Tuesday, January 20, 2009


My student Becky, returning from duty and giving me that you-better-give-me-a-good-grade stare.

2 Comments:

Blogger David Rice said...

Dr. Walker, will you please explain why breathing becomes so difficult after receiving an unexpected punch to the stomach? This effect is reduced if one forcefully exhales first, but, I don't understand why the diaphragm seems paralyzed.

7:51 AM  
Blogger Jearl Walker said...

I think that by either exhaling completely or inhaling completely, you tighten the stomach muscles and diaphram and they are less likely to be injured. But for the stomach in the normal position, the muscles are easily pushed in by a hard punch and then you cannot use them very well for few minutes. You may have seen the item about Cannonball Richards posted at the FCP site:
http://flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=37 scroll down to the item about Richards and follow the links to the videos of him taking punch after punch to the stomach. He inflates the stomach in order to make the muscles rigid. Note also the story about Houdini who died because of an unexpected punch to the stomach.

11:21 AM  

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