Human Body: Pushing the Limits

S01E03: Strength

The human body is engineered for strength, power and endurance. Bone is sturdy as concrete but flexible enough to resist breaking and light enough to allow us to be quicker off the mark than a racehorse. Our muscles, ligaments and joints have far greater strength and endurance than we know. In this episode, we feature extraordinary tales of human strength told with stunning see-through "anatomy in motion." * A young man is sucked up into a tornado, only to be spat out a quarter of a mile away, unharmed. * Pinned by a massive boulder, a climber finds the strength to lift it off in a seemingly impossible muscular feat. * A college football player sustains what would normally be unbearable injury and pain, yet has the mental stamina to continue playing at full output. Plus, how does a swimmer tap the remnants of our distant ancestors' extraordinary stamina to swim across the English Channel in 14 hours? How do marathon runners keep the pace on their grueling 26-mile run?

Overview

Human Body: Pushing the Limits, is a television program that premiered on the Discovery Channel on March 2, 2008 in North America. Titles in this series include "Strength", "Sight", "Brainpower", and "Sensation".

Millions watched the first 2 episodes of this 4 part series on March 2. Since then "The Discovery Store" has had many requests to buy the DVD set. These videos were released after the final 2 episodes on March 9 at 9:00 and 10:00pm eastern time.

This show covers topics on how the body reacts to moments of extreme stress like being stuck in a cave or running away from forest fires. It is made up of four episodes that all concentrate on a certain aspect of our body when we are "pushed to the limit".

⁕Strength - This episode covers how our muscles react when we are pushed to the limit. It covers stories of how people can suddenly lift masses 6 times his or her weight or run at speeds that even olympic runner can't match.

⁕Sight - This episode covers the aspect of how our eyes react in emergency situations. We can see much better and see details we normally can not see.

⁕Brainpower - This episode covers how our brain takes control of our body and can order our body to do things it usually could not or would not do. Examples include how our brain can order our body to eat the muscles of our body for energy or make us eat things we would usually find disgusting, and also covers dreaming.

Episodes

Sight

S01E01 Sight

March 2, 2008 48 min
Sight is the king of the senses. More than 80 percent of what we know of the world comes through our eyes -- without our sight we're lost. In this episode, we reveal the inner...
Brain Power

S01E02 Brain Power

March 9, 2008 48 min
The driving force behind every one of us is the most powerful organ in the natural world: the human brain. Our central processing unit generates as many electrical impulses in a single day as all...
Strength

S01E03 Strength

March 2, 2008 47 min
The human body is engineered for strength, power and endurance. Bone is sturdy as concrete but flexible enough to resist breaking and light enough to allow us to be quicker off the mark than a...
Sensation

S01E04 Sensation

March 9, 2008 47 min
Less than one-twentieth of an inch below the surface of the skin are the "antennae" that allow us to sense the world around us. This vital layer is the gateway to the original information superhighway...

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