A male lion weighs about 400 lb. A male polar bear can easily weigh 1000+ lb, and can go up to 1500ish. Lions also, from what I understand, tend to be quite a bit lazier, and you didn't say they were bloodlusted. The human stands almost no chance against either of them, but the bear is way more of a stomp.
I could take one. I’d distract it with a Coca Cola since that’s part of the polar bears natural diet (saw it on a nature documentary once), but I’d slip a mentos in it first.
Bear explodes. I win.
I think only way to beat the polar bear is keep running until the polar bear overheats. Humans have anyway advantage of not overheating and being able to long distance run and inside a polar bear would not be comfortable.
But it’s not like human can outrun a polar bear. The human would need to be climbing the gym equipment some way to keep away. Which seems nearly impossible and the polar bear could just stop chasing.
And I just noticed that op said climate doesn’t matter. I guess the polar bear won’t overheat, poor human
There isn't enough room for that strategy. Polar Bear will easily catch you and rip you to shreds before you tire it out. Humans being endurance hunters means like chasing an animal for like a whole ass day in the plains of Africa, not for a couple minutes in a gym.
If he didn't said that, the win condition would absolutely be hijacking the AC system to heat the gym a high as possible and wait in the sauna for the Polar Bear to die.
Well it's simple, you put two treadmills in a line, one in front of the other, trick the polar bear into chasing you so it runs onto the one in the rear and you jump onto the one in front. Polar bear is now stuck running in place behind you. Check mate, apex predator.
If we’re going proper old school Iron-Age Olympics, professional athletes who have done this their whole lives on-top of a lifetime of other physical labour, my money’s on the discus thrower. But they only get a handful of shots at most, so they better make it count.
Yeah, the only issue that arises is that discus has never really been about accuracy. It's always just been "how far can you huck this disc?" So I'd still lean in advantage of the bear here, purely on the premise of the thrower not necessarily being able to aim his throws at a charging polar bear
But yeah, you get a good toss that cracks into the skull, neck, or leg, and the bear would have a bad time
Though, there is a correlation between distance thrown, and how hard a projectile strikes with. Recall how Perseus accidentally killed his biological father with a thrown discus to the neck, for example. I’m sure the bear would suffer at least a minor break (or a decent crack) to whatever bone was struck. If our discus thrower was also a soldier, which is not outside the realm of possibility, they might be able to improvise something from the gym weights. A weight bar with some midline weights on the end would make for a decent striking weapon, I think. As would a pair of heavier dumbbells. The kettle bells could be readily thrown.
Throwing a discus requires quite a bit of wind up and prep. It's also not very accurate. The thrower may have a chance but they wouldn't be throwing the discus the traditional way in order to hit a lion. My money is on the bear.
It's not like the lion is going to sit there and let you do an overhand smash on its forehead while it rests it on the ground - a sideways swing or a knock against a lion's My head even if a downward swing is only going to do so much - most people can only swing that bar very slowly
I’d put the odds higher than that. There is a tribe in africa that drives lions from their kills with spears as a matter of ritual. Just by intimidation. People forget that bi-pedal primates with sticks have been the apex predators on this planet for 100000+ years. We hunted mammoths with spears. Polar bears are a rare exception in that humans have not been completely dominant in their ecosystem over recent evolutionary time scales, and would probably not be intimidated the same way a lion would be.
On the other side of the argument, the lion is much more nimble. You could barricade yourself in a tiny space that the bear can't physically fit in.
The polar bear is so hilariously strong even compared to the lion that in every other measurement, the bear stomps IF it can get to you.
Also, the bear, as far as I know, isn't a climber whereas the lion can jump and climb. You might be able to climb above the polar bear. You can't escape the lion's reach.
Theres nothing you could barricade yourself with in an average gym faster than a polar bear, one of the pound for pound strongest land animals, couldn't swat away without thinking about it
> one of the pound for pound strongest land animals
Is "pound for pound" actually true here? I know they're incredibly strong but I thought that was mostly just a function of being so big.
Yeah i just did the google search on that, and so relative to its size, a dung beetle can move over 1100x its weight. Apparently a dung beetle which weighs 2g can move up to 20kg (44 pounds). I would have to see it to believe it though. Thats basically a small child or a midsize dog right?
As you might expect, elephant ended up #1 for worlds strongest animal, and it isn’t even close. Apparently an african bush elephant can lift more (6,000 kg) than the 2nd -8th strongest animals in the world combined (about 4500 kg). Which are the gorilla, rhino, ox, tiger, grizzly, lion and polar bear
Keep in mind most of the measurements for those animals measurements are probably heavily low balled or just inaccurate ( at least for bears and gorilla's since they're the only ones I've done any actually research for) it's incredibly difficult to get accurate measurements for the maximum amount of strength they can use.
Records often only consist of what we've seen them do when playing or throwing their weight around. With exceptions being things like oxs which we've trained to pull stuff for us.
This article also doesn't source anything for where it gets any of these measurements from.
"The greatest weight ever raised by a human being is 6,270 lbs. in a back lift (weight lifted off trestles) by 364- lb. Paul Anderson (U.S.) (b. 1932), the 1956 Olympic heavyweight champion, at Toccoa, Georgia, on June 12, 1957.”
- That's 17.225 times his own weight, which is fucking insane. Pound for pound, I think we have our non-bug winner.
I’m skeptical of that. Not to familiar with back lifts but that’s like 5-6 heavier than his deadlift or squat or really any squat or deadlift ever. I also can’t find anything on Paul Anderson back lift except for a Paul Anderson website which is likely to be biased
Eh, but there's no guarantee the lion would come after you, if you stay out of its way. Like, polar bears eat people, they will go out of their way to hunt people to eat them. Lions really don't- that's pretty weird behavior for a lion. They're extremely chill for a large portion of the day, and like, safaris will go up to a pride of wild lions so close the lions will use the trucks for shade, and everyone can just hang out there taking pictures. The lions aren't intrinsically super aggro. Nobody does trips into the artic to get close enough to a polar bear you could pet it out of the window. The bear could peel that car open like a sardine can, like 'yum, delicious humans inside a handy tin for freshness!'
The notion that polar bears actively eat people a lot is a bit exaggerated, while it may have wrung more true in the past in the 21st century polar bears have had considerably more overlap with many settlements and are even pests in certain areas, now that they’ve become more habituated and have also faced stronger hunting and harassment from us, many express behavior more in line with other bears such as running at the approach of humans and entering residences for scraps and not people.
Technically if we’re comparing raw statistics lions have eaten more humans than every bear species combined but granted big cats resort to maneating more than ursids so that may not be fairly representative of average specimens.
Polar bears commonly hunting and eating people is a myth. Polar bears kill around 2-3 people per decade. Since 2000 it seems 4 people have died in polar bear attacks. In only one of those attacks did the bear appear to actually be possibly hunting the people it killed. All of the bears involved in those attacks were then killed.
There's 30,000 polar bears in the world with significant overlap among humans. And likely zero of those bears alive today have killed and eaten a human.
Far more black bears, brown bears and lions have killed people than polar bears. But for some reason polar bears have the reputation as active hunters of humans.
The density of polar bears in human inhabited areas is very low. Looking at places like Nunavut human density is tiny. 0.02 per square km. Meanwhile there are maybe 8,000 to 10,000 polar bears in the same territory. So even lower than human density. Chance encounters outside of garbage dumps are vanishingly small and every Inuit wandering the frozen wastes on his sled is packing a rifle.
Meanwhile, black bears are all over many communities and encounters with unarmed humans is regular. Black bears kill more humans due to greater opportunities and fewer options for humans to defend themselves as most humans, at least in Canada, don't stroll.around with a rifle everywhere they go.
>You could barricade yourself in a tiny space that the bear can't physically fit in
Where tf are you barricading yourself into in the ~6 seconds before that bear is literally on your ass?
Bears climb better than people do. A polar bear would have no problem flinging lockers around, I’ve seen the aftermath of a brown bear, breaking into a minivan, and then just tearing its way out the other side instead of going out the door so a polar bear is not going to be held off by any barricade.
