- [Narrator] Have you ever
seen a man run to the moon? Or a grandma who's
immune to physical pain? All around us, regular looking people with incredible abilities
have pushed themselves to the extremes. Ready to be awestruck and inspired? You should be, because I've rounded up some terrifically talented genius-savants and burling brutes for your
entertainment pleasure. This one's seriously gonna blow your mind as we look at some of the
most dedicated individuals with superhuman skills
that defy explanation. (light upbeat music) Strong in the Tooth. Wanna know my superhuman ability? My killer smile. These pearly whites have
supernatural effects on the ladies. But Malaysian Velu Rathakrishnan's teeth pull something way cooler
than all the honeys. In 2003, his goliath gnashers
tugged two KTM commuter trains weighing an incredible 574,000 pounds. Wowsers! And here's me thinking he bit
off more than he could chew! Still, how does a man pull
nearly 600,000 pounds of carriage with nothing but his daring denticles? Surely that's impossible! Well, you're not actually
moving all that weight, that would be lifting. Instead, you only have
to generate enough force to counter the rolling
resistance in the wheels. See, a wheel with a tire
would squish a little beneath the weight of
whatever they're rolling, and more squish means more resistance. Train wheels are super hard steel and have less than
one-tenth of the resistance of car wheels, so are easier to pull. Does that make Velu's
feat any less impressive? Heck no. Now, I gotta be responsible and say don't try
chomping your dad's Civic off the driveway, kiddos. These guys are pros. And good dentists don't come cheap! I'd sooner get me some Turkey teeth than pay those prices. Run, Yiannis, run. Every year, about 1.1 million
people complete a marathon, that's about .01% of
the world's population. For many, the 26.2-mile race is the peak of athletic achievement. But some insane folk, like Yiannis Kouros, crave something a little more extreme. He completed his first marathon in 1977, and by just 1983, he'd
run a remarkable 25 races. But Yiannis wanted more. So, he began to look
towards ultra-marathons. Yep, those are a thing. His first ultra-event was the Spartathlon, where runners follow the
route of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger who in 490BC was said to have run from Athens
to Sparta in a single day. Organizers expected the
gruelling 153-mile race would take roughly 27 hours
for the winner to complete. Yiannis cruised home in just
21 hours and 53 minutes. Whoa! He was so fast organizers
accused him of cheating. So, he came back a year later and finished the race in
20 hours and 25 minutes. Holy smokes! If you think that's impressive, in 2005, at the grand old age of 49, he broke his own world record for the Cliff Young six-day race which he'd set a whopping
21 years earlier. Over the course of six gruelling days, Yiannis ran over 643 miles, far more than any of his competitors. Dang! When asked about the key to his success, he said "When other people
get tired, they stop. I don't. I take over my body with my mind. I tell it that it's not
tired and it listens." Sheesh. This guy's the real-life Forrest Gump! Only, in the movie, Forrest ran a measly
15,000 miles in total. Ultra-running fanboys have calculated that now 67-year-old Yiannis
has totalled up enough miles to run to the moon. Yeah, mind blown! How inspiring is that?! You know, it kinda makes me want to don the old running shoes. But I'm so unfit I get out of
breath just tying my laces. Mighty Mikoshi. 998, 999, 1,000! Phew! Just getting my push-ups in for the day. I only do three, but I
start counting from 998 to trick my muscles into
thinking they've worked harder! One day I hope to be as tough as the mikoshi bearers in Japan. These heroic hunks haul
a portable Shinto shrine, known as a mikoshi, across
all sorts of terrain on long wooden poles held
up by their shoulders. And that's no easy feat. Mikoshis can weigh upwards of
an eyewatering 2,400 pounds, which is about the same as a Toyota Prius. Yikes! As you can imagine, carrying
something the weight of a small car on your shoulders takes a huge physical strain on your body. Frequent bearers of the
mikoshi develop giant calluses, known as mikoshi dako, on their shoulders. Whoa! That's dedication. Rather than an undesirable deformity, mikoshi dako are a symbol of pride, showing the enduring efforts
of these devoted citizens. And this isn't just in Japan. Every year in Naples during
the Catholic Festa dei Gigli giant obelisks are carried
around on, you guessed it, more people's shoulders. Despite being over 80 feet tall and weighing a knee-buckling 5,500 pounds, they've got some crazy suspension. The men who carry the weight
are known as cullatori, and just like the mikoshi bearers, they develop huge calluses on their backs. Look at that wobbler! The physical dedication shown towards their respective
religions is truly inspiring. Tomorrow, I might start
counting my push-ups from 997 just to work that little bit harder. Do you know what else
