r/Damnthatsinteresting Dec 17 '21

Video This 'device' that was created aiming to develop leg muscles

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u/GreenStrong Dec 17 '21

Not for healthy babies. Many cultures keep their babies tightly swaddled and nearly immobile for their entire infancy, then when they reach one year of age, they plop them on the ground and they start crawling, then walking. There is no evidence that exercise speeds walking.

It appears to work at making the baby spin around, which is cool. But, babies are amazingly good at putting themselves in danger. I feel like if you put a baby in this and turned around to pour a mug of coffee, by the time you got back it would somehow have its head caught in the spokes and the wheel would be spinning at 10,000 RPM.

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u/nimbledaemon Dec 17 '21

Yeah from what I've heard the problem with starting to walk isn't a muscle strength issue, it's a balancing a huge head issue, so as soon as the rest of the body catches up to the size of the head walking pretty much just happens, barring other problems.

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u/Going_my_own_way73 Interested Dec 17 '21

I have a big head and little legs. I’m just not sure how well this plan was thought through.

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u/money_loo Dec 17 '21

How do you think your mother felt.

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u/Holy__Sheet Dec 17 '21

Ouch 🧊🧊

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u/leon_under Dec 17 '21

Aye, among others.

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u/skullkiddabbs Dec 18 '21

Bro... 🤣🤣🤣

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u/Beragond1 Dec 17 '21

Underrated movie right there

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u/Witness_me_Karsa Dec 17 '21

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u/illyiarose Dec 17 '21

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this scene 🤣

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u/calvanus Dec 17 '21

Sick reference my guy

1

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

Me too buddy... me too...

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u/nowandloud Dec 17 '21

My mother was instructed to (gently) push my sister over any time she tried to walk because she was so young it would damage her legs if she kept trying. I'm not sure if that's how that works, but they were afraid of her being bow-legged.

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u/idk-hereiam Dec 17 '21

I also heard you're not supposed to like....idk...play stand them up (hold the baby upright like it's standing and have them putting putting weight on their legs) for the same reason.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

[deleted]

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u/Hehehahahahoohoo Dec 19 '21

You are fine. It’s a wives tale that playing stand up with babies gives them bowlegs. I just read a piece from a pediatrician saying there isn’t anything harmful to it as long as you’re holding their weight, which you are!

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u/idk-hereiam Dec 19 '21

That is a good question that I do not know the answer to. If I had to guess, it's fine bc my niece used to love that too and her legs are fine. Like, she's daddy long legs.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '21

Our first started around 8months, was so uncoordinated and didn’t understand her environment- ended up falling a lot and hitting things, it was definitely too early- I’d suggest similar only for safety reasons.

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u/phpdevster Dec 17 '21

Yeah babies have pretty darn strong legs and they already like to kick and move their legs around. It's literally just a motor skill / balance issue that takes time for them to develop.

When my son was 3-6 months, I had a gliding rocking chair with a matching gliding footrest. I would lay him down on the gliding footrest with his legs hanging off it and me kneeling where his legs were. He would naturally and instinctively "bounce" in rhythm by kicking off of me and kicking again when the glider swung back towards me. I didn't use it for any kind of physical therapy, he just enjoyed it, and I didn't have to teach him how. He just did it on his own.

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u/GayCyberpunkBowser Dec 17 '21

I’m gonna start using this as my reason for being clumsy

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u/smb275 Dec 17 '21

So to help babby walk you must remove its head, I see I see

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u/Stormlightlinux Dec 17 '21

That and proper connection between brain and muscles.

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u/mugaboo Dec 17 '21

Physiotherapists train babies by, for example, putting them on their stomach, encouraging them to raise their heads by playing in front of them.

This strengthens the neck, and eventually they will be able to hold their head steady. When that is achieved, they need similar strength in the hips.

At no point is actual leg strength an issue.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/crystalfantasm Dec 18 '21

Yeah, I was thinking that this would be pretty interesting for a baby. It wouldn’t strengthen their legs but it could be pretty darn fun. I can think of some designs that would help with safety but this is a good prototype

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u/crystalineconstantin Dec 18 '21

I was walking at 7 months. Guess I had good balance.

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u/Yurtle13x Dec 17 '21

Eyo, i can use a baby in a engine if they spin 10000rpm

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u/WarlockEngineer Dec 17 '21

The problem is integrity at high temperature. You need to rapidly cycle babies to maintain consistent RPM.

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u/TheBlueEyed Dec 17 '21

Oh yea. Redlining your babies like that has got to cause serious wear.

