00:17:31
aspect of social intelligence that men
00:17:33
consistently score higher on are
00:17:35
recognizing anger aggression and
00:17:38
threatening cues men evolved just enough
00:17:42
social intelligence for fighting and
00:17:44
then stopped even when hurt men display
00:17:47
a lower sensitivity to pain than women
00:17:49
do they are more competitively motivated
00:17:52
and exhibit higher risk-taking Behavior
00:17:55
one of the most interesting differences
00:17:57
is unfortunately an otal but basically
00:18:00
every martial arts coach will back me up
00:18:02
on this and that is that women are more
00:18:05
coachable but men still somehow seem to
00:18:08
have higher skill ceilings women tend to
00:18:11
do the exact move in the exact way you
00:18:14
tell them to do it and men don't instead
00:18:18
men are constantly trying to modify the
00:18:20
move do different moves or otherwise
00:18:23
find a way to ignore instructions and
00:18:26
just like a toddler men also incessantly
00:18:29
ask dumb questions like why and does
00:18:32
that really work yet despite their
00:18:34
never-ending horse play during sparring
00:18:36
men often display but looks like way
00:18:39
better instincts and adaptability I
00:18:42
believe this is due to a difference in
00:18:44
mindset between average men and average
00:18:47
women based on the testimony of martial
00:18:49
arts instructors and my own experience
00:18:52
it appears that women approach martial
00:18:53
arts from a more process oriented
00:18:56
perspective while men approach from a
00:18:57
more goal oriented perspective if you
00:19:00
want more details I made a whole video
00:19:02
on this but the short version is that
00:19:04
women are attempting to follow the
00:19:06
recipe as it's written and men are
00:19:08
looking for as many shortcuts to their
00:19:11
destination as they can possibly find
00:19:13
and while process-oriented students are
00:19:16
a lot easier to teach fighting is
00:19:19
fundamentally a goal dependent Endeavor
00:19:22
meaning that the male tendency to modify
00:19:24
and adapt is ultimately much more useful
00:19:27
when push comes to literal shove once
00:19:30
again this is anecdotal and I don't
00:19:33
currently have any research to back this
00:19:34
up but I've seen many instructor's
00:19:37
comment on the sex dividing coachability
00:19:39
and I believe that mindset could easily
00:19:41
explain the observed differences of
00:19:44
course while the vast majority of fun
00:19:46
facts in this video are very much a
00:19:48
matter of nature instead of nurture this
00:19:51
difference could easily be either it's
00:19:53
entirely possible that differences in
00:19:55
perceived coachability are more down to
00:19:57
cultural norms in socialization rather
00:20:00
than biology or it could be 100% genetic
00:20:04
I just don't know while all of these
00:20:06
differences collectively confir massive
00:20:08
advantages to men in physical
00:20:10
competitions they come with significant
00:20:12
costs in many other areas of life I
00:20:15
already touched on several of these
00:20:16
including muscular endurance caloric
00:20:18
needs fat metabolizing and social
00:20:20
intelligence but I want to touch on a
00:20:22
few more notably men have weaker immune
00:20:25
systems and ultimately live shorter
00:20:28
lives men's higher risk-taking Behavior
00:20:31
might make them more courageous but it
00:20:33
also leads to a lot of dumb decisions
00:20:36
and premature death and all the
00:20:38
physiological trade-offs that women had
00:20:40
to make because of pregnancy also means
00:20:43
that women are evolutionarily vital to
00:20:45
the survival of the species and men are
00:20:48
expendable while men might have evolved
00:20:50
to fight women evolved to survive
00:20:53
hardship this can actually be seen in
00:20:56
ultramarathons while men are faster
00:20:58
runners longer distance races start to
00:21:01
become less about athletic performance
00:21:03
and more about survivability and how
00:21:05
much punishment your body can take which
00:21:08
is why the differences in race times
00:21:10
between men and women shrink in longer
00:21:13
distance races and past 195 miles women
00:21:17
actually perform a tiny bit better than
00:21:19
men do now this is if you draw a
00:21:21
statistical line of best fit there is no
00:21:24
195mm race but you get the point in
00:21:26
times of disease famine and hardship
00:21:29
women's lower caloric needs higher fat
00:21:31
stores and better social abilities give
00:21:34
them a clear Edge men on the other hand
00:21:36
are welld designed for combat but
00:21:39
basically nothing else to use a rough
00:21:42
analogy women are like hybrid sedans and
00:21:45
men are like muscle cars muscle cars are
00:21:47
fast more powerful and have high
00:21:50
performance engines but they also suck
00:21:53
gasoline like it's free and seem to
00:21:55
break down every other day the smaller
00:21:58
hybrid however requires only a seasonal
00:22:01
trip to the gas station and still does
00:22:03
everything you would expect a normal car
00:22:05
to do plus after a couple hundred
00:22:08
thousand miles the sedan probably works
00:22:10
fine while the muscle car is probably
00:22:13
scrap metal the hybrid is an objectively
00:22:16
better vehicle unless you're in a drag
00:22:19
race then the muscle car is going to win
00:22:22
in convincing fashion however remember
00:22:25
that while men have very significant
00:22:27
advantages in in a fight these are
00:22:29
comparing averages average man average
00:22:32
woman they are not absolute and the
00:22:34
differences can be overcome with proper
00:22:36
skill and conditioning Amanda Nunes
00:22:39
would turn the average man inside out
00:22:42
but I did want to talk about the sheer
00:22:44
volume and breadth of the differences
00:22:46
because it fascinates me and not that
00:22:49
this video is a non-exhaustive list of
00:22:52
only the differences that can affect the
00:22:54
outcome of a fist fight but other sex
00:22:57
differences are still really cool and my
00:22:59
new hobby is trying to identify the sex
00:23:01
of skeletons see if you can guess these
00:23:04
five although you'll probably need to
00:23:06
know a lot more about skeletal sex
00:23:08
differences than I explained to this
00:23:09
video so good luck I see no boob Bones
00:23:13
the victim was a man