I'm working harder on? My amazing YouTube content! I've got some amazing videos coming up. So, do yourself a favor, make sure you hit those
like and subscribe buttons to stay in the know, you won't regret it. Now let's get back to the video. Forever Fasting. If I went without snacks
for longer than a day, I'd eat my own hair. But Prahlad Jani, an Indian monk, made the extraordinary claim that he'd lived without food or water for over a staggering 70 years. Uh, what?! See, Jani practiced something
called breatharianism, a kind of fringe spirituality which preaches that the body
can fully sustain itself from sunlight, air, and
nothing else, right. At the age of 12, Jani had a
powerful spiritual experience and claimed that the goddess Amba provided him water which
trickled down through a hole in his palate. Now, theoretically the body can survive without food for up to a couple of months, but without water, you'll be a dried-up
saltine cracker in the dirt after a mere week. However, Jani underwent testing
on two separate occasions, the first time for ten days, and the second time for fifteen days, and both times he stayed physically normal despite consuming absolutely nothing. The only surprising thing was his levels of leptin and ghrelin, two hormones that regulate appetite, which suggested Jani had an
extreme adaptation to starvation and water restriction. Wait!? So, was he telling the truth? Well, no, at least not fully. Other breatharians have
made similar claims and they've all been exposed as frauds. And some of the test conditions
were dubious at best. Who's to say he wasn't
ordering in-and-out on the sly? Hmm, what do you think? Superhuman starver or secret snacker? Let me know in the comments. Huff and Puff. Ever heard the story of
the three little pigs? Y'know, the Big Bad Wolf
blows their houses down. That's just a story, right? Surely no one's breath is
actually that powerful? Step up, Brian Jackson. This sensational stuntman has
become a bit of a cult figure for his exhilarating exhale. Take a look. (audience applauding) Boom, he blows hot water
bottles up like party balloons! Sheesh! Still, that's not his coolest trick. In 2014, he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew 3,640 pounds of car
three inches off the ground. He what?! By blowing into a tube
attached to an inflatable bag placed beneath the car, Brian exhaled with enough force to lift a flippin' vehicle. That's crazy! This guy could blow his wife a kiss from like eight miles away. However, there are disadvantages to having such phenomenal blowing power. Many glassblowers develop large, puffy cheeks as a result of their work. Because they spend so
much time forcing air really hard through a tube, the buccinator muscles
which pull back the mouth and hold the cheeks to
the teeth get deformed. This causes big pockets of air to collect inside the cheeks. One of the most famous cases was trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie. Whilst learning his instrument, he never kept his cheeks tucked in. So, when he played his
cheeks and neck would puff up to wild proportions. Whoa! It's cool but it kinda
gives me the heebie-jeebies. Insomngoc. Honestly, I can fall asleep anywhere. In the supermarket, getting a haircut, heck, sometimes I can't
even make it up the stairs. But for Ngoc Thai, from Vietnam, a good night's sleep has been
exceedingly hard to come by. After catching a fever as a young man, he claims to have not
slept in over 60 years! Oh, my lanta! How is that possible? I pulled all-nighters in my college days and I felt horrific. After about 72 hours with no sleep, your brain will be so
fried you'll hallucinate and hear things that aren't there. So, is Ngoc just totally trippin' balls? No. Shockingly, he seems healthy. He spends his extra evening
hours working on his farm or making rice wine which he
sells, making about $1 a day. As for why this is happening
to him, no one really knows. He's never seen a doctor
about his condition and refused thousands of
dollars from various TV networks to film his life. Hmm, is that a little sus? On the one hand, he could
be hiding something, but if so, he's not cashing in on his lie. Then again sixty years of no sleep might've made him a little grouchy and he just doesn't want
people poking around his bizz. But the chances are Ngoc's experiencing something called microsleep. It's a protective measure where
our brain kinda goes offline for a few seconds at a time
if we're too sleep deprived. You won't even really notice it happening. At least that's what I think. If you've got any other
ideas, let me know down below. Polyglot Prodigy. We've all got that one friend
who's a bit of a dumb-dumb. If you're thinking, "Not me,
my friends are all smart!" Bad news, it's you. But even my infinite wisdom
has nothing on true geniuses like Daniel Tammet. This brainy Brit memorised
the first 22,514 digits of pi in just five hours and nine minutes, and he said it was easy. Crazy! See, Daniel has savant syndrome, where someone demonstrates
abilities far in excess of what the average human is capable of. He suffered epileptic
