Examining ATI Wisdom Booklets: Part 2 Booklet 1 – Medical Portion – Fight or Flight

Last updated on: July 25, 2016 at 5:30 pm by Suzanne Titkemeyer

Interesting and important side note: Fight-or-flight doesn’t protect your body from negative side-effects like injuries, but rather numbs the pain reflex until the danger passes or your body gives out. Arnold could certainly lift a large amount of weight during fight-or-flight, but that doesn’t mean that that wouldn’t potentially cause another heart attack or damage to his heart.
A few years ago, I’d joke about the 1,800 pound pipe as hyperbole, but not anymore. Two years ago, we had a cow that had gotten trapped lying on her side in a ditch. (Cows can’t stand up if their spine is lower than their legs. You’d think that would prevent them from rolling around in ditches. It doesn’t. ) There was only me and another farmhand. We needed to roll the cow over her back so that her legs were below her spine and she could stand up before she developed pneumonia. I was mentioning to the farmhand that he should lift the front legs while I lifted the back legs when he lifted her back legs to vertical. I quickly crouched and flipped the front end of the cow. See, the reason I wanted him to do the front is that 60% of the cow’s weight is there compared to 40% on the back end. My husband estimated that I lifted 600 pounds. Since I normally struggle to lift 100 pounds of rigid weight, 600 pounds of rigid weight was a pure fight-or-flight response. If Arnold could lift 300 pounds normally, he might be able to lift 1,800 pounds in fight-or-flight. The good news was that I lifted with legs to protect my back. The bad news was that my legs hurt for a week.

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