On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > > Regarding lifting- 10 pounds against your "old" belly was 10 additional
> > pounds
> > > of back force. 10 pounds with your arms out two feet is 20 pounds of
> > > back force. Non pregnant people can make a bit more of a choice of
> > > how close they keep things to their center of gravity, as babies grow out
> > > everything is a bit more "total" work when you look at energy
> expenditure.
> > >
> > >
> > You overlook men with humongously protruding beer guts.
> > You sexist! <G>
> > xponent
> > rob
>
> Nope, I give everyone the same lesson with one non-sexist sandbag.
> Most guys do not put weight on as fast as a pregnant woman though,
> and the change in center of gravity is pretty wild for women. In both
> cases people wind up with a bit of extra weight on the front of their
> feet (as opposed to both the front and back).
I can vouch for the change in center of gravity being pretty wild, and
it's only going to get wilder. (There will come a point where,
apparently, the center of gravity can change from one second to the next,
due to fetal movement. According to a friend of mine, it makes Tai Chi
*very* interesting!)
> Julia-
> > If a guy with a gut picks up a laundry basket and the edge digs into said
> > gut, the gut gives at the spot where the top of the basket meets it. A
> > pregnant belly *doesn't* give like that -- and if something starts to dig
> > in like that, it *hurts* a bit.
>
> Still a change in center of gravity if it is squishy or not.
> Although malebodies may have had a bit longer to adapt. I can't
> recall the specifics, but a woman's abdominals lengthen something like
> 7 times their original length in less than a year (is it a wonder
> there is a bit of slack afterwards).
They're stretching, believe me. I'm getting used to it now, but it was
really weird when I first noted the stretching. (I felt it worst when I
got up from dinner at a restaurant -- you sit for a long time, put more
stuff into the belly, and when you stand up, stretching things out
again, BOY do you feel it!) Of course, they'll be stretched a lot more in
the next few months.
Julia
who will probably have to break out the next-size-larger overalls next
week, at the rate things are going