seizures as a young boy, after which he started showing
extreme mental capabilities. Daniel doesn't see numbers
as digits like you and me. Instead, in his mind,
each number up to 10,000 has a unique colour, shape, and texture. 117 is tall, lanky, and handsome; 289 is particularly ugly; and one is a flashing white light. That's fascinating! But what sets Daniel
apart from other savants is that he can describe
his thought processes. Usually, savants are mentally impaired and unable to communicate, but Daniel can clearly put into
words exactly how he feels. And not just in English. He speaks 11 languages, including Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Lithuanian, Esperanto, Spanish, Romanian, Welsh, and Icelandic which he learned in just a week. Man, I nearly flopped
outta high school Spanish! The only thing I remember is, (speaking in foreign language) Headstrong John. As I go through life, I often see people who act like they've taken one
too many blows to the head. You know what I mean? Well, pro wrestler John Ferraro, also known as Gino Martino, doesn't have to worry about that. His skull is 2.3 times thicker
than the average human. Well, at a whopping 16 millimeters thick, he can bonk his bonce off almost anything. He's smashed cinder
blocks, hammered in nails, and even set the world record
for breaking 45 concrete slabs over his head by dropping
multiple 16-pound bowling balls onto them from 10 feet above. That's oddly specific. John became aware of his
colossal cranium as a teenager. After getting in a fight with his brother, he chased him around the house and accidentally charged
through a solid oak door without any injury to himself. His mom must've been raging! But if you think your noggin'
is tougher than John's, I've got good news for you. He runs a headbutt competition
and will pay anyone that can successfully
knock him out $5,000. Whoa ho ho, guess I better pack my bags, I'm going on vacation. Oh, I forgot to mention John is currently 11-0 undefeate. Wait, who am I again? Doctor Demkina. If you could have any superpower,
what would you choose? Super-speed? Super-strength? Me, I wanna time travel
into the future by a week, then return so I can place
bets on winning sports games. It's a genius ruse. Still, Russian native, Natasha Demkina, claims to have one of the
coolest superpowers ever, X-ray vision. Awesome! More accurately, she can
look inside the human body without any invasive surgery. When analysing a woman who'd
recently been in a car crash, Natasha was able to locate
the woman's fractures and metal pins just by looking at her. Whoa! She also managed to detect an
ulcer in a doctor's stomach. That's insane! Or is it? See, Natasha actually gets a lot wrong. In fact, some of her critics suggest she never detects the main problem. Instead, they say that the
problem Natasha diagnoses is always different to the issue the patients originally came in for. Often, patients only focus on the comments she makes that are true
and dismiss the false ones, in the same way someone might approach a psychic reading. So, chances are it's all just luck. Darn! That would be a pretty
cool power though, right? I could finally figure out
if my dog ate my TV remote. No Pain No Gain. Yeah, the rumours are true. I'm pretty tough. I do tough guy stuff like
roll my t-shirt sleeves up and fight bears. Sure, they were teddy bears, but there were four of them, kyah! Even so, I'm never going
to be as tough as my hero, she might be the toughest
person who's ever lived. This is Joanne Cameron. Now, hold on. I know what you're thinking. This is just a sweet old
lady, and you're right. But Joanne's superpower makes her one of the most
remarkable people to ever live. She's almost completely immune to pain. Whoa! Due to a mutation in the
FAAH and FAAH-OUT genes, which establish internal
pathways for pain and anxiety, the activity levels of the enzymes which communicate these feelings are significantly reduced. Now, you'd think Jo would be in the know about her super-mutation, but she had no idea she was special until the grand old age of 65. After having surgery on her hand, doctors warned her she'd
experience some moderate pain. But the Gran of Steel
woke up absolutely fine. Hold on! Remember earlier when I said it was the system
controlling pain and anxiety? Well, Joanne doesn't really
get emotional pain either. She doesn't feel anxious or
afraid, doesn't get adrenaline, and never gets depressed or stressed. She's just a super chill,
upbeat and happy lady. I can't help but think she's missed out on a very lucrative
career as a stunt woman. The Last Bee-Bender. Water, air, earth. Long ago, the four nations
lived together in harmony. Then everything changed
when unlikely avatar, Professor Norman Gary, mastered a controversial new fifth element, bees. From henceforth he was known
as The Last Bee-Bender. Well, at least that's what
I'm going to call him! Okay, so Avatar Gary's army of bees can't protect us from the fire nation, but he does some un-bee-lievable stuff. I know, I know. Listen though, he can
