There's no true way of telling how strong a primate is; take for example the chimpanzee....
The strength of a chimp is so surreal its not even worth laughing at. Moving on all four limbs the majority of its life using their arms just as long puts them in the category of superhuman strength. Tested at a zoo they had a female chimp deadlift a heavyweight. The amount was roughly 600 lbs. or more using only one arm. That's freaking insane once you wrap your brain around it. Now think about the Lowland Gorilla.....
It has been said that the gorilla's strength in theory is the equivalent to 10-20 of the strongest lifters on the planet. Personally I believe its slightly exaggerated but not by much, overall that kind of strength is something you don't want to mess with. When it comes down to it, the gorillas are the strongest wrestlers of the animal kingdom, try to take down an ape of this magnitude and your life will be over in an instant. The crushing hand power is unbelievable and the tendons are basically like solid steel.
We can never be as strong as a primate because of various reasons and the majority of exercises to even practice would be way too dangerous. Their structure may have the closest resemblance to us humans but in fact they have different variety of joints and tendons in areas we can't comprehend and that's why during their lifetime the healthiest primates swing through the trees with ease, walk on their hands and feet like its a cake walk and climb so damn fast it makes rock climbers look like wimps. The most athletic of all primates is the Gibbon hands down.....
As you can see because of the long arms, its built to swing and swing far greater than an acrobat ever could. Because of their genetic code, gibbons can be as tall as three feet from head to toe but their arms stretch as high as 5 feet, talk about a hell of a reach. They have the most agile grip in the primate world because of the way they swing they can change grips within an instant going from tree to tree. To even get close to a fraction of that strength and flexibility the safest way to train is to practice hanging and moving about on a bar, soccer goal or any long stretch of bar; the monkey bars are perfect for this. Do you know which primate has the strongest hands pound for pound? Its the Gelada Baboon....
Although it walks and sits like a dog, the gelada's hands are so powerful it'll rip the bone off your fingers. They live in the highlands of Ethiopia where they climb upside the mountains everyday and have their gatherings. Climbing up and down slopes as steep as these talks a serious amount of focus, strength and agility. Their fingers aren't that big compared to other apes and monkeys but they're so full of tendon strength it makes them a category of power all by themselves. They're the only monkeys to be able to handle that kind of stress. They weigh no more than 45 lbs. (females about 23) but pack so much power they can destroy a 200 lb. man in seconds. The closest you'll ever get to having that kind of strength is if you're an advanced level rock climber.
They say bodyweight exercises are not good for strength and only good for endurance...Depends on how you look at it. I personally believe through specific styles of training, body-weight fitness can be carried over to other areas of strength. If you're going to deadlift 1000 pounds yes i'll agree body-weight alone won't get you there but you can build tremendous strength within other areas. I rarely touch weights (barbells & dumbbells) these days but after many years of thickening my hands and building great back strength and leg strength I can still walk into a gym and still pick up 100 lb. dumbbells and pick up a hand and thigh deadlift of over 300 lbs. I've even done multiple reps with full weight of the lat pulldown machine and machine chest fly over 200 lbs.
Don't underestimate the power of your own body. With the right training, bodyweight exercises can thicken muscle tissue and power up on your tendons to a degree of strength that makes you hard to put down. Imagine being an arm wrestler and training in the ways of an ape along with your specific training of the sport, most would find it difficult to even make you budge.
Want to build real strength using Primate/Animal Methods? Get these courses below.....
Want to see more of a visual of cool Primate Movements? Here's a video I found of a guy doing 5 variations of Primate movements you can do in your home (with enough space) or outdoors to play on...
Did some of these earlier just to mess around and were a lot of fun. I'll be filming my style of Primate movement in the near future. Be on the lookout for that one. Get wild and have a blast guys. Be awesome.
