Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1910 — Strength at Various Ages. [ARTICLE]

Strength at Various Ages.

According to excellent authority the muscles, in common with all organa of the human body, have their periods of development and decline, our physical strength increasing up to a certain age and then decreasing. Testa of the strength of several thousand Individuals have been made and the following figures are given as the averages derived from such tests: The lifting power of a youth of 17 is 280 pounds; in his twentieth year this increases to 320 pounds and Id the thirtieth and thirty-first years it reaches its height, 365 pounds. At the expiration of the thirty-first year the strength begins to decline, very gradually at first. By* the fortieth year It has decreased eight pounds and diminution continues at a slightly increasing rate until the fiftieth year is reached, when the figure is 330 pounds. Subsequent to this period strength fails more and more rapidly until the weakness of old age is reached. It is found impossible to obtain trustworthy statistics of the decline of strength after the fiftieth year, as the rate varies greatly in different individuals. *