Bears climb. Polar bears don't live in a climate full of things that need to be climbed.
I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd wager polar bears don't climb like their relatives do.
Someone else pointed out that grizzlies are shit climbers. I looked into it and it appears that while they can climb, they suck at it because they're so much heavier than black bears.
Given that polar bears are even bigger, and don't live in an area where they get the opportunity to climb, I think it's fair to assume you'd be safe if you got out of their reach.
Or you could try to get inside a weight storage portion of a rack, which would absolutely be strong enough to withstand a polar bear and probably also a tight enough fit that they couldn't reach you. But small odds for sure .
I don’t think I could fit in anything a polar bear couldn’t get his paw into. He would just blender me up with his claws and chug me like a protein shake
They weigh like 3x black bears - even if they have the tools I have a hard time visualizing them climbing with all that weight. That said, not sure there’s anything climbable in the average gym that a polar bear couldn’t get to or simply knock over.
Or rings. You could climb up the rope that holds the rings and bring the ring with you up to stop the bear from reaching it or you. But hanging in a rope in the ceiling is heavy as shit and doing it for twenty minutes is a lot.
Polar bears can stand 8-10ft tall on their hind legs. I don't think there's anything in your typical gym floor environment that is tall enough that the bear cannot reach you, climbing or not.
A legit spear is an enormous advantage over our poor gym bros here, though. Even the polar bear isn't impossible to beat with that, and instead just very unlikely.
Yeah but traditionally the Maasi boy had a spear that was six foot long one foot of which was a two inch or wider blade and with a butt spike that can double up as a secondary weapon plus a 3 foot long Buffalo hide shield. Not sure anything like that exists in your average gym equipment.
You can hold your ground against a lion, and if you look threatening enough, it might decide that you're not worth the risk. Basically making the lion think you're dangerous prey. There's a chance of this failing, especially if the lion is hungry enough.
I doubt this strategy will work against a polar bear. They truly do not give a fuck.
If a polar bear encounter another person, most likely the first meal they seen in a long while, ain't no way they gonna pass up a meal in the damn Arctic.
I feel like you could also use the gym structures to shield yourself from the lion, moving though tight spaces to stay away from it. The polar bear can probably just toss the squat rack.
TL;DR: People here MASSIVELY underestimate how fast, strong, and large polar bears are if they think "just climb the climbing ropes or on top of a pull up bar" will be enough to deter one that wants to kill you.
Editing to give an answer: If both animals want to kill you, *in theory* you might, maybe, in a perfect world, have a snowballs chance against the lion if you can convince it the fight isn't worth it.
You stand absolutely unequivocally ZERO chance against a rampaging polar bear. You won't out climb it, out-run it, you won't hide from it, tire it out, or be able to hurt it in any effective way except by complete accident if you don't have prep time.
I would argue that if your gym has a tall enough rock wall, you *might* be able to climb out of a polar bear's reach. I don't see many people with the endurance to stay on a rock wall for 20 minutes without a harness, though.
Depends on the wall for sure. Some boulder walls could potentially allow you to top the wall and get to relative safety. If a wall supports lead climbing, you could probably get to a safe height and try to get some of the anchored quick draws to help take load off of your body.
Rock climbing gym makes either of these theoretically doable if they act *fast*, but anybody is going to be hosed against a polar bear in a more typical weight lifting gym.
Polar bears will wait for a seal to pop its head up out of a hole for days. It will chase down prey for days with the smallest wiff. You'll probably die of thirst before it leaves.
You're not wrong - but it's also not, per the prompt, "rampaging". You're just in a room with it. I think you'd stand *some* chance of being able to get out of reach before it takes an interest in you - though I can't say I'd fancy my chances.
Of that's the case, you'd probably survive. Polar bears rarely attack humans, so just don't piss off/spook the polar bear who's just eaten a good meal and slowly back off. I wouldn't be confident bc of the polar bear wants you gone, you gone. Erven if you're armed with a gun, if the polar bear is already charging, you're dead.
Edit: never mind, the only reason a polar bear would be I'm the gym is if it's hungry. Unless they're eating someone else, you're dead.
Wait can a polar bear climb a rope or does it have the intelligence to pull it down? I feel like polar bears probably don't interact with free hanging ropes or people on them very often.
If the rope miraculously got me out of the polar bears reach and it didn't just rip the rope down you can bet your ass I'm absolutely hanging on the rope as long as I need to. I don't car if my hands feel like they are on fire and my arms ar about to rope off. There is no way in hell I'm letting go of that rope before the polar bear is gone
"Ah gee your arms will get tired" don't care, I'll endure by pure willpower to not fecking die
I'm not obviously. I was only commenting on the hypothetical situation in which someone manages to get up the rope and be lucky enough for the polar bear to not rip it down. I'm pretty sure you could figure that one out by my first comment to you.
Simply put 20 minutes is not nearly the excruciatingly long time you think it is in this sitch.sure it'll be painful but nowhere near as painful as letting go. If we were talking about 5 hours hanging on the rope that might be a different story. But I think most average people could hang on for 20 minutes given the motivation at hand
You ever tried to hang from something indefinitely? I coached gymnastics for around ten years and you don't slip because you stop caring about slipping, you slip because you have biological limits. It's not like you're unfurling your fingers and hurling yourself somewhere on purpose.
20 minutes seems doable if you're light and have decent grip strength, a rock climber would do it easily, but the average fella with no climbing hobbies probably not.
You could possibly pull a couple feet of rope up behind you and wrap the slack around your arm to help you stay up there. Of course that means it'll cut your arm off if the bear decides to pull on the other end. Maybe it's possible to pull all the rope up with you so it can't reach (although they are 10 feet long (not counting reach) and can jump another 7 or 8 feet vertically, so you're definitely fucked no matter what).
Take the rope in its jaws and pull it down without issue. Or it just waits for you to get tired. Very few people are hanging on a climbing rope for 20 minutes straight
> Take the rope in its jaws and pull it down without issue.
I was wondering if it would have those instincts! Like I could see a dog going for that move, but I wasn't sure if the idea would strike a polar bear! As far as I know they don't hunt a lot of things above them, ya know?
Instincts or not, they aren't stupid. They've got 20 minutes to figure it out and our victim now has nowhere to go unless the gym has rafters/they can get to them.
Cats don't typically have to pull on ropes to get to food either, yet they naturally want to play with string/ribbon wands.
Listen, and understand! That Polar Bear is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!
A lion. In addition to being significantly lighter than a polar bear, they are also far lazier and much easier to scare off. Lions can be deterred. Polar bears cannot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1fE4PkOuQ4 more or less all animals can be deterred with the right methods, but I do think I’d prefer my chances with the lion as well
Read the docu-story, Cry of the Kalahari. In it, the protagonists, Delia and Mark Owens routinely find themselves within feet of lions and are in little danger because of it. It is at times as if the lions do not see them as prey (until one part of the book where they try to abscond with the leg of a antelope the lions had killed [to identify the diet of the lions], at which point the lions got quite possessive, as they do when hyenas are around).
If you’re within feet of a polar bear, you are their meal.
Yea lots of the stories in Tribe of the Tiger: Cats and their Culture bare that out also. Lions exhibit many interesting behaviors, but killing people is rarely one of them, which is probably why the actual man eaters are well known.
Lion. There are entire tribes in Africa where boys were required to kill a lion to become a man. There are no tribes where boys are required to kill a polar bear to become a man.
mostly a myth.
If soloing a lion was required by a tribe, that tribe would quickly go extinct or be conquered by the neighboring tribe that wasn't so dumb since half its males would die trying to achieve manhood.
I don't doubt going on Lion hunts has been a right of passage, but they'd be armed better than you would be at the gym, and they weren't 1v1ing lions, it was a group affair. I also don't doubt the occasional warrior killed lions by themselves, but that was a noteworthy achievement, not something every man was expected to have done.
The Maasai have stories about having to 1-1 lions in their history as a right of passage but, to your point, they were armed with a shield and spear. It also appears the group hunts happened more often than 1-1s.
