Put his body on her legs.....

Lunch yesterday drifted to a hypothesis Laura had about comparing male and female upper and lower body strength. She suggested that a males and females distribute their muscle power differently. Females have relatively stronger lower bodies that upper bodies. Although watching her and Tang battle it out in a leg wrestling match would be a good time, I decided to find a more objective way of looking at it.

I have set up a spreadsheet using athletic records as a measure of female and male physical strength. Using wikipedia and the canadian paralympic website, I claimed that some events are purely upper or lower body activities. I figured that athletic world records represent the maximum possible output of the human female/male body. This analysis has some assumptions namely: a) all of the athletes are in peak form and should have similar body types (the optimal body type and weight for their event) b) rules are enforced so that for example a wheelchair athlete cannot contribute to their success with their legs

Although this spreadsheet is inconclusive especially taking standard deviation into account it looks like Laura's intuition is right.