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Researchers have produced artificial muscles that are capable of lifting 100 times more  weight than a human muscle. These artificial muscles have been made from No. 6 fishing line or nylon thread. 

In addition, the artificial muscles also contract up to 50 percent compared to 20 percent in the case of natural muscle. Researchers believe that in further development the muscles could be used for any task that requires "superhuman strength." 

"These muscles are something Popular Mechanics readers could easily make in their living rooms," said materials scientist Ray Baughman, according to Popular Mechanics. "The coiling process is actually quite trivial. We're getting high school students to do it - you just have to pay attention to how much tension and weight you apply to the thread you're twisting. I'm not sure why no one else has ever discovered this before."

"The application opportunities for these polymer muscles are vast." 

The concept is to twist the polyethylene or nylon string under high tension over and over again. These are also known as the plastics that can make up fishing line.

"At first it seems confusing, but you can think of it kind of like a Chinese finger-trap," Baughman added. "Expanding the volume of the finger-trap, or heating the coil, actually makes the device shorten."

Together these series of effects also make the plastic coil contract with incredible power similar to muscle. 

Although the design is simple, these muscles are not trivial. "This definitely gives the entire field an entirely new perspective on how to create artificial muscles," said Richard Vaia, a materials scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory who was also not involved the study, according to Popular Mechanics. "It's a really unique insight into how to combine existing materials with novel architectures."

The developments of the study has been published in the journal Science.