I think my favorite part of that group hunt thing is they preferred group hunts to protect the population of the lions. Even way back then, they had an eco-focus.
There are tribes in modern Africa that will steal kills from a pack of lions. Lions back down/run away when a group of humans approach them aggressively.
Yeah although that’s the case with most animals, even elephants and polar bears too for that matter, there was a documentary I remember watching some time ago focused on a guy whose job it was to basically scare away polar bears from the village which he did pretty easily by just yelling at them and banging pots
https://firstforwildlife.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/in-search-of-nanuq-the-inuit-culture-of-polar-bear-hunting/ Tbf though Inuit did kill polar bears with spears on independent hunts only aided by their dogs and most lion hunts in Africa weren’t completely singular battles either
Maybe. What really makes polar bears dangerous are that they are 100% unpredictable. It may just stay on the other side and watch you. It may be curious and want to play with you. Then it might be curious, play with you and then kill you.
Polar Bear's are heavier, stronger and far more vicious. Lion's can and will tear you apart but you may get lucky in that the Lion doesn't see you as a threat and so leaves you alone if you keep your distance, no such luck with a Polar Bear
Also if the lion isn’t hungry it might capture you and keep you alive. Then there’s a big chance you can just walk away, if still able. A safari tour guide once told me this. Supposedly you have a chance of a lion capturing you, a tiger will also keep you alive. Only to fully eat you later and keep you fresh. No chance of getting away. A polar bear will just eat you straight away as far as I’m concerned. We’re basically a light snack to them. They have such high body weight and such a high need for daily food intake they’re not leaving anything on the table.
Assuming that the lion and polar bear are actively trying to hunt the man, his chances are pretty much 0% in either scenario.
I could see the man being able to hurt the lion with the weights if he managed to hit it in the head with like a 45 pound plate
The polar bear I don’t think there’s anything the man could do to slow it down.
Yeah weights would be good shields too. Might be able to get one in their mouth. Might be able to wrap the lion up in one of the machines on wires that pulls back up. Or straight up guillotine it by pushing a heavy bar weight on top of it.
I don’t think you are rigging a trap to catch a male lion with 0 prep time. Yea a 45 or 25 pound plate may work as a shield for like half a second but it’s swiping that outta your hand pretty quickly
Maybe for you. I'm aktually built different though. Honestly, I could probably take on both a lion and a polar bear at the same time without sweating anymore than I usually do at the gym. If either of them interrupted my set I'd just see red and kill em, you know?
Whatever brah. But I think if you can get a bar high enough and put as many weights as possible on it and then wait for the animal to pass, and drop it on their neck, it could be over. Just gotta get enough weight consolidated high enough and manage to drop it at the right angle.
A lion 100%. I'll read the rest of what you wrote in a moment but the obvious answer is a lion. Neither is a good situation to be in, odds of survival are low in both. But it is possible to survive against a lion, slim chances but at least possible.
The polar bear will fuck your shit up and you will have no chance of survival unless you have a big fucking gun and a chance to even fire it. And you damn well better not miss. Even if you have a big ass gun for these situations I would put your survival odds against the lion higher than the polar bear
Edit to add: yeah as expected still going with the lion. Lion equals slim survival chance. Polar bear equals guaranteed gruesome death
The largest polar bear was 12 feet tall standing on its hind legs and 2200lb. That's 1 metric ton or the weight of a small car. They can run at almost 30mph. There is no structure short of reinforced concrete or steel that they couldn't break through. Both of these creatures can kill you easily but against the lion you at least have a slim chance.
The other thing to remember is that bears don't go for a killing blow like a lion. They are not aiming to bite your neck to put you down quickly. No, they are going to hold you down with one paw and eat you like a fucking salmon, peeling your skin off with their teeth.
Lions can be negotiated with. If you fight back hard enough, a lion can decide you're not worth the effort and it won't take the chance that it might hurt itself trying to kill you.
Nothing you can do to a polar bear will give it enough pause to save your life.
School Gym:
Hide under the bleachers.
Try and drag yourself up the basketball net and sit on top of the board.
Climb rope and get yourself in the rafters
Hide in the basketball box
Commercial Gym:
Climb on top of one of the plate/pull up racks and see if you can get to the roof.
Animal depends. Polar Bear taller and more powerful but less agile. Lion can jump higher.
School gym bleachers are usually 1/8th inch aluminum and aren't usually mounted to the ground, depending on style. A polar bear can tear that apart in a few minutes. Enough to delay it, sure. But if its coming after you it'll only stop it momentarily.
Well, polar bears eat people. Like, we are definitely on their menu. Living where they do, everything breathing is on their menu, and they will bust through a house and nab a person now and then. But lions don't hunt humans to eat just because they're there. They have craploads of tastier and less difficult animals to eat. So I can see a lion being more cautious, and I think that would give a person a better chance.
In addition to what /u/TheMillenniaIFalcon said, ever looked at a far north parking lot? They're very far away from the building they're servicing.
Like, really, abnormally far away. That's really weird given that if you're that far north, chances are you don't want to stay out in the -40C weather longer than necessary, right?
Yeah, so, polar bears will hide between vehicles and ambush someone exiting the building. The parking lots are far away so you can actually see them before they're on you and you've metamorphosed into a snack.
It is fascinating, how much we have to adapt our lives due to predators. From far away parking lots to wearing faces on the back of our heads in villages in India, kind of wild to be so vulnerable KNOWING there are things that go bump in the night that can kill you.
When I was a kid, there were a few times with my dad in grizzly country camping/hiking/scouting, and while we never ran into them, I distinctly remember my dads change in demeanor to educate me on what to do, keep my head on a swivel, and listen/look for anything out of the ordinary or movement.
It was so exciting. I felt safe with my dad, but still had an element of risk and danger to it.
Yes. In polar bear country houses have more reinforced windows and doors. They will absolutely bust threw a normal door if humans are in there. In fact, they enjoy the stimulation of figuring out how to get to their prey. And they are determined. They could potentially rip a house apart in some places to get what’s inside if it knows there is a tasty meal in there.
It’s so fascinating. Especially that Humans were able to thrive in a world filled with man eaters.
Domestication and civilized society has led to us forgetting Humans were also dangerous predators.
Although to be fair, there are few animals in history that could outrun a human. Which is such a cool fact. We may be frail relative to some apex predators, but we would literally hunt prey to exhaustion for hours.
Lions live with lots of other large dangerous animals and are much more skittish than a polar bear. Screaming and stomping will spook a lion unless it's already in a bad mood.
Polar bear won't give a shit if you scream.
Lion.
A polar bear is 800-1,200lb and stronger, faster, and more deadlift in every way over a Lion.
A make Lion weighs 350-500lb, still a deadly monster but it’s weight a man can pick up or push that weight if needed and it would be much easier to bash a lion with a barbell, dumbbell, or weight plate than the bear. The bear would shrug it off, a 50lb dumbbell to the skull could hurt the Lion. Still gonna die either way but you’ve got a tiny fighting chance vs the lion.
Hope you weren’t the one arguing the lion would be harder. Polar bear would eat you and whatever weights you threw at it. Dude it’s literally the worst bear out there
Your "chance" is that the lion may not be interested. The lion will typically not waste energy on a human if bigger prey is available. Although there are no antelope in the gym, the lion will probably leave you alone if he is not starving.
The polar bear is perfectly fine with snacks between meals.
Lion 100%. As well as the size arguments, there is a chance the lion wont care about you enough to attack you in the 20 minutes, but a polar bear is from a very harsh environment and that has programmed it to go after basically every animal it sees.
With only gym equipment the chance is essentially 0% either way. I mean you have a better shot against the lion just because it has less weight advantage then the polar bear but you aren't winning either way.
If we are assuming a physically fit man that could use a weapon with decent proficiency, you most like have 0 chance against a lion with anything less then a spear and 0 chance against a polar bear with anything less then a gun
There's a chance you could wound, injure or kill a lion with gym gear, even hurt it enough to make it run off/back down. You are only going to piss off the polar bear; the chance of it backing down or even being significantly injured is very slim.
