Higher Hips ... Guaranteed!

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]

(4precious) said:

According to the author, the former East German's tried pumping up the intestines of their swimmers
with air so that their hips and legs would ride higher in the water and they would have less drag!
Somewhat luckily for the swimmers, the discomfort associated with this outweighed any benefit.

This was first reported on the air in a prior Olympiad (I'm thinking Seoul or Barcelona) as a stunt
tried by the then West Germans. There is nothing, of course, illegal about it. When I heard of it at
the time, my devious mind went to work to try and consider more effective and tolerable ways of
achieving the same thing. I've looked at a lot of "plain films" abdominal x-rays. There is a pretty
obvious relationship between constipation (seen on x-rays as "scybals" -- which we house officers in
training used to call "skyballs" -- basically those hard round stools associated with constipation)
and collections of radiolucent gas within the GI tract So low residue diets, which promote
constipation, can increase GI tract gas (an presumably improve flotation). Perhaps a
performance-enhancing reason for considering the Atkins Diet.

Larry Weisenthal

Certitude is poison; curiosity is life

"4precious" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Somewhat luckily for the swimmers, the discomfort associated with this outweighed any benefit.

This doesn't sound very lucky to me. They would be lucky if it (a) caused no discomfort; and (2) was
of great benefit.