Category: Physical Tricks

  • Fall Through Ice and Survive [Survival]

    You just fell through thin ice. Struggling to get out, you keep a cool (no pun intended) head and remember the following article:

    Roll away from the hole. Don’t stand up right away. The ice around the hole may be weak, so you want to distribute your weight over as much area as possible. Roll away from the hole or crawl on your belly until you are several feet from the hole. After that, you can crawl on your hands and knees until you are certain you are out of danger. Only then should you stand up.

    How to Survive a Fall Through Ice via Lifehacker

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  • An Intelligent Accent That Masks Origins [Disguise]

    Ever wanted to speak and sound intelligent, but make sure that no one knew where you were from? This might occur in a situation when you are working as an agent. The following can be very helpful for masking your origins and creating a intelligent facade.

    [Y]ou get the accent in one of three ways:

    1. Learn the accent on purpose (actors used to do that).
    2. Grow up or live on both sides of the Atlantic (but that can lead to even stranger accents, like those of Loyd Grossman and Madonna).
    3. Pick it up at a top boarding school in America before the 1960s.

    […]

    Transatlantic English goes something like this:

    1. Start with a mainstream American accent.
    2. Drop your r’s at the end of words, like in “fear” and “winner”.
    3. Say all your t’s as t’s not d’s (like in “water” and “butter”).
    4. Use RP (British) vowels. So “dance” becomes “dahns”.

    Transatlantic accent via Neatorama

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  • How to Disguise Your Walk [Change Your Gait]

    In Little Brother, a novel set in the future by Cory Doctorow, there are cameras that detect a person’s gait so that computer can track the person’s whereabouts. But in the present, all we have are regular video cameras and security teams. So how could changing your walk possible help you? Actually it can. As humans, we can almost instinctively tell who someone is just by watching them walk from a far. Our walk is very identifiable by not only friends, but strangers and computers.

    There are many different ways to change your walk, including a change in sneakers, but stay away from methods that simply use mind over matter. Unfortunately, our walk is so instinctive, that moment we stop concentrating on it, it returns to your original strut. The best method, in my opinion, is inserting a pebble into your shoe or sock, which will manage the change in walks for you. This method was also discussed in Little Brother.

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  • Easily Unlock a Sliding Chain Lock [Holy Crap: Locks]

    Holy crap. After reading this Lifehacker article, I realized how easy it would be to break into a hotel room solely guarded by one of those sliding locks. Check out the video below for a shock.

    Blogger and lock-picker extraordinaire Barry Wels demonstrates how to unlock a sliding chain lock with a rubber band in the video above. In short, it’s a matter of attaching the rubber band to the lock and the door handle (it looks like a handle rather than a knob is important). Before you go asking why he doesn’t just slide the lock open with his hand (which I wondered briefly myself), remember: Chain locks work because you can’t slide it open with your hand. As you start sliding the lock toward open, the tension between the wall and the door will pull the door closed before you can slide it all the way open.

    Whether you’re picking a lock, cracking a padlock, or hacking a Wi-Fi password, the goal is often less about knowing how to “break in” to something and more about understanding the security limitations a tool provides. The same holds true here. Also, who knows? It could come in handy next time little Timmy locks himself in the hotel room and won’t come out.

    Unlock a Sliding Chain Lock with a Rubber Band

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  • How to Survive a Jump from A Moving Car

    The Art of Manliness recently wrote about how to jump from a moving car. After rolling down the window to reduce wind pressure and opening the door, jump away from the car, then tuck and roll:

    Tuck. Before you hit the ground, tuck your body into a ball. Bring your chin to your chest and bring your arms and legs close to your body. This will prevent your brain canister from hitting the ground and spilling its contents on the pavement. Also, it prepares your body to roll.

    Roll. Hit the ground with your shoulder and roll away from traffic. Rolling lessens the impact when hitting the ground.

    For slightly different instructions, check out our past on article on stunts.

    How to Jump From a Speeding Car

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  • How to Survive a 35,000-Foot Fall [Survival]

    OK, you’re falling out of an airplane, 35,000 feet up, scared out of your mind. Only one thing is occupying it right now, the instructions from an article in Popular Mechanics on how to survive a 35,000 foot fall.

    Glass hurts, but it gives. So does grass. Haystacks and bushes have cushioned surprised-to-be-alive free-fallers. Trees aren’t bad, though they tend to skewer. Snow? Absolutely. Swamps? With their mucky, plant-covered surface, even more awesome. Hamilton documents one case of a sky diver who, upon total parachute failure, was saved by bouncing off high-tension wires. Contrary to popular belief, water is an awful choice. Like concrete, liquid doesn’t compress. Hitting the ocean is essentially the same as colliding with a sidewalk, Hamilton explains, except that pavement (perhaps unfortunately) won’t “open up and swallow your shattered body.”