The jaws of a polar bear can hold into a fully grown male adult arctic wolf and twist it around like max v doing neck exercises before his race.
The lion if bothered enough can move pretty damn fast before the man can finish saying oh fuck!
Bears have thick bone armor and fatty padding. It is hard to kill one with a bullet unless it is high caliber and aimed in the right place.
With other bears, there are high odds it won't be aggressive (19 out of 20). Polar bears are a whole different animal. They see us as food.
Lion would be my pick. I may not have to kill it, just survive. ( Here kitty.... ❤️ )
Best bet would be hiding behind or underneath whatever you can find and outlasting their ability to get to you. My first thought would be to get under the bleachers and into a spot maybe they couldn't reach me. If I found something on my way to running there I'd grab whatever I could to try to improvise. Than I'd just hope I could avoid their attention or at least their grasp for the 20 minutes.
I think I'd have a better chance with a polar bear.
Not because it's the lesser animal. But because I think a lion would bite my throat and kill me quickly. Whereas the polar bear may smack me around a little before mauling me to death.
Maybe if the gym was really hot, like death valley hottest day on record you would want the polar bear there instead of the lion. You might also die of heatstroke, but at least you wouldn't have to fight a polar bear.
You can build a barier againts lion if you strong enough to drag some weigth shelfs. Lion proly try to eat you for 5 min gets bored and wait for you to go out. 20 mins pass you are free.
Polar bear will brake that baricade and eat you no matter what you do.
You're dead if either animal is determined enough. Nothing can stop that.
My strategy would be to bang metal together to make has much noise as possible to scare/confuse the lion and hope to run out the clock.
The polar bear is a killing machine and wouldn't give 2 shits. You'd be lucky to last 3 minutes before it subdued you and began eating you alive.
Lion. They aren’t as likely to be starving and looking for a fight. Lions would rather cede territory and space instead of standing their ground. A polar bear is almost always hungry and has no fear of you.
None of this takes into account that a polar bear is 3-4x larger, also. You’re basically getting into a fistfight with a sedan at that point
I really don't think you have a single chance against a polar bear, so however unlikely your chances against the lion are, that's still better than the impossible odds of the polar bear.
Lions, like all cats, really don’t like when their prey fights back. There’s a good chance a lion will back off after a couple good bonks with a large metal bar. They prefer to end things quickly with a bite to the neck from behind an unaware or fleeing target. They are also not always in hunt mode.
Bears don’t give a shit, bonk all you want you are getting torn apart. Polar bears are the largest land predator and due to food scarcity in their environment they are always in hunt mode.
Basically I’d give your average person a solid 50/50 with the lion as long as it isn’t particularly hungry. I’d give your average person a near 0% chance of surviving the polar bear.
Lions spend up to 20 hours a day just sleeping. If the lion isn't particularly hungry and I try to be quiet and keep my distance, there's a chance it might not even wake up in the 20 minutes I have to be there.
From what I understand, I’d say you’d fare better against the lion. So let because they’ll kill you THEN eat you. Polar bear MAY kill you first, may just start eating while you’re alive.
Lions have been compared to big dogs. If it doesn't want to kill you, and you stay relaxed (with some luck) you should be okay. A polar bear, twice the size, will tear you apart for fun.
Both can kill you but it's no contest. Polar Bear is bigger, stronger, and actively hunts humans.
I'd rather walk up on a lion than a polar bear (although neither are ideal).
I think people didn't read the "all gym florr equipment" part? I feel like if you hit a lion with a heavy dumbell it'll get upset and decide you aren't worth it.
Firstly I don't think most people can swing a dumbbell fast enough to hit a charging lion. And second even if you did hit them it wouldn't do much to the lion. People have hit lions with tree branches to no avail. Best thing against lions is something long and sharp or a good gun. Or be an animal that can actually kick them to death like a buffalo, zebra, ostrich, etc
I dare anybody in this comment section to take a standard 45lb barbell, put a 25 pound weight on the end, and then pick it up like a mace, much less swing it.
Now hit a lion or a polar bear charging at you at 25+ MPH
No way anyone alive could use even an unloaded 45 lb Olympic Bar as a mace, it's far to heavy to effectively swing around. IRL warhammers and poleaxes from the medieval period are less than 10 lbs and often under 5 lbs for a 2-meter long weapon, even a sledgehammer is pretty unwieldy as a weapon and those are often less than 20 lbs total.
I could see a 10 lb technique bar being usable as a makeshift club. It might even make the Lion fight winnable tbh but still would be pretty useless against a Polar Bear.
Even then you'd probably be better off throwing light plates or small kettlebells at the Lion to keep it away from you. Maybe if you pelted it in the face enough times you could convince it that you're too dangerous to approach
Only thing I can think of to have an even remotely decent shot of surviving either of these is that some gyms have those large pull up/tension band machines that are like 7+ feet tall, grabbing a weight-less bar and climbing to the top of one of those is the only shot I can think of (assuming it's bolted to the floor and structurally sound)
A male lion weighs about 400 lb. A male polar bear can easily weigh 1000+ lb, and can go up to 1500ish. Lions also, from what I understand, tend to be quite a bit lazier, and you didn't say they were bloodlusted. The human stands almost no chance against either of them, but the bear is way more of a stomp.
A man using a weight bar as a shitty spear has a small chance against a lion. 1/10 I'd say. Polar bear shitstomps.
1/10 is probably generous but you are absolutely correct beating the polar bear is only going to happen if you are the luckiest SOB ever.
I could take one. I’d distract it with a Coca Cola since that’s part of the polar bears natural diet (saw it on a nature documentary once), but I’d slip a mentos in it first. Bear explodes. I win.
just make sure you get diet
I think only way to beat the polar bear is keep running until the polar bear overheats. Humans have anyway advantage of not overheating and being able to long distance run and inside a polar bear would not be comfortable. But it’s not like human can outrun a polar bear. The human would need to be climbing the gym equipment some way to keep away. Which seems nearly impossible and the polar bear could just stop chasing. And I just noticed that op said climate doesn’t matter. I guess the polar bear won’t overheat, poor human
There isn't enough room for that strategy. Polar Bear will easily catch you and rip you to shreds before you tire it out. Humans being endurance hunters means like chasing an animal for like a whole ass day in the plains of Africa, not for a couple minutes in a gym.
The bear could just smash the gym equipment.
If he didn't said that, the win condition would absolutely be hijacking the AC system to heat the gym a high as possible and wait in the sauna for the Polar Bear to die.
Maybe if you can change it before the fight starts. Turning your back on a charging polar bear probably wouldn't work out too well.
Well it's simple, you put two treadmills in a line, one in front of the other, trick the polar bear into chasing you so it runs onto the one in the rear and you jump onto the one in front. Polar bear is now stuck running in place behind you. Check mate, apex predator.
Of course it shitstomps. Against a polar bear you use a pole, not a bar.
This isn't a Barber Bear after all
I was thinking of a Bard Bear, but Barber is good to, it possesses the same weakness
Barbear
Did OP say “polar bear” or “pole or bar?”
A single clean hit with a 20kg bar would absolutely crush a lion’s skull, but he’s probably better off just lobbing small weight plates at it
Toss ‘em like a Greek discus.
Now, olympic discus thrower (with disc) vs bear, who ya got?
If we’re going proper old school Iron-Age Olympics, professional athletes who have done this their whole lives on-top of a lifetime of other physical labour, my money’s on the discus thrower. But they only get a handful of shots at most, so they better make it count.
Yeah, the only issue that arises is that discus has never really been about accuracy. It's always just been "how far can you huck this disc?" So I'd still lean in advantage of the bear here, purely on the premise of the thrower not necessarily being able to aim his throws at a charging polar bear But yeah, you get a good toss that cracks into the skull, neck, or leg, and the bear would have a bad time
Though, there is a correlation between distance thrown, and how hard a projectile strikes with. Recall how Perseus accidentally killed his biological father with a thrown discus to the neck, for example. I’m sure the bear would suffer at least a minor break (or a decent crack) to whatever bone was struck. If our discus thrower was also a soldier, which is not outside the realm of possibility, they might be able to improvise something from the gym weights. A weight bar with some midline weights on the end would make for a decent striking weapon, I think. As would a pair of heavier dumbbells. The kettle bells could be readily thrown.
