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In the battle of the sexes, women will always win at (at least) one task: the challenge of the chair. This viral craze first exploded in 2019, and for good reason. Women make the chair challenge easier, but even the strongest men can’t seem to finish it. What is the explanation?
At its core, the chair challenge is simple: take two steps from a wall and bend at the waist so your head touches it. Have someone put a chair under your upper body, lift it up against your chest, and try to stand up. Most women are pros at this. Standing is no problem for them. It almost makes you wonder why this is a challenge.
But then you see a guy trying it out, and the challenge is immediately clear. Most of the men freeze, hunched over and swearing, unable to stand.
It is not an act either. Men have tried the challenge over and over again, but they can’t seem to overcome it.
There are many explanations as to why women excel at the chair challenge while men fail. The internet has attributed women’s success to everything from greater core strength and a smaller shoe size to greater awareness of how much space their body takes up. Most of these theories are completely wrong.
“We think it has a lot more to do with the center of gravity and basically the size of someone’s foot,” said Eric Shadrach, physiotherapist at MetroHealth Medical Center, WKYC. “People with taller feet will pull them away from the wall and extend their center of mass away from a position where their muscles cannot act as a lever and move them through the anchor of their center of mass.”
YouTubers “Math Dad” and “Science Mom” put this theory to the test. When Math Dad followed the classic instructions, stepping back two steps from the wall to lift the chair, he failed like the rest of his brothers. But when he followed in his wife’s footsteps, only standing as far from the wall as she did, he successfully stood up. Huzzah!
“This exercise has everything to do with your center of gravity,” Science Mom explains. “Being a few inches away from the wall makes all the difference in the world to know if that is possible.”
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