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Are Cats Strong – Facts & Considerations

Are Cats Strong – Facts & Considerations

Cats aren’t usually one of the animals we think of when we think of strong, powerful animals. They’re not like other kinds of working animals (cats are pest deterrents). Still, it’s interesting to know how strong your feline friend might be and whether they’re likely to put on muscle if you give them an exercise routine. So, are cats strong?

Cats are strong. A cat’s strength is in its agility, its ability to jump and run and pivot. Cats also have a comparatively strong bite for their body size.

Since it can be hard to objectively measure a cat’s strength without talking about the different kinds of strength cats, have, let’s dive in more.

Ways Do Cats Display Their Strength

Most cats are pretty subtle when it comes to their true strength. After all, cats prefer to be lazy and relax when they have the chance. Cats have also evolved to use short bursts of intense energy and activity for hunting more efficiently, which is why even the zoomiest cats usually only zoom for a few minutes at a time.

Here are some of the subtle things your cat does that show off how much muscle and strength is packed into their sleek frames.

Jumping

Jumping is one of the most powerful and intense movements your cats make. Think about it; they can go from a dead standstill into impressive leaps with very little notice.

Your cat’s muscular system also works with their senses, including sight, hearing, and information from their whiskers, to make the movements highly precise and controlled.

Your cat can likely choose precisely where they want to jump and make it there exactly, without much thought.

Domesticated cats can generally jump up to about 4.5 times their length, with some cats exceeding even that.

Your cat has more than 500 muscles total in its body, and most of those muscles have some role to play in jumping.

Playing with Toys

As innocent and fun as it is to watch a cat enjoy playing with one of its favorite toys, it’s also an excellent demonstration of your cat’s strength! Playing with toys takes a lot of muscle and coordination, especially if your cat likes to pounce on or bat at their toys.

A cat throwing and batting around a toy takes a lot of coordination, and your cat is probably using a lot more strength and power than you think.

That’s why it hurts so much when your cat accidentally baps you instead of their toys!

Climbing

Climbing is one of the more obvious ways that cats show off their strength. After all, cats can climb up vertical surfaces with relative ease, especially when they are close to their ideal weight.

But think about the coordination and strength that it takes. They are climbing with the power in their legs and gripping with the strength in their paws.

For some context, your cat’s paws are anatomically equivalent to just the ball of your foot and toes or the top half of your hand and the fingers.

Your cat’s claws are anatomically equivalent to your fingernails. So imagine trying to climb a vertical surface with only your fingernails to provide grip.

One of the more incredible things about cats climbing is that they don’t necessarily need all four limbs to do it.

Cats can often climb with just their front paws if their back paws lose grip, and cats that don’t have all four limbs, for whatever reason, may still be able to climb and jump and run like other cats.

Biting and Facial Movements

Biting is another expression of strength in your cat, and an important one since their biting power is important for hunting.

Cats have a lot of bite power control, which is part of why domesticated cats can use light biting to indicate distress or in play, but their more powerful bites are perfect for immobilizing prey and eating.

While facial movements might not seem like a sign of strength, cat’s faces have evolved to have a wide range of expressions, and they use their ears and whiskers with high precision thanks to those muscles. Your cat has a total of 32 muscles that are dedicated to moving its ears, compared to humans with just 6.

Even though facial expressions won’t help your cat open doors, grab objects, or toss its favorite toys, it’s still a sign of your cat’s strength.

Stretching And Maneuvering

Stretching and maneuvering is another essential way your cat can display their strength. Your cat has different muscles for the front and back of its body so that it can move them in two different directions simultaneously.

Your cat’s range of motion and mobility has a lot to do with their strength and how efficiently they can move because cats often use good body mechanics and momentum to increase their overall strength.

That’s why you might see a cat jumping back with their back legs when they are trying to pull something; the little hops help provide momentum to make it easier to pull.

When your cat is stretching or even curling up into a little ball, they’re showing off their muscle coordination, movement, and strength.

Are Cats Stronger Than Dogs

So, it depends on who you ask when it comes to whether cats are stronger than dogs. It also depends on how you measure strength.

If you’re comparing a working large dog to a domesticated cat in sheer muscle power, the dog will win every time. If you’re comparing relative strength pound for pound, chances are the cat will come out on top.

There are a couple of reasons for that. Cats are primarily solo hunters in the wild. There are a few exceptions, like lionesses, that hunt together, but most cats, big and small, hunt on their own or in small groups.

Canines, on the other hand, tend to hunt together in groups. Wolves can’t take on their largest prey animals solo, unlike mountain lions or tigers, but they can take on animals much larger than themselves in groups.