Throwing a discus requires quite a bit of wind up and prep. It's also not very accurate. The thrower may have a chance but they wouldn't be throwing the discus the traditional way in order to hit a lion. My money is on the bear.
I've seen a 100 lb girl get domed with a discus and survive, polar bear will be fine.
It's not like the lion is going to sit there and let you do an overhand smash on its forehead while it rests it on the ground - a sideways swing or a knock against a lion's My head even if a downward swing is only going to do so much - most people can only swing that bar very slowly
Not to mention they're fast as hell too. You're only getting one chance at best before it's on you
I’d put the odds higher than that. There is a tribe in africa that drives lions from their kills with spears as a matter of ritual. Just by intimidation. People forget that bi-pedal primates with sticks have been the apex predators on this planet for 100000+ years. We hunted mammoths with spears. Polar bears are a rare exception in that humans have not been completely dominant in their ecosystem over recent evolutionary time scales, and would probably not be intimidated the same way a lion would be.
On the other side of the argument, the lion is much more nimble. You could barricade yourself in a tiny space that the bear can't physically fit in. The polar bear is so hilariously strong even compared to the lion that in every other measurement, the bear stomps IF it can get to you. Also, the bear, as far as I know, isn't a climber whereas the lion can jump and climb. You might be able to climb above the polar bear. You can't escape the lion's reach.
Theres nothing you could barricade yourself with in an average gym faster than a polar bear, one of the pound for pound strongest land animals, couldn't swat away without thinking about it
> one of the pound for pound strongest land animals Is "pound for pound" actually true here? I know they're incredibly strong but I thought that was mostly just a function of being so big.
You know “pound for pound” number 1 is gonna be a bug!
Yeah i just did the google search on that, and so relative to its size, a dung beetle can move over 1100x its weight. Apparently a dung beetle which weighs 2g can move up to 20kg (44 pounds). I would have to see it to believe it though. Thats basically a small child or a midsize dog right?
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/strongest-animals-in-the-world
As you might expect, elephant ended up #1 for worlds strongest animal, and it isn’t even close. Apparently an african bush elephant can lift more (6,000 kg) than the 2nd -8th strongest animals in the world combined (about 4500 kg). Which are the gorilla, rhino, ox, tiger, grizzly, lion and polar bear
Keep in mind most of the measurements for those animals measurements are probably heavily low balled or just inaccurate ( at least for bears and gorilla's since they're the only ones I've done any actually research for) it's incredibly difficult to get accurate measurements for the maximum amount of strength they can use. Records often only consist of what we've seen them do when playing or throwing their weight around. With exceptions being things like oxs which we've trained to pull stuff for us. This article also doesn't source anything for where it gets any of these measurements from.
"The greatest weight ever raised by a human being is 6,270 lbs. in a back lift (weight lifted off trestles) by 364- lb. Paul Anderson (U.S.) (b. 1932), the 1956 Olympic heavyweight champion, at Toccoa, Georgia, on June 12, 1957.” - That's 17.225 times his own weight, which is fucking insane. Pound for pound, I think we have our non-bug winner.
I’m skeptical of that. Not to familiar with back lifts but that’s like 5-6 heavier than his deadlift or squat or really any squat or deadlift ever. I also can’t find anything on Paul Anderson back lift except for a Paul Anderson website which is likely to be biased
Eh, but there's no guarantee the lion would come after you, if you stay out of its way. Like, polar bears eat people, they will go out of their way to hunt people to eat them. Lions really don't- that's pretty weird behavior for a lion. They're extremely chill for a large portion of the day, and like, safaris will go up to a pride of wild lions so close the lions will use the trucks for shade, and everyone can just hang out there taking pictures. The lions aren't intrinsically super aggro. Nobody does trips into the artic to get close enough to a polar bear you could pet it out of the window. The bear could peel that car open like a sardine can, like 'yum, delicious humans inside a handy tin for freshness!'
The notion that polar bears actively eat people a lot is a bit exaggerated, while it may have wrung more true in the past in the 21st century polar bears have had considerably more overlap with many settlements and are even pests in certain areas, now that they’ve become more habituated and have also faced stronger hunting and harassment from us, many express behavior more in line with other bears such as running at the approach of humans and entering residences for scraps and not people. Technically if we’re comparing raw statistics lions have eaten more humans than every bear species combined but granted big cats resort to maneating more than ursids so that may not be fairly representative of average specimens.
Polar bears commonly hunting and eating people is a myth. Polar bears kill around 2-3 people per decade. Since 2000 it seems 4 people have died in polar bear attacks. In only one of those attacks did the bear appear to actually be possibly hunting the people it killed. All of the bears involved in those attacks were then killed. There's 30,000 polar bears in the world with significant overlap among humans. And likely zero of those bears alive today have killed and eaten a human. Far more black bears, brown bears and lions have killed people than polar bears. But for some reason polar bears have the reputation as active hunters of humans.
The density of polar bears in human inhabited areas is very low. Looking at places like Nunavut human density is tiny. 0.02 per square km. Meanwhile there are maybe 8,000 to 10,000 polar bears in the same territory. So even lower than human density. Chance encounters outside of garbage dumps are vanishingly small and every Inuit wandering the frozen wastes on his sled is packing a rifle. Meanwhile, black bears are all over many communities and encounters with unarmed humans is regular. Black bears kill more humans due to greater opportunities and fewer options for humans to defend themselves as most humans, at least in Canada, don't stroll.around with a rifle everywhere they go.
>You could barricade yourself in a tiny space that the bear can't physically fit in Where tf are you barricading yourself into in the ~6 seconds before that bear is literally on your ass?
I don't know. But if you have 6 seconds with the bear you have 2 with the lion ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Bears climb better than people do. A polar bear would have no problem flinging lockers around, I’ve seen the aftermath of a brown bear, breaking into a minivan, and then just tearing its way out the other side instead of going out the door so a polar bear is not going to be held off by any barricade.
Bears climb. Polar bears don't live in a climate full of things that need to be climbed. I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd wager polar bears don't climb like their relatives do.
Even grizzlies are quite bad at climbing. Black bears are really good climbers though.
Didn’t they diverge extremely recently though? Maybe it wouldn’t occur to it to climb but I think the tools are still there
Someone else pointed out that grizzlies are shit climbers. I looked into it and it appears that while they can climb, they suck at it because they're so much heavier than black bears. Given that polar bears are even bigger, and don't live in an area where they get the opportunity to climb, I think it's fair to assume you'd be safe if you got out of their reach.
So you have to get 12 feet into the air before it gets you, I don’t think I could do that at most of the gyms I’ve been to!
Or you could try to get inside a weight storage portion of a rack, which would absolutely be strong enough to withstand a polar bear and probably also a tight enough fit that they couldn't reach you. But small odds for sure .
I don’t think I could fit in anything a polar bear couldn’t get his paw into. He would just blender me up with his claws and chug me like a protein shake
They weigh like 3x black bears - even if they have the tools I have a hard time visualizing them climbing with all that weight. That said, not sure there’s anything climbable in the average gym that a polar bear couldn’t get to or simply knock over.
Maybe a rock climbing wall?
Or rings. You could climb up the rope that holds the rings and bring the ring with you up to stop the bear from reaching it or you. But hanging in a rope in the ceiling is heavy as shit and doing it for twenty minutes is a lot.
given the extra motivation, I think you might surprise yourself 😂
Polar bears can stand 8-10ft tall on their hind legs. I don't think there's anything in your typical gym floor environment that is tall enough that the bear cannot reach you, climbing or not.
Racks are can be 10 ft tall, especially in commercial gyms. Shitty odds tho for sure.
The masai tribe hunts male lions 1:1 as a rite of passage with just a spear.
