Friday, December 22, 2006

Now what if i cared? - 5 Things I would get for people I care about this christmas

After all that negative emotion in the previous post (yuck!) here are 5 things that show I care! Recieve one of these puppies from me this christmas and in some cultures we would be leaglly wedded haha.

1. Something to take care of my soft tissues quality. This probably deserves a few spots out of the 5 things mention. But its that important. Really made a big difference to my well being and happiness this year. Fixing my knee issues that plagued me for the past 2 years, upper back and neck tightness on the way to getting fixed, more pain free range of motion all over. Bye bye chronic pain, hello smooth joints and chronic pain free living. Here are some of the items that I used.

  • Theracane
  • Back knobbler
  • Deep tissue therapy books - search amazon
  • Foam roller
  • Tennis balls in socks - use these against a wall to self massage your back. Socks are not magic, but they do stop the ball from rolling around:)
2. Something to take care of active mobilty. There are pretty good information products out there. But even something as simple as:

bodyweight squats
overhead squats with an empty bar
walking lunges
Squat jumps
Unweighted shoulder External rotations
Bird dogs
Cat-camel stretches
Standing hip-flexor stretches

do each of the above for 15 reps before training (no rest between exercises). Add in a few warmup sets of the exercise you are about to do and you should be good to go (not to mention alot more prepared than doing 5 mins on the cycle).

3. Book(s) to build the mind and attitude for succecss. So many options here, it will be tough to list. But for a weightlfter i like "under the bar" by powerlifter Dave Tate.

4. Fish oil - here are some examples of how good it is. Or you could go to those medical journal sites (medline etc) and do a search... its a mighty long list

5. A bit of my techie side here since I used up so many "fitness" slots for the first item... get a Digital SLR camera. I love the thought that you can capture a slice of time that will never return. A digital SLR is the way to go. SLRs focus instantly (no need to wait...wait...wait "beep-beep") and shoot instantly. What you see is what you get RIGHT NOW (well maybe 50miliseconds later but for most purposes thats the same as right now) no waiting. For fun shooting I take a Nikon D40 and for sports and action and when I am getting paid I take a Nikon D200. Sure they are a little bigger, but the d40 in particular is pretty portable. Not pants pocket portable, but just wrap it up in some clothes or a towel and it can go anywhere. Batrries last 500-1000 shots (thats alot...) and a cheapo 1GB memory card can hold about 600 pictures.