Sure he looks great, with his tiny gym shorts and expensive pectoral implants, but that's how he earns his living.

Plastic surgery offers pectoral implants to make the chest appear more muscular, and calf muscle implants to give the leg a bodybuilder shape.

The incisions are generally inconspicuous, hidden in the armpit for pectoral implants and in the crease behind the knee for calf surgery.

Frank Fischer, Ventritex's president and chief executive, said that the company was performing clinical trials on pectoral implants and had performed such operations on about 10 patients.

Additionally, the gel form is used in bandages and dressings, breast implants, testicle implants, pectoral implants, contact lenses, and a variety of other medical uses.

In fact, pectoral implants tend to produce better results if the patient continues to exercise, since the implant sits deep under the skin and the patient's own muscle provides the skin texture.

Indeed, plastic surgery for men has become so accepted that recently Colombian surgeons met at a Bogotá hotel to discuss the latest procedures, on everything from male liposuction to pectoral implants.

According to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, there were fewer than 200 pectoral implants in 1990, but men may shore up their chests by enriching health clubs where they pump iron.

With pectoral implants, "if a person has small shoulders and arms and you build them up too much they just look silly," said Dr. Novack, who said that patients bring in surfing magazines and Calvin Klein ads.

Misperceptions Among Men In an era when an increasing number of men are seeking pectoral implants to shore up scrawny torsos, Dr. Thompson and his colleague Stacey Tantleff also examined beliefs about ideal chest size.

While some of the techniques, like facial liposuction, are now widely offered by plastic surgeons, others, like pectoral implants, are regarded by many with a snicker, and surgeons worry that patients seeking what are permanent changes may be overly influenced by current fashion.

Severe Pain at First More than 100 buttock and pectoral implants were performed by members of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons in 1990, the first year the society kept tallies, and close to 300 calf implants were performed.