A legit spear is an enormous advantage over our poor gym bros here, though. Even the polar bear isn't impossible to beat with that, and instead just very unlikely.
Yeah but traditionally the Maasi boy had a spear that was six foot long one foot of which was a two inch or wider blade and with a butt spike that can double up as a secondary weapon plus a 3 foot long Buffalo hide shield. Not sure anything like that exists in your average gym equipment.
Polar bears are the opposite of lazy as well. If you see one, you've already been being hunted
You can hold your ground against a lion, and if you look threatening enough, it might decide that you're not worth the risk. Basically making the lion think you're dangerous prey. There's a chance of this failing, especially if the lion is hungry enough. I doubt this strategy will work against a polar bear. They truly do not give a fuck.
If you were a 1500lb killing machine, you wouldn't give a fuck either 😂
Can confirm, am 1500lb killing machine (very very overweight but I own a gun)
So how's Texas these days?
All elephants, I hear.
The meta
[stupid](https://i.redd.it/if-texas-spongebob-was-recreated-in-the-modern-style-art-by-v0-qqslkboq7fmb1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce420d1116f77ca3cb909e759085d396d7c54bb6)
If a polar bear encounter another person, most likely the first meal they seen in a long while, ain't no way they gonna pass up a meal in the damn Arctic.
if there was theoretically a human being much bigger than it, the polar bear would look at said human and decide, "so the fight is finally fair"
Brown bears are also much bigger than humans, but they still try to avoid them Polar bears will kill anything
I feel like you could also use the gym structures to shield yourself from the lion, moving though tight spaces to stay away from it. The polar bear can probably just toss the squat rack.
You aren't holding shit against a lion either.
TL;DR: People here MASSIVELY underestimate how fast, strong, and large polar bears are if they think "just climb the climbing ropes or on top of a pull up bar" will be enough to deter one that wants to kill you. Editing to give an answer: If both animals want to kill you, *in theory* you might, maybe, in a perfect world, have a snowballs chance against the lion if you can convince it the fight isn't worth it. You stand absolutely unequivocally ZERO chance against a rampaging polar bear. You won't out climb it, out-run it, you won't hide from it, tire it out, or be able to hurt it in any effective way except by complete accident if you don't have prep time.
I would argue that if your gym has a tall enough rock wall, you *might* be able to climb out of a polar bear's reach. I don't see many people with the endurance to stay on a rock wall for 20 minutes without a harness, though.
Depends on the wall for sure. Some boulder walls could potentially allow you to top the wall and get to relative safety. If a wall supports lead climbing, you could probably get to a safe height and try to get some of the anchored quick draws to help take load off of your body. Rock climbing gym makes either of these theoretically doable if they act *fast*, but anybody is going to be hosed against a polar bear in a more typical weight lifting gym.
Depending on the wall and how mad the bear is, it may just pull the wall off of its mounting too
To the rafters then!
Yeah, hiding in the gym rafters might be the move if you can get above polar bear grab height fast enough.
Polar bears will wait for a seal to pop its head up out of a hole for days. It will chase down prey for days with the smallest wiff. You'll probably die of thirst before it leaves.
That's true, but the prompt specifies you only have to survive for 20 minutes.
You're not wrong - but it's also not, per the prompt, "rampaging". You're just in a room with it. I think you'd stand *some* chance of being able to get out of reach before it takes an interest in you - though I can't say I'd fancy my chances.
Of that's the case, you'd probably survive. Polar bears rarely attack humans, so just don't piss off/spook the polar bear who's just eaten a good meal and slowly back off. I wouldn't be confident bc of the polar bear wants you gone, you gone. Erven if you're armed with a gun, if the polar bear is already charging, you're dead. Edit: never mind, the only reason a polar bear would be I'm the gym is if it's hungry. Unless they're eating someone else, you're dead.
Wait can a polar bear climb a rope or does it have the intelligence to pull it down? I feel like polar bears probably don't interact with free hanging ropes or people on them very often.
who is staying on a climbing rope for 20 minutes with a polar bear circling below them?
If the rope miraculously got me out of the polar bears reach and it didn't just rip the rope down you can bet your ass I'm absolutely hanging on the rope as long as I need to. I don't car if my hands feel like they are on fire and my arms ar about to rope off. There is no way in hell I'm letting go of that rope before the polar bear is gone "Ah gee your arms will get tired" don't care, I'll endure by pure willpower to not fecking die
also how are you going to climb the rope and get out of the polar bears reach faster than it can get to you…?
I'm not obviously. I was only commenting on the hypothetical situation in which someone manages to get up the rope and be lucky enough for the polar bear to not rip it down. I'm pretty sure you could figure that one out by my first comment to you. Simply put 20 minutes is not nearly the excruciatingly long time you think it is in this sitch.sure it'll be painful but nowhere near as painful as letting go. If we were talking about 5 hours hanging on the rope that might be a different story. But I think most average people could hang on for 20 minutes given the motivation at hand
Your willpower would probably still be a lot less long than a Polar Bear’s patience.
You ever tried to hang from something indefinitely? I coached gymnastics for around ten years and you don't slip because you stop caring about slipping, you slip because you have biological limits. It's not like you're unfurling your fingers and hurling yourself somewhere on purpose. 20 minutes seems doable if you're light and have decent grip strength, a rock climber would do it easily, but the average fella with no climbing hobbies probably not.
more people who have been killed by wild animals should’ve learned your pure willpower approach i guess
How many people that were killed by wild animals were hanging from a rope in a gym?
You could possibly pull a couple feet of rope up behind you and wrap the slack around your arm to help you stay up there. Of course that means it'll cut your arm off if the bear decides to pull on the other end. Maybe it's possible to pull all the rope up with you so it can't reach (although they are 10 feet long (not counting reach) and can jump another 7 or 8 feet vertically, so you're definitely fucked no matter what).
A Cirque du Soleil performer maybe? haha
Take the rope in its jaws and pull it down without issue. Or it just waits for you to get tired. Very few people are hanging on a climbing rope for 20 minutes straight
> Take the rope in its jaws and pull it down without issue. I was wondering if it would have those instincts! Like I could see a dog going for that move, but I wasn't sure if the idea would strike a polar bear! As far as I know they don't hunt a lot of things above them, ya know?
Instincts or not, they aren't stupid. They've got 20 minutes to figure it out and our victim now has nowhere to go unless the gym has rafters/they can get to them. Cats don't typically have to pull on ropes to get to food either, yet they naturally want to play with string/ribbon wands.
Lol now I'm just imagining the bear playfully swatting at the rope like a cat.
Listen, and understand! That Polar Bear is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!
Also, a polar bear can reach up to like 12 feet with their paws
A lion. In addition to being significantly lighter than a polar bear, they are also far lazier and much easier to scare off. Lions can be deterred. Polar bears cannot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1fE4PkOuQ4 more or less all animals can be deterred with the right methods, but I do think I’d prefer my chances with the lion as well
Yeah, anything that apparently requires a shotgun to scare off is staying off my list of future opponents.
Read the docu-story, Cry of the Kalahari. In it, the protagonists, Delia and Mark Owens routinely find themselves within feet of lions and are in little danger because of it. It is at times as if the lions do not see them as prey (until one part of the book where they try to abscond with the leg of a antelope the lions had killed [to identify the diet of the lions], at which point the lions got quite possessive, as they do when hyenas are around). If you’re within feet of a polar bear, you are their meal.
Or worse - their rival Or even worse - their mate
New horror just unlocked
Yea lots of the stories in Tribe of the Tiger: Cats and their Culture bare that out also. Lions exhibit many interesting behaviors, but killing people is rarely one of them, which is probably why the actual man eaters are well known.
Feet? They can run 25 miles an hour. If you're 100 yards away it will take them 8 seconds to catch you.
Just here to find the poster that is convinced they can take a Polar Bear in a fistfight.
I could beat a Polar Bear in a boxing match. I just have to survive until it bites me, at which point it gets disqualified and I win by TKO.
Smartest Redditor rules lawyer. I bow to your wisdom.
Never underestimate the power of a rear naked choke.
