Weight of body parts

July 17, 2006 9:19 AM

How much does a typical human adult male (a) arm (b) leg weigh?

I don't have any scales handy.

posted by Hogshead to health (6 comments total)

(cuts off leg; hobbles to scale)

Typical is hard to say, since people vary so widely, but I'd estimate that an arm is 8% of your body weight, and a leg 15%, just off hand.
posted by baylink at 10:09 AM on July 17, 2006

This question might help.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:09 AM on July 17, 2006

No pun intended. And I guess it depends whether you include shoulders and hips; I wasn't.
posted by baylink at 10:10 AM on July 17, 2006

I'm not sure I want to see the game system this gets written into.
posted by solid-one-love at 1:45 PM on July 17, 2006

Figure 3.3.7.3.1.2-1 Mass of Body Segments for the American Male Crewmember
posted by shoesfullofdust at 4:34 PM on July 17, 2006

Shoesfullofdust wins. That is a seriously impressive document.

Solid-one-love, it's not for a game system. I'm doing a 150-mile sponsored walk in a few days, and one of my sponsors offered me £1 for each pound I lose along the way, as long as that didn't include the loss of any limbs. I wanted my smart-aleck reply ("You mean that if I lost my right leg in a freak combine-harvester accident on the second day of the walk and still hobbled on to the end, you wouldn’t pony up an extra £40? Either you’re a cold, cold man, or you have seriously overestimated my weight") to be accurate.

Speaking of such things, how's the leg?
posted by Hogshead at 5:10 AM on July 18, 2006