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Often when i go swimming with my nephews and nieces and I have a few minutes spare I try to swim like a shark. I get a rectangular float, stick it between my ankles and try thrashing my feet from side to side like a shark's tail.
Unfortunately, it never seems to work, however hard I try! I dont even
seem to move an inch. I think there are several reasons for this;
a) Its hard to keep the float between your legs as it just wants to bob up and escape.
b) The float is too short and not flexible enough to get a decent swish.
and
c) my body just seems to flex in the opposite direction to my legs and so my legs dont waggle from side to side properly.
If someone could make an analagous piece of footwear to conventional flippers but that is aligned vertically instead of horizontally then perhaps my dream of swimming like a fish might be realisable, well at least problems a) and b) might be somewhat mitigated.
An additional chest band with a plastic dorsal? fin might help alieviate problem c.
Surely, this one must be baked already?
you can swim like this fish
http://www.jimloy.c...iology/flatfish.htm
[FarmerJohn, Oct 11 2004]
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One of my childhood's frustrations too. Giving you a fish would suit the idea's spirit better, but it's a bun what you deserve. + |
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Which joints would your legs hinge on to swish back and forth? The reason the dolphin-style flippers are used is because humans' bodies wriggle up and down and not side-to-side. |
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Some form of cog-and-pulley system may be able to translate the vertical motion into a horizontal one, perhaps? |
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/Which joints would your legs hinge on to swish back and forth?/ |
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[contracts] Hips. If you've ever skied you may be familiar with somthing called wageln (I think that may be the german for it though). Its when you only really move from your hips and your legs go from left to right with very little, if any, knee bend.It produces a very quick narrow serpentine. The sharks tail might be quite similar. |
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I've just done some experiments (lying face down on my bed with my legs slightly raised, trying to wiggle then from side to side). It can be done, but it's quite hard work, and I wouldn't fancy doing it for any length of time. Also, because your legs are pretty long and have to be straight throughout the process, I reckon you'd need a very long flipper to get any kind of swishy-fishy power out of it. And the dorsal fin would be a cert, as I rolled about quite a bit even though I was still on dry land. |
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But eminently doable, I think. Or at least worth a shot. |
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What major muscle groups are you going to use to power this? |
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[scuba] knows where I'm coming from. |
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