Why do their hunting styles matter? Because the way each animal hunts most successfully influences how that animal survives, thrives, and evolves.

Since cats are solo hunters, they need to be stronger, more agile, and more powerful animals than canines on average. There are also more cat species, which means that their body plan and hunting style might be more successful and effective.

Individual strength has a huge evolutionary advantage for cats, which is why they have evolved to have more powerful body plans for their size.

However, since most dogs that are kept as pets are also much bigger than most cats, they tend to be stronger.

Get a cat and a dog that are the same size in a room together, though, and it’s almost certain that the cat will be the stronger and more agile of the two.

Are Cats Fragile

Cats can’t be considered fragile in most circumstances. There are a few reasons for this, but one of the biggest ones is that their muscular agility lets them avoid injury in ways other animals often can’t.

However, they also have a lighter bone build than other animals, like dogs, which means that injuries can be slightly more likely if the cat is incapacitated and unable to maneuver out of a situation.

That’s part of why short drops can be more dangerous for cats than long drops and jumps. Given enough time, cats can land safely from almost any height or distance. But short drops and jumps make it harder to arrange themselves for a safe landing.

Your cat is more likely to sprain or break something from a 4 ft drop than a 10 ft drop, assuming they can move freely.

So no, we don’t think that cats are fragile, especially not relative to their size. Still, they react to dangerous and potentially dangerous situations differently from dogs and other less agile animals.

Can Cats Be Muscular

Cats are naturally very muscular, but it’s rare for them to look muscular or bulky. There are a few reasons why most cats stay very sleek, even when they are well-muscled. The first is that your cat’s muscles need to be long and lean to help maintain its agility.

A cat that has too much bulky muscle will start to lose range of motion. So, instead of developing bulky muscle, most cats have evolved to develop strong but lean muscle that lays flatter and compresses and stretches well.

Indoor cats also don’t often have as many reasons to develop many muscles or as much opportunity as outdoor cats.

Outdoor cats have to hunt for their food and may also climb and jump more often to navigate their terrain, all activities that build muscle over time. So, your indoor cat will likely be sleeker and have less muscle mass than outdoor cats.

Cats are also less likely to look muscular than other animals because of their fur coats. Cat’s fur, much like their muscles, is usually sleek and helps to disguise their shape. Even shorthair cats with fur close to their skin look remarkably different (and more muscular)

Some cases where cats might get more muscular, though, particularly a condition that causes them to double muscle, which leads to some bulkiness. If you notice that your cat, especially if they are a kitten, seems oddly muscular, it might be a good idea to take them to the vet for a consultation.

How Much Stronger Is A Human Than A Cat

Pound for pound, your average human probably isn’t stronger than a cat since humans are much bigger. Of course, lifting competitors and other top athletes are probably exceptions to that rule since they have higher muscle mass and better tone than most people.

Your average cat can probably deal with about 5-10 lbs of weight without too many issues in the short term.

Some cats can exert more strength for short bursts, like when they don’t want to be picked up or if they’re trying to get to some food. We’ve even heard of some cats shoving aside 50 lbs bags, but those are usually odd cases from the largest breeds of domesticated cats.

By comparison, most people can easily lift anywhere between 25-75 lbs, and many people can lift hundreds of pounds. So, when it comes to sheer strength, humans are significantly stronger than your average domesticated cat.

However, that strength advantage starts to go away quickly when you start looking at wild cats.

Even relatively small big cats, like bobcats, can pack an impressive punch and even more impressive bite strength and jumping power. And once you reach cats that are similar in size to humans or larger, the cats are certainly going to be stronger.

Things To Consider

When you’re thinking about a cat’s strength, you’ve got to remember that cats don’t use their muscles the way other groups of animals do. It’s hard to compare strength between equines, primates, canines, and felines, not because we can’t measure the strength of each animal but because every major animal group is designed for very different tasks and lifestyles.

Since most (but not all) cats are ambush hunters, they need a very different kind of strength than we do (as primates) or than most dogs do.

It’s tough to compare with dogs since so many breeds of dogs have been bred for specific tasks, like labs that are incredibly strong swimmers but soft biters because they were bred as fishing dogs.

So, if you want to consider your cat’s strength reasonably, you should look at how well designed they are for what they do.

For instance, one of our cats was able to catch a stray bird that got into the house from a midair flight and carry it to their favorite room, all without hurting the bird. No, the bird was able to fly when we caught it and got it back outside.

That kind of precise ambush hunting takes an incredible level of agility and control and shows off your cat’s best strengths and skills.