    With a target in mind, the next consideration is body position. To slow your descent, emulate a sky diver. Spread your arms and legs, present your chest to the ground, and arch your back and head upward. This adds friction and helps you maneuver. But don’t relax. This is not your landing pose.

    Recommendation: wide-body impact. But a 1963 report by the Federal Aviation Agency argued that shifting into the classic sky diver’s landing stance—feet together, heels up, flexed knees and hips—best increases survivability. The same study noted that training in wrestling and acrobatics would help people survive falls.

    How to Survive a 35,000-Foot Fall via Neatorama

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  • A Stunt Guru Takes You Through The Stunts [Stunts]

    In a Maxim article (May 2009) titled, Cool Stunt, Man!, stunt guru Darrin Prescott (photo is not of him), the man in charge of stunts for the Bourne trilogy and Spider-man 3, shows us the stuntman ropes.

    How to take a punch

    1. If a fist is flying toward your face, try to take the punch with your forehead, the body’s built-in battering ram.  It beats getting popped in the mouth or nose, and if you’re lucky, it may even break his hand.

    2. Gut punch? Don’t hold your breath. Instead, try to relax your whole body and exhale as the blow hits your beer belly. […]

    Parallel park… at 30 mph

    1. Approach from the opposite direction, stomp the brakes, and pull the emergency brake making a quarter turn toward the space.

    2.When you get to 90 degrees, release the emergency brake slightly and immediately reengage it. This will help you slide laterally into the space.

    […]

    Fall from a roof

    As soon as you begin to fall, spin around and pick your fall spot. Fall at a slightly forward-leaning angle so you can shoulder-roll as soon as the balls of your feet touch. If you’re a righty, roll right.

    Light yourself on fire

    1. Buy a CarbonX shirt ($85, stuntequipmentshop.com). The fire-resistant material will stop the hellish heat… sort of.

    2. Over the CarbonX shirt, wear a natural-fiber shirt. “Fake fibers melt. Melting is bad on humans,” says Prescott. Good tip!

    3. As it ignites on a candle, bolt to the shower. […]

    Stay awake at work when you’re hung over

    1. Eat protein, drink Gatorade, and, yes, take short walks (revving the old metabolism will boost your energy levels).

    2. Resist naps with typeracer.com, where you challenge fellow cubicle monkey to typing races. You boss will think you’re working. […]

    Bail out of a moving vehicle

    1. […] First, roll down the window to lessen wind resistance when you swing the door open.

    2. Dive out the open door, staying parallel to the ground. Do a quarter rotation in the air with your arms close to your body as your land on your shoulder and roll. […]

    Here’s a bonus. In the same issue, this how-to was featured, with Mike Justus, the stunt double for Iron Man, showing you how to condition yourself to become a stuntman.

    1. Prisoner Squat

    With your hands behind your head, sit back at your hips and bend your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Then press though your heels back to a standing position. Do 30 reps.

    2. Dumbbell Swing

    Stand with feet shoulder width apart. Grab a dumbbell with an overhand grip and swing between your legs as you bend at the knees. Swing it back up chest high, then back down. Pray your neighbors aren’t watching. Do 30 reps.

    3. Swiss Ball Planks

    Put your elbows on the ground and your shins on the top of a Swiss ball. Make your body rigid like you’re doing a push-up. Squeeze your abs. Hold this position for 60 seconds. Rest 60 seconds, weep quietly, and repeat!

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    Photo: your_wht_knight

  • Run Barefoot for Efficiency [Run]

    On the run? Running from something? Need to be able to run fast? Wearing shoes? The latest research shows that running barefoot, and practicing running barefoot strengthens different muscles and is better for you.

    Scientists have found that those who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid “heel-striking,” and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot. In so doing, these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience.

    Barefoot Running: How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes via Lifehacker

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  • 6 Ways You Can Eat Like an Olympian [Food]

    Olympians have always been known for being incredibly fit and athletic. Part is their body, but another part is what they eat. Want to eat like the great athletes? Read on.

    Grab a Banana

    Athletes know that fruits are an essential part of their diet. The banana is THE fruit that every athlete knows is essential to their diet.

    6 Ways You Can Eat Like an Olympian

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  • Read Houdini’s Books for Free Online [Learn From The Pros]

    Houdini is a big name in the world of magic, escapes and physical tricks. Read for free his books on topics such as ventriloquism, criminals, and more by browsing through Google Books.

    [via BoingBoing]

    Photo: Vancouver Public Library

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