coax a swarm of 100,000 of the fuzzy little
fellas all over his body without getting stung once! Whoa! See, bees only get aggressive
if you threaten their hives. But that's not all, he can also command a
swarm of 1 million bees to follow him wherever he goes. What? How?! Basically, Avatar Gary has two methods. The first is a food-reward system, if bees successfully follow instructions, they're rewarded with a
special sugar solution flavoured with plant extracts. The second involves creating a formula of powerful queen bee pheromone which makes bees irresistibly
attracted to the wearer. Hubba hubba! Hmm, I'd choose snacks over
Queeny's naughty water any day, but I'm prudish. Although Avatar Gary
doesn't get stung anymore, he estimates he's been stung
an eye-watering 75,000 times over his bee bending career. Ouchie! Ain't no amount of lotion
gonna make that hurt less. No 'I' in Steam. Us humans are a competitive bunch, we always try to come out on top. Whether that's toe-wrestling,
extreme ironing, or perhaps weirdest of
all, competitive sauna. Entrants must sit in
a 230 Fahrenheit sauna for as long as their bodies can physically take being steamed
like a restaurant lobster. Every 30 seconds more water
is added to a coal stove in the room, which evaporates and makes it hotter and hotter. The last person to walk out is the winner. Sounds like fun, right? No, it sounds like the
stupidest competition I've ever heard in my life! But, hey, some people like baseball. All great sports need great champions, and in the world of sauna that's Finland's Timo Kaukonen, who's the greatest sauna-er ever. In the 11-year history
of the championship, he's won a shocking five times and holds the record for longest sauna with an outrageous time of
16 minutes and 15 seconds. What's his trick? Well, nothing. Just sheer dumb will. He's not immune to heat,
just very, very tolerant to high temperatures. After his last event in 2010, however, 70% of his skin was damaged, as were his lungs and respiratory system, and he was placed into
a coma for six weeks. Cripes! Why would you do that to yourself? Though Timo luckily survived,
not everyone was so fortunate. A tragic fatality at the event led to competitive sauna
being justifiably cancelled, meaning Timo's record is now untouchable. But why you'd wanna try is beyond me. So, that's the king of hot, but
what about the king of cool? Well, apart from me, the
undisputed chilly champ is famous Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof. He's broken countless
records for cold exposure. Running a half marathon in the snow wearing nothing but shorts? Check. Sitting in an ice bath
for nearly two hours? Check. Oh, how about swimming in freezing water beneath a layer of ice for over 200 feet? You're goddamn right. Brr, see, Wim Hof came up with
a special breathing technique he imaginatively called
the Wim Hof Method. A combination of relaxation
and deep breathing saturates his blood with oxygen and releases feel-good chemicals like dopamine into the body. These can make seriously cold temperatures go from feeling uncomfortable
to practically euphoric! Along with daily exposure to the cold, Wim Hof has trained himself
to be able to withstand and even thrive in extreme temperatures. Awesome! But not for me. I get my euphoric response
from sitting under a blanket. Cannonball Catcher. I can't look at my phone for one minute without being bombarded
with images of muscular men and strapping senoritas. Oh my! But flexing in the gym
mirror is so last year. Wanna know what real strong people do? Look no further than John Holtum. He was born in Denmark in 1845, but it wasn't until the 1870s, he'd perfected his act of
being, shot at by a cannon. Excuse me? Oh, you heard. His assistant would load a
cannon with a 50-pound ball on one side of the stage and light it. After a deafening explosion, the ball would fire towards Holtum who stood on the other side of the stage wearing just a chest pad and gloves. Now, I can't be sure, but I'm gonna say he had pants on too, it'd be an odd time to Winnie the Pooh it and a cannonball is gonna
make anything look small. Anyway, ol' John would
then go and catch the ball! Though, even with gloves on, he still had to immediately
throw it to the ground because it was so searingly hot. You wouldn't want to hurt yourself after being shot at by a
friggin' cannon now would you?! Unsurprisingly, a minor mishap
whilst learning the skill left Holtum a few fingers
lighter on one hand, however, he wasn't deterred. In fact, in his day he was
something of a celebrity and his death-defying antics
made him quite popular with the ladies. In fact, many of his female fans were so worried their
Hunk-o-Holtum would injure himself that they grouped together to
try and ban his performance. John, you dawg! Now, was there trickery at play? Possibly. But John offered a hearty 3,000 francs, over $19,000 today to anyone
who performed a similar trick, and no one was brave enough to try. Can you blame them? Even $100,000 wouldn't be enough money for me to look like a bagel. Flame On. When I was a boy, I dreamed of running off with the circus. But my dad said, "We've
