Bicycling Down Memory Lane

October 12th, 2009

Adults can and should milk biking to get some exercise. Older people may need to ride the giant tricycle with a basket on the front. It was blue with a bell attached to the handlebars and when you worked the tiny tab backwards and forwards with your thumb, you would hear a tinny ring.

All of the youngsters in my neighborhood had bikes; naturally they were 2 speed bikes, stop and go, not like the many different bikes that are available now. I do not remember anybody being obese back then.

We rode bikes instead of watching some mad or violent program on television. In fact, there wasn’t any Television, no McDonald’s, no PCs, no Gameboys ; the sole video games we had were photographs in our heads. In the sunlight hours we did not have many inactive games. We ran around in the yards playing hypothetical games. At night all the family would sit round the dinner table eating and chatting. The meal usually consisted of a beef, 2 or 3 veggies, and pudding with tea or milk to drink.

Nobody chose bottled water, oh yep, there wasn’t any bottled water. The sole time we had burgers was on Sat. nights, no fries. In the summer we cooked out of doors on a homemade barbecue pit made out of stone. There were no charcoal, electrical, or gas griddles; we used wood in the pit. Some of the area youngsters were always invited to eat dinner with us on Sat. night. We’d eat on a wooden picnic table in the yard. After dinner we might play basketball or horseshoes, or some other game. Perhaps if we had kept on doing those types of things, we wouldn’t have so many lazy and overweight folks now. Get some “kids” of every age together and go for a bike ride at least once each week.

When you’re riding, perhaps on the way you can ride on a yard barbecue pit where you can fix some burgers the old fashion way and pitch some horseshoes after dinner.

Basic Trampoline Tricks

October 10th, 2009

If you’re the owner of a trampoline, you already know that it’s a neat way to get out of the house, and into the unpolluted air. Did you also know that it’s benefiting your health? Jumping up and down on a trampoline is excellent for buttressing the cardio-vascular system and it’s also a good workout for nearly every muscle and organ of the body. Exercising on a trampoline may also be extraordinarily useful for adults and youngsters as it helps to improve reflexes, suppleness, co-ordination and balance. A method to reinforce not only the fun facet of the trampoline, but also increase the health benefits, is by putting a little additional effort into your jumping by doing some tricks. There’s lot of tricks that may done on the trampoline, from the newbie level to the complicated. Here are a couple of them beginning with some basics including further suggestions to guarantee safety and avoid injury. ‘Landing on the Back’ is one of the first, basic trampoline tricks any bouncer should learn and its extremely simple. Stand motionless on the trampoline with your arms at your sides or even with your hands in your front pockets.

As your back meets the trampoline, let your head meet it naturally too, don’t jerk or twist it. You will bounce back up and then you can do it again, again and again till you achieve a good springing back height. The more that you practice this trick, the higher you may bounce backwards and forwards.

Here’s an intermediate trampoline trick you can do once you have master the basic Back Landing trick. Begin the same way, standing straight and motionless, with arms at your sides or hands in your pockets. Fall straight back again, but when you bounce back up, land on your knees instead. The motion will keep sending you backwards and forwards so you can repeat the trick as many times as you would like. Either of these can be done backwards or forwards, but you should be totally comfortable and assured with your rebounding capabilities before attempting either of them. Once you have the flip down, you spice it up by adding a spin to it. Do not forget to look round and see how much room you have. You will certainly need to avoid a collision with any other jumpers that are on the trampoline with you.

To further forestall any mishaps, heat up first by doing some easy rebounds and after you get going, don’t forget to keep your head and neck in a natural position.