Powerball

I wanted to write about this little ball for some time, after I read that it is good if you ride your bikes hard. From the powerball website:

For other sports such as mountain biking, motocross, climbing or rowing, the NSD Powerball goes to work on your fingers, hands, wrists, forearms and shoulders and gives them an extraordinary resilience to the rigors you face while simultaneously boosting your endurance levels - so much so it's been recently termed.

It is a great way to do some workout even in the office. It moves all the muscles in your hands, depending how are you holding it.

You van spin it up to 16732 rpm (the world record held by Akis Kritsinelis). My personal best is 1282 so I have to keep practicing :)

If you live in Romania the best place to buy the powerball is Emag (I have mine from there)

Burn calories not electricity

I wrote a post about elevators some time ago and today I got a picture from a friend:

This sign was given by the NYC (free-of-charge) to any building that wanted to mount it. From this campaign:
Benefits of Taking the Stairs:
 - Stair climbing burns almost 700% the number of calories you burn standing on an elevator.
 - Just two minutes of stair-climbing each day burns enough calories to eliminate the one pound an average adult gains each year.
 - Men who climbed at least 20 floors a week (about 3 floors a day) had a 20% lower risk of stroke or death from all causes, in one study.
 - Stair-climbing has been shown to raise good cholesterol and improve cardiovascular health
Stair use also advances the city’s GreeNYC effort to reduce energy consumption. An escalator that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can use 28,000 kilowatt hours of energy over the course of a year. That’s enough to create 43,000 pounds of carbon dioxide – more than three times the amount a car produces.

Posting such signs has been shown to increase stair use by approximately 50 percent.

Why do people use the elevator?

Are they afraid to move?

I don't really get it... Yesterday when I got home I heard some elder people talking, they wanted to go to the second floor with the elevator. But why? I don't think they were in a hurry and they didn't have big bags...

I live in a 10 story building on the 5th floor. I only use the elevator when I'm in a hurry or I have to carry something heavy (groceries, bikes). Even if I have to go up to the 10th floor to pay my bills I use the stairs and when I have to go down with my mtb I use the stairs, I get the bike on the rear wheel and it bounces nicely down the stairs.

I understand that elder people get tired when they use the stairs but they don't realise that if they have time that is a great workout and it is very healty. But not just the elder people use the elevators...

And you can save some energy to if you don't use the stairs so it's less CO2 if you use the staris and the electric bill is smaller :)

So STOP using the stairs and get some quick workout!