already got a bearded lady at your grandma's house." Rude! Still, Gram-gram has nothing on Hadji Ali. This mysterious vaudeville
performance artist is believed to have come from Egypt, but we can't be sure. His act was much more impressive than growing a beard though. It revolved around swallowing objects and then regurgitating them all back up in whatever order he pleased. There's no trick here, it's just repeated training of the stomach and throat muscles to clench at will. But for this young hustler, it was a chance to tour the world. He trained himself to regurgitate anything and everything from live
goldfish to watches, coins, stones and even pool balls. I wouldn't wanna go to
his birthday cookout. Although he never gained
wide stream success, Ali did achieve an altogether
different wide stream. His pièce de résistance
involved chugging water followed by a load of flammable kerosene, and then acting as a kind of human flamethrower-come-fire extinguisher as he vomited fire onto a stage prop. That's insane! I wouldn't want front row seats to this vaudevillian volcano. I'd be scared about losing my eyebrows. Biscuit Baker. Let's face it, we all want to be remembered
for being good people. But some wangle their names
into the history books for being downright weird. Take Joseph Pujol. Shortly after he graduated high school, he discovered a rather
remarkable bodily function. While swimming in the sea, he held his breath and stuck
his head below the surface when he noticed a rather foreign feeling. Icy cold seawater was
flooding into his derriere. Pujol had discovered that by controlling his abdominal muscles, he could suck in through
his, let's say exit-hole, and control the release
coming back out again. That's the worst superhero
origin story I've ever heard! But Pujol's parpy party trick somehow took him to the heights of
the Moulin Rouge in Paris in the 1890s, where he took
to the stage as Le Pétomane, or 'the fartomaniac'. His fabulous flatulencies included playing an ocarina
through a tube inserted to his, yeah, and blowing out a candle
from several yards. You wanna see him in action? Careful, headphone
users, this is invasive. (Pujol farting) (Pujol speaking in foreign language) Yuck! Imagine taking the stage after that guy. Well, here's the thing. It's not digestive gas, it's just air, so there's no smell. That's why he could extinguish the candle without any fear of becoming
a farting flamethrower. But alas, Pujol's tooting
days didn't last forever. After the breakout of World War I, he retired his act and opened
a biscuit factory in Toulon. No shot! This guy switched from air
biscuits to real ones, ha! That's the way the cookie crumbles! Danger Dajo. We've spoken about some
incredible circus performers in this video, but none of them could
scratch Mirin Dajo, literally. This Dutch performer had a
bizarre spiritual awakening at the age of 33, and professed his body
was totally invulnerable. He was able to take a rapier,
a very long thin sword, and essentially turn himself
into a big old human kabob. And not a nice kabob, either. We're talking all heart, lung and kidney, no peppers if you catch my drift. Doctors were flummoxed by this and repeatedly ran tests on
him to try and understand how he was even alive. One time, Dajo demonstrated
his death-defying trick then walked all the way
through the hospital to the x-ray theatre without an issue. What?! The x-ray results came back and showed that although
the sword was there, he suffered no injuries. Huh? Once it was removed, apart
from the tiniest mark on his skin, Dajo was fine! Wild! Truthfully, no one knows how Dajo was able to perform this trick. He'd spent time in India with fakirs, a kind of mystic who perform
similar feats on themselves, but none of them achieved
anything near this scale. Dajo's accomplishments
defy the laws of nature! Not content with being a human pincushion, Dajo continued to push weirder and more ambitious boundaries, one of which proved tragically fatal. This won't come as a surprise,
but Dajo was a little loopy. Like, even more than
you'd expect from someone who pokes holes in themself. On May 11, 1948, he
alleged voices in his head told him to eat a steel needle. Oh boy! Surgeons in Zurich
removed it two days later and kept Dajo in hospital to
monitor him while he recovered. Then, when he was released, he proved his good health
by strolling around Zurich like nothing happened. Incredible. So he got away with it then? Well, no. Only ten days later, he was laying in bed when he slipped into a
strange trance-like state. Another two days later he
passed from an aortic rupture, his heart had mysteriously torn apart. Dajo's career had lasted just three years, but his stunts and his demise still have people scratching
their heads today. Whoa! What a crazy guy! Phew! Just like that we've made
it to the end of the video. Which of those spectacular superhumans did you enjoy the most? Make sure you let me know in the comments! And thanks for watching! (light upbeat music)