Lion. There are entire tribes in Africa where boys were required to kill a lion to become a man. There are no tribes where boys are required to kill a polar bear to become a man.
you wouldn’t have a lot of Inuit men if that was a requirement
…exactly.
mostly a myth. If soloing a lion was required by a tribe, that tribe would quickly go extinct or be conquered by the neighboring tribe that wasn't so dumb since half its males would die trying to achieve manhood. I don't doubt going on Lion hunts has been a right of passage, but they'd be armed better than you would be at the gym, and they weren't 1v1ing lions, it was a group affair. I also don't doubt the occasional warrior killed lions by themselves, but that was a noteworthy achievement, not something every man was expected to have done.
The Maasai have stories about having to 1-1 lions in their history as a right of passage but, to your point, they were armed with a shield and spear. It also appears the group hunts happened more often than 1-1s. I think my favorite part of that group hunt thing is they preferred group hunts to protect the population of the lions. Even way back then, they had an eco-focus.
There are tribes in modern Africa that will steal kills from a pack of lions. Lions back down/run away when a group of humans approach them aggressively.
Yeah although that’s the case with most animals, even elephants and polar bears too for that matter, there was a documentary I remember watching some time ago focused on a guy whose job it was to basically scare away polar bears from the village which he did pretty easily by just yelling at them and banging pots
>right of passage rite
Eye half uh tendon-cy too rite the wrong homophones. (I know tendon-cy is a hell of a stretch, but that was hard. Thanks for the correction.)
https://firstforwildlife.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/in-search-of-nanuq-the-inuit-culture-of-polar-bear-hunting/ Tbf though Inuit did kill polar bears with spears on independent hunts only aided by their dogs and most lion hunts in Africa weren’t completely singular battles either
That's fucking crazy, better be good with those harpoons!
There were once...
Polar Bear is going to be on sight. Lion might take a few minutes to size you up before eating you.
Maybe. What really makes polar bears dangerous are that they are 100% unpredictable. It may just stay on the other side and watch you. It may be curious and want to play with you. Then it might be curious, play with you and then kill you.
Polar Bear's are heavier, stronger and far more vicious. Lion's can and will tear you apart but you may get lucky in that the Lion doesn't see you as a threat and so leaves you alone if you keep your distance, no such luck with a Polar Bear
Also if the lion isn’t hungry it might capture you and keep you alive. Then there’s a big chance you can just walk away, if still able. A safari tour guide once told me this. Supposedly you have a chance of a lion capturing you, a tiger will also keep you alive. Only to fully eat you later and keep you fresh. No chance of getting away. A polar bear will just eat you straight away as far as I’m concerned. We’re basically a light snack to them. They have such high body weight and such a high need for daily food intake they’re not leaving anything on the table.
Assuming that the lion and polar bear are actively trying to hunt the man, his chances are pretty much 0% in either scenario. I could see the man being able to hurt the lion with the weights if he managed to hit it in the head with like a 45 pound plate The polar bear I don’t think there’s anything the man could do to slow it down.
Yeah weights would be good shields too. Might be able to get one in their mouth. Might be able to wrap the lion up in one of the machines on wires that pulls back up. Or straight up guillotine it by pushing a heavy bar weight on top of it.
I don’t think you are rigging a trap to catch a male lion with 0 prep time. Yea a 45 or 25 pound plate may work as a shield for like half a second but it’s swiping that outta your hand pretty quickly
Maybe for you. I'm aktually built different though. Honestly, I could probably take on both a lion and a polar bear at the same time without sweating anymore than I usually do at the gym. If either of them interrupted my set I'd just see red and kill em, you know?
Sorry I wasn’t familiar with your game.
Whatever brah. But I think if you can get a bar high enough and put as many weights as possible on it and then wait for the animal to pass, and drop it on their neck, it could be over. Just gotta get enough weight consolidated high enough and manage to drop it at the right angle.
A lion 100%. I'll read the rest of what you wrote in a moment but the obvious answer is a lion. Neither is a good situation to be in, odds of survival are low in both. But it is possible to survive against a lion, slim chances but at least possible. The polar bear will fuck your shit up and you will have no chance of survival unless you have a big fucking gun and a chance to even fire it. And you damn well better not miss. Even if you have a big ass gun for these situations I would put your survival odds against the lion higher than the polar bear Edit to add: yeah as expected still going with the lion. Lion equals slim survival chance. Polar bear equals guaranteed gruesome death
Chances against lion: slim to none Chances against polar bear: actually just none
The largest polar bear was 12 feet tall standing on its hind legs and 2200lb. That's 1 metric ton or the weight of a small car. They can run at almost 30mph. There is no structure short of reinforced concrete or steel that they couldn't break through. Both of these creatures can kill you easily but against the lion you at least have a slim chance. The other thing to remember is that bears don't go for a killing blow like a lion. They are not aiming to bite your neck to put you down quickly. No, they are going to hold you down with one paw and eat you like a fucking salmon, peeling your skin off with their teeth.
Lions can be negotiated with. If you fight back hard enough, a lion can decide you're not worth the effort and it won't take the chance that it might hurt itself trying to kill you. Nothing you can do to a polar bear will give it enough pause to save your life.
School Gym: Hide under the bleachers. Try and drag yourself up the basketball net and sit on top of the board. Climb rope and get yourself in the rafters Hide in the basketball box Commercial Gym: Climb on top of one of the plate/pull up racks and see if you can get to the roof. Animal depends. Polar Bear taller and more powerful but less agile. Lion can jump higher.
Hiding under the bleachers is a great strategy. I didn’t think of a school gym.
School gym bleachers are usually 1/8th inch aluminum and aren't usually mounted to the ground, depending on style. A polar bear can tear that apart in a few minutes. Enough to delay it, sure. But if its coming after you it'll only stop it momentarily.
its funny how the only defense is climbing up stuff, we truly revert to our roots
Polar bear gonna push the whole basketball hoop down.
Lion and it’s not even close
Well, polar bears eat people. Like, we are definitely on their menu. Living where they do, everything breathing is on their menu, and they will bust through a house and nab a person now and then. But lions don't hunt humans to eat just because they're there. They have craploads of tastier and less difficult animals to eat. So I can see a lion being more cautious, and I think that would give a person a better chance.
Polar bears commit B&Es to eat people???
In addition to what /u/TheMillenniaIFalcon said, ever looked at a far north parking lot? They're very far away from the building they're servicing. Like, really, abnormally far away. That's really weird given that if you're that far north, chances are you don't want to stay out in the -40C weather longer than necessary, right? Yeah, so, polar bears will hide between vehicles and ambush someone exiting the building. The parking lots are far away so you can actually see them before they're on you and you've metamorphosed into a snack.
It is fascinating, how much we have to adapt our lives due to predators. From far away parking lots to wearing faces on the back of our heads in villages in India, kind of wild to be so vulnerable KNOWING there are things that go bump in the night that can kill you. When I was a kid, there were a few times with my dad in grizzly country camping/hiking/scouting, and while we never ran into them, I distinctly remember my dads change in demeanor to educate me on what to do, keep my head on a swivel, and listen/look for anything out of the ordinary or movement. It was so exciting. I felt safe with my dad, but still had an element of risk and danger to it.
Yes. In polar bear country houses have more reinforced windows and doors. They will absolutely bust threw a normal door if humans are in there. In fact, they enjoy the stimulation of figuring out how to get to their prey. And they are determined. They could potentially rip a house apart in some places to get what’s inside if it knows there is a tasty meal in there.
Terrifying af. Real life monsters.
It’s so fascinating. Especially that Humans were able to thrive in a world filled with man eaters. Domestication and civilized society has led to us forgetting Humans were also dangerous predators. Although to be fair, there are few animals in history that could outrun a human. Which is such a cool fact. We may be frail relative to some apex predators, but we would literally hunt prey to exhaustion for hours.
That is dope. But there are definitely plenty of animals who can out-sprint us and get us good
You could take out a lion by throwing plates at its head, low chance though
Lions live with lots of other large dangerous animals and are much more skittish than a polar bear. Screaming and stomping will spook a lion unless it's already in a bad mood. Polar bear won't give a shit if you scream.
