SAMOAN SUPERMAN: THE INEFFABLE STRENGTH OF AGENT LUKE HOBBS
The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the best examples of sequel escalation in modern cinema with each entry in the series attempting to include more outrageous stunts than previous ones. No character better exemplifies this trend than Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) who joined the franchise in 2011’s Fast Five and has been smashing his way through droves of unfortunate grunts ever since. Hobbs is one tough cookie you don’t want to mess with. The ex-special agent is stronger, faster, and has 50% more charisma than your average champion of justice. But exactly how strong would he have to be to accomplish some of his most amazing feats?
Hobbs’ physical abilities have steadily increased in power as the films have progressed, recently reaching comic book superhero levels. Some of his more impressive moments include breaking out of a cast by flexing his muscles and redirecting a torpedo with his bare hands. But those moments won’t help up truly understand the extent of his strength. In order to calculate that we need to look at some moments from his most recent film, Fast & furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.
The plot of the film follows the herculean Hobbs and debonair outlaw Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) who form an unlikely team in order to stop cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) from gaining control of a pathogenic bio-weapon hidden inside Shaw’s sister, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby).
During one of the film’s many action set pieces, Lore forcefully extracts Hattie from a CIA Black Site and is confronted by the titular duo. Hobbs attempts to fight Lore in hand-to-hand combat and we get a brief sequence in which we see the fight in slow motion from the villain’s perspective.
Lore’s vision is filled with an augmented reality heads-up display that mathematically analyzes his enemies’ attacks. At one point we see that Hobbs throws a punch with a force of up to 1248 lbs (5550 Newtons). That’s a mean right hook! Getting hit with that punch would be like briefly having a grizzly bear do a handstand on your face, easily enough to crack bones and send bad guys flying.
The real strength of this punch becomes apparent when compared to the punching force of regular humans. There have been plenty of attempts over the years to scientifically investigate how hard professional boxers and other elite-level fighters can punch. One of the more well known articles is a 2005 study (Walilko et al.) where researchers had seven Olympic boxers from five weight classes punch a crash test dummy and recorded the force they delivered. They found that the average punch force for the fighters was 770 lbs (3427 N) about 40% weaker than Hobbs’ punch. Across all of the studies I could find, the strongest recorded punch was a hefty 1131 lbs (5033 N). That’s still 10% less force than the punch in the clip.
This evidence alone shows that Hobbs is operating at the peak of human ability, if not a bit beyond that. At this point, you’re probably already convinced that he’s a superhero and I can say “mission accomplished”. But you know that I can’t stop here—and I won’t—so let’s look at one more insane moment from the movie.
While attempting to rescue the kidnapped Hattie from Brixton, Hobbs putts on an absolutely stunning display of Macho Man muscleTM. Brixton tries to fly away from an island via helicopter, so our heroes are forced to stop him using a truck, a chain, and good old fashioned teamwork. Unfortunately, at a critical moment the chain snaps off the truck! Rather than let the villain escape, Hobbs grabs the chain and pulls the helicopter back towards the island. It’s a brutal feat of super strength that requires over 30 times the lifting power of the average Joe!
Let’s break down the scene a bit to see where I got that from. The helicopter Brixton is on looks to be an iconic Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. According to its technical specifications, the helicopter’s lifting capacity—the amount of weight it can carry and still be able to fly—is roughly 9,000 lbs (4,080 kg). Hobbs would need to be capable of lifting more than this weight in order to completely stop the helicopter and then pull it down towards him.
Trying to find a credible “world record” for the heaviest bicep curl on the internet is a surprisingly difficult task; there’s a horde of random guys posting videos of their allegedly record breaking lifts. The upper limit of the weight they claim to lift is roughly 300 lbs (136 kg). That kind of strength is definitely impressive, but still nowhere close to what Hobbs produces in this scene. Hobbs is generating thirty times more power than the strongest average human when he bicep curls that helicopter.
If you had any doubts at this point that he is a bona fide superhuman then I’ll leave you with this last fact: You might remember everyone’s favorite patriotic hero Steve Rogers performing a similar chopper stopping feat in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. In the film, Cap stops an Airbus AS350—also known as the AStar—which has a lifting capacity of 3,000 lbs (1,360 kg).
…Do you see where I’m going with this yet?
Luke Hobbs is 3 times stronger than Captain god-damn America! Take that Steve, you Roody-Poo candy ass.
To continue learning:
The Physics of Punching Someone in the Face: https://bit.ly/2k19Eqg
Biomechanics of the head for Olympic boxer punches to the face: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2004.014126