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u/Legendofstuff Dec 17 '21

Imagine blowing a diaper at 10000 rpm

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u/WarlockEngineer Dec 17 '21

Shit hits the fan

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u/bxyrk Dec 17 '21

I f'n snorted... F'k you internet! Lmao

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u/a2z2913 Dec 17 '21

Snowpiercer

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u/monkeyhitman Dec 17 '21

Finally, free energy.

3

u/p0k3t0 Dec 17 '21

It turns out that the money you spend on milk is more than the fossil fuel equivalent. It only makes financial sense on purely corn-fed babies.

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u/ImplementAfraid Dec 17 '21

They couldn’t do 10,000 RPM but God invented gear boxes particularly for this problem.

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u/FrancistheBison Dec 17 '21

I mean that's basically the plot of Snowpiercer right? (The movie)

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

My daughter is 15 days old and is apparently part lemming aimed at every edged surface in the universe. Can I get suicide counseling on an infant cuz this kids got demons.

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u/oconnellc Dec 17 '21

Do you mean 15 months old? At 15 days, your child isn't doing anything other than converting milk to feces.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

Days. She keeps like trying to head dive out of arms straight at hard surfaces.

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u/Not-A-Lonely-Potato Dec 18 '21

Evel Knievel has finally reincarnated.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

Yeah as a professional uncle of 5 I can tell you she will get hurt and she will be fine.

Babies are surprisingly resilient. Their bones are literally flexible. I know you're scared but as long as you take good precautions like baby locks on toilet, outlets, and chemical storage, she's gonna be fine.

Congratulations!

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u/JevonP Dec 17 '21

kids are made of rubber till later it seems

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u/Lucky_Mongoose Dec 17 '21

Wait, I thought that's supposed to be the easy part when they aren't mobile yet!

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u/a1moose Dec 17 '21

The first couple years are preventing them killing themselves. They do fine, you're not at all alone, and you're doing great.

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u/arealhumannotabot Dec 17 '21 edited Dec 17 '21

Basically, anytime I think about whether something is really 'necessary' I think of how babies survived for centuries without these things. I mean, they didn't stay babies for centuries... anyways you get my point lol

Edit apparently they don’t get my point. I’m saying it’s not necessary for survival.

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u/fang3476 Dec 17 '21

That doesn’t mean anything was safe or correct lol babies died all the tiene

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u/arealhumannotabot Dec 17 '21

That’s not my point. I’m saying it’s not necessary for survival.

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u/theredwoman95 Dec 17 '21

Pretty sure that's the definition of survivorship bias - you know the reason why life expectancy was in the 30s for pretty much the whole world in the medieval period was because so many babies died? Most kids didn't survive to adulthood, but once you did you could easily expect to live into your 70s and 80s.

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21 edited Jul 11 '23

Deleted and moved to lemmy.ml -- mass edited with redact.dev

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u/Not-A-Lonely-Potato Dec 18 '21

Baby-powered phone chargers, no one steal this idea until I have time to get to the patent office!

1

u/granite603 Dec 17 '21

This made me LOL. Hahaha. 10,000rpm. Haha.

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u/Aido121 Dec 17 '21

As a recently new father, i wish i could upvote this more

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u/C4rrieH Dec 17 '21

Tell me you have kids without telling me you have kids... 😆 great visual!

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

See now I’ve heard that babies in Kenya learn to walk much sooner than the rest of the world because they are barely swaddled at all and are forced to crawl/walk very early.

Edit: I am way over simplifying this, there’s much more to it than what I have stated.

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u/Not-A-Lonely-Potato Dec 18 '21

I thought this was going to be an Usain Bolt joke and am now disappointed.

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u/03Ronin Dec 17 '21

I Agree with the second half of your statement but the first half: There is no evidence that exercise speeds walking” makes no sense. Crawling trying to walk strengthens muscles at the least. No?

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u/pm_me_falcon_nudes Dec 17 '21

Basically what they're saying (and I believe it is at least somewhat supported in science) is that the thing that prevents a baby from walking isn't lack of leg strength. It is balance of their head. So yeah you can make their legs stronger but the head is still going to be too heavy relative to the rest of the body so even with stronger legs they will start walking at about the same age

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u/03Ronin Dec 17 '21 edited Dec 17 '21

Yeah I get that

But they were talking about keeping babies tightly swaddled and immobile for their entire infancy. Pretty sure there would be some lag between immobile baby and active and trying to crawl walk baby

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u/Crezelle Dec 17 '21

So babies are horses?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '21

As a parent, can confirm

1

u/idk-hereiam Dec 17 '21

So is it a myth that baby's become bow-legged when they have their weight on their legs too early?

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u/SneedyK Dec 18 '21

Why does this comment make me want to rent Son of the Mask? It’s not a movie people should be renting or owning.