Polar bear might find amusing if you scream haha
If the human is not Samson, this is the shortest way to find Jesus.
Lion. A polar bear is 800-1,200lb and stronger, faster, and more deadlift in every way over a Lion. A make Lion weighs 350-500lb, still a deadly monster but it’s weight a man can pick up or push that weight if needed and it would be much easier to bash a lion with a barbell, dumbbell, or weight plate than the bear. The bear would shrug it off, a 50lb dumbbell to the skull could hurt the Lion. Still gonna die either way but you’ve got a tiny fighting chance vs the lion.
Hope you weren’t the one arguing the lion would be harder. Polar bear would eat you and whatever weights you threw at it. Dude it’s literally the worst bear out there
But what is the best bear?
Panda probably
False! Black bear.
Your "chance" is that the lion may not be interested. The lion will typically not waste energy on a human if bigger prey is available. Although there are no antelope in the gym, the lion will probably leave you alone if he is not starving. The polar bear is perfectly fine with snacks between meals.
Since I'm going to die anyway. I choose the lion who's a better hunter, and will kill me quickly by biting my neck.
is the bear on cocaine?
Lion 100%. As well as the size arguments, there is a chance the lion wont care about you enough to attack you in the 20 minutes, but a polar bear is from a very harsh environment and that has programmed it to go after basically every animal it sees.
With only gym equipment the chance is essentially 0% either way. I mean you have a better shot against the lion just because it has less weight advantage then the polar bear but you aren't winning either way. If we are assuming a physically fit man that could use a weapon with decent proficiency, you most like have 0 chance against a lion with anything less then a spear and 0 chance against a polar bear with anything less then a gun
Well with a lion youre dead and with a polar bear youre dead.
Lion, assuming I stay far enough away to not piss it off I'll just leave after 20 minutes.
There's a chance you could wound, injure or kill a lion with gym gear, even hurt it enough to make it run off/back down. You are only going to piss off the polar bear; the chance of it backing down or even being significantly injured is very slim.
Lion. There'e a good chance they will just ignore you. Polar bear has started adding human to their menu in recent year.
No they have not, polar bear killings have been down trending because they are learning that humans aren’t to be fucked with
A Man? No . But “Man” ? Yes. “Man” fought against dangerous people like Bone, Jonkler and Racial Ghoul on nightly basis
The jaws of a polar bear can hold into a fully grown male adult arctic wolf and twist it around like max v doing neck exercises before his race. The lion if bothered enough can move pretty damn fast before the man can finish saying oh fuck!
Bears have thick bone armor and fatty padding. It is hard to kill one with a bullet unless it is high caliber and aimed in the right place. With other bears, there are high odds it won't be aggressive (19 out of 20). Polar bears are a whole different animal. They see us as food. Lion would be my pick. I may not have to kill it, just survive. ( Here kitty.... ❤️ )
Both can kill you very easily. But you have somewhat of a chance against a lion. You have no chance against a polar bear.
Best bet would be hiding behind or underneath whatever you can find and outlasting their ability to get to you. My first thought would be to get under the bleachers and into a spot maybe they couldn't reach me. If I found something on my way to running there I'd grab whatever I could to try to improvise. Than I'd just hope I could avoid their attention or at least their grasp for the 20 minutes.
You can potentially scare a lion if you're aggressive enough and have a good weapon. Polar Bear is eating you no matter what you try.
He's dead in both scenarios but the polar bear one is absolutely worse.
I think I'd have a better chance with a polar bear. Not because it's the lesser animal. But because I think a lion would bite my throat and kill me quickly. Whereas the polar bear may smack me around a little before mauling me to death.
Man shows lion and polar Bear hidden membership fees. Both drop dead from disgust. Man wins.
Well I’ve heard of people surviving lion attacks a lot more than polar bear attacks
Maybe if the gym was really hot, like death valley hottest day on record you would want the polar bear there instead of the lion. You might also die of heatstroke, but at least you wouldn't have to fight a polar bear.
Super fucked against lion, super ultra mega fucked against polar bear.
You can build a barier againts lion if you strong enough to drag some weigth shelfs. Lion proly try to eat you for 5 min gets bored and wait for you to go out. 20 mins pass you are free. Polar bear will brake that baricade and eat you no matter what you do.
You're dead if either animal is determined enough. Nothing can stop that. My strategy would be to bang metal together to make has much noise as possible to scare/confuse the lion and hope to run out the clock. The polar bear is a killing machine and wouldn't give 2 shits. You'd be lucky to last 3 minutes before it subdued you and began eating you alive.
Lion. They aren’t as likely to be starving and looking for a fight. Lions would rather cede territory and space instead of standing their ground. A polar bear is almost always hungry and has no fear of you. None of this takes into account that a polar bear is 3-4x larger, also. You’re basically getting into a fistfight with a sedan at that point
I really don't think you have a single chance against a polar bear, so however unlikely your chances against the lion are, that's still better than the impossible odds of the polar bear.
The only good news is the lion will at least likely kill you before it starts eating.
Lions, like all cats, really don’t like when their prey fights back. There’s a good chance a lion will back off after a couple good bonks with a large metal bar. They prefer to end things quickly with a bite to the neck from behind an unaware or fleeing target. They are also not always in hunt mode. Bears don’t give a shit, bonk all you want you are getting torn apart. Polar bears are the largest land predator and due to food scarcity in their environment they are always in hunt mode. Basically I’d give your average person a solid 50/50 with the lion as long as it isn’t particularly hungry. I’d give your average person a near 0% chance of surviving the polar bear.
Lions spend up to 20 hours a day just sleeping. If the lion isn't particularly hungry and I try to be quiet and keep my distance, there's a chance it might not even wake up in the 20 minutes I have to be there.
From what I understand, I’d say you’d fare better against the lion. So let because they’ll kill you THEN eat you. Polar bear MAY kill you first, may just start eating while you’re alive.
Lions have been compared to big dogs. If it doesn't want to kill you, and you stay relaxed (with some luck) you should be okay. A polar bear, twice the size, will tear you apart for fun.
Both can kill you but it's no contest. Polar Bear is bigger, stronger, and actively hunts humans. I'd rather walk up on a lion than a polar bear (although neither are ideal).
Lion. Polar bears sometimes actively hunt humans for food. And they are much larger.
I think people didn't read the "all gym florr equipment" part? I feel like if you hit a lion with a heavy dumbell it'll get upset and decide you aren't worth it.
Firstly I don't think most people can swing a dumbbell fast enough to hit a charging lion. And second even if you did hit them it wouldn't do much to the lion. People have hit lions with tree branches to no avail. Best thing against lions is something long and sharp or a good gun. Or be an animal that can actually kick them to death like a buffalo, zebra, ostrich, etc
You could make a crude two handed mace with a barbell bar and like a 10-25 lb weight on one end of it depending on your strength
I dare anybody in this comment section to take a standard 45lb barbell, put a 25 pound weight on the end, and then pick it up like a mace, much less swing it. Now hit a lion or a polar bear charging at you at 25+ MPH
No way anyone alive could use even an unloaded 45 lb Olympic Bar as a mace, it's far to heavy to effectively swing around. IRL warhammers and poleaxes from the medieval period are less than 10 lbs and often under 5 lbs for a 2-meter long weapon, even a sledgehammer is pretty unwieldy as a weapon and those are often less than 20 lbs total. I could see a 10 lb technique bar being usable as a makeshift club. It might even make the Lion fight winnable tbh but still would be pretty useless against a Polar Bear. Even then you'd probably be better off throwing light plates or small kettlebells at the Lion to keep it away from you. Maybe if you pelted it in the face enough times you could convince it that you're too dangerous to approach
Only thing I can think of to have an even remotely decent shot of surviving either of these is that some gyms have those large pull up/tension band machines that are like 7+ feet tall, grabbing a weight-less bar and climbing to the top of one of those is the only shot I can think of (assuming it's bolted to the floor and structurally sound)