Chris
Harbour (PROZAC)
B.Sc.(Hons) in Sport & Exercise
Science
Fitness Instructor, Gym Manager and News Editor at
Worldwide JAM |
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OTHER
HEALTH AND FITNESS ARTICLES
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LOSING
YOUR MOTIVATION
FOR TRAINING?
Goal
Setting could be the answer
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JUMPERS
KNEE
by Sam Parham
What is it, how do you get it and how to get over
it.
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HOW
POWERBALL helped speed-up the healing process of Prozac's
broken wrist
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WATER
- THE ANTIDOTE TO HEAT STROKE
By Kevin Fulthorpe
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FITNESS
FOR PARKOUR
by
Prozac
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PANTHER
Upper and Lower body exercises
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Photo
courtesy of Linda Nylind
As most in the Parkour community know, I managed to break
my right wrist in a training accident back in November (let
this be a lesson people, always check your landing surfaces).
Most broken bones will heal up in 6 weeks, but the scaphoid
bone is another matter. With a lousy blood supply, it’s
not unheard of for this one to take 3 or 4 times as long to
fix! 200+ bones in the body and I had to break that one! Still,
better that than the skull I suppose
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As it turned out, I was in plaster for about 2 months. My
grip strength was 70kg before the accident; when I tested it
after the plaster came off, it was down to 30kg. I had very
limited mobility in my wrist and could hardly put any weight
on it.
What I needed was some serious rehab work, so when someone asked
who wanted to test out the Powerball my crippled hand was straight
up in the air!
My routine was simple enough; spend about 15minutes a day keeping
the Powerball at a decent amount of RPM and each week measure
my grip strength and how fast I can actually get the Powerball
to spin…
WEEK 1:
Training delayed due to one of my colleagues at Worldwide JAM
managing to get the starting string caught up inside the mechanism
and having to disassemble it to get it out again!
Grip Strength: 34kg
Max RPM: 8784
WEEK 2:
Starting to get the hang of getting the Powerball spinning;
don’t even need the string anymore. Does take a while to
get used to these things at first, but once you’ve mastered
the knack it’s pretty easy.
Grip Strength: 41kg
Max RPM: 10923
WEEK 3:
Loving the pretty lights and computer on this thing! I had a
Powerball briefly a few years back (until another Personal Trainer
I worked with broke it trying to see where the batteries went,
idiot), but my old one never had all the fancy gizmos that this
one’s got!
Grip Strength: 47kg
Max RPM: 11081
WEEK 4:
Girlfriend’s getting a bit annoyed with the Powerball.
It does get quite noisy when you get it up to the high RPM ranges.
It probably doesn’t help that I tend to use it while she’s
watching boring girly stuff on TV.
Grip Strength: 54kg
Max RPM: 12020
THE VERDICT
The Powerball has all the advantages of isometric exercise,
the muscles are given an intensive workout but hardly any stress
is put through the joint. Powerball work has also got the added
bonus of gently mobilising the joint, making it ideal for injury
rehabilitation.
I thought the RPM counter was a bit gimmicky at first, but I
found that trying to beat your best speed was a great motivator
and made you work harder for longer.
Because I haven’t been able put much weight on my wrist,
the Powerball is the only real training I’ve done on it
since the accident. In less than a month, I’ve managed
to get over 20kg of my grip back. The Powerball will definitely
be a permanent addition to my training.
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GETTING
STARTED IN PARKOUR |
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A
GUIDE TO PARKOUR
BASICS |
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DOWNLOAD
WORLDWIDE JAM WALLPAPER |
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PROMOTING
PARKOUR GLOBALLY |
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WHERE'S
THE JAM NEAR YOU? |
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