Why do belly-flops hurt?

[OC]

Well?

[Thunder]

surface tension...water isn't as soft as you think :)

[Hiro]

Originally posted by overclocked
Well?

They just do dammit!

[mojo]

flip-flops you wear on your feet. where do belly flops go? it does sound painful tho.

[Markel]

Try this for a comparison - have a friend slap you on your shirtless belly as hard as he can with something wide and flat. Perhaps this will help explain why a belly flop hurts.

[hapoo]

more resistance... your body is trying to cut through water with a flat surface and is putting a whole lotta pressure on it.

[Markel]

Originally posted by hapoo
more resistance... your body is trying to cut through water with a flat surface and is putting a whole lotta pressure on it.
Good anlogy, hapoo. Cutting something with a sharp knife = diving into the water. Trying to cut with a horribly dull knife = belly flop.

[ChrisMG187]

So if I cut myself with a dull knife, it hurts the knife too?

[leemaj]

you are exerting force on a greater area, and thus, by newton's law, there is a counter active force exterted on your entire body.

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by leemaj
you are exerting force on a greater area, and thus, by newton's law, there is a counter active force exterted on your entire body.

False! The answer is A.

[brainsmile]

as long as you're not the one flopping

[El Scorcho]

aw man...

last year in p.e. we swam in the pool for like a month or two and one day i went up on the high dive and did a flip but came too far forward and landed right on my stomach....


:pissed: :ugh: :eye:

it turned all red and i couldnt move it for a few hours it hurt so bad

[rextheovermind]

Hydrogen Bonds and Anti-Communism!! :D Thanato will get that. And for those of you that don't, those are the two answers to everything. :D

[rextheovermind]

Bah. You'd get it if you were there... which of course you weren't... :: thinks for a moment :: Oh well. :)

[Sir_Froggy]

yes belly flops do hurt,

you know if u jumped off a waterfall even if the water at the base was like 70 miles deep, and u did a belly flop i think u'd be dead

wut would happen to ur body anyways? like explode or would u just die?

[BigJon]

It is the same principal that is looked at when a person jumps out of a building...

As you are falling, if you spread your body out, you will not hit the ground as hard as if you were rolled in a ball (where there you would travel THROUGH the ground). It is all about weight dispersal. There is a certain amount of pressure exerted when you hit the ground. Spread out, you spread the pounds per inch ratio out smaller. Rolled up, the pounds per inch ratio increases (being that the amount of pounds does not change, but the area of inches hitting the ground is much smaller when rolled up than when you are lying flat).

My question is...why doesn't it hurt WORSE to do a cannonball?!?

:hmm:

[BigJon]

True...but my problem still arises...

FLAT on ground hurts like hell
ROLLED on ground kills you

FLAT on water hurts like hell
ROLLED on water...doesn't really hurt

Why is this?

Why wouldn't it kill you to hit the water doing a cannonball?


*edit* nevermind...i just figured it out...

[BigJon]

Originally posted by DarkFury

Ummm hmmm... I was just gonna say "unless the water is SOLID (i.e. frozen), I don't think it is gonna have the same effect as the ground. The water will give to a point as you enter, however the reverse force against you affects a "smaller area" as you pointed out with your previous "crashing to Earth" example.

All and still, I think your rear can absorb ALOT more punishment than your stomach can. (*Remember getting paddled as a kid... yeah it hurt like hell, but you didn't think you were gonna die like when you took a shot in the gut from a kickball or a playground bully.)

Yeah, you are right...

I bow down to you know...

[BigJon]

Thas mee! :D