Snowboarding is fun and good for you!

Today I am going to talk about my favorite sport of all time: snowboarding!  I think that snowboarding is a very fun yet hard sport.  It not only strengthens your core, foot/ankle, upper leg, hip, and gluteus muscles but it is also a very good cardiovascular exercise.  This means that while you are working out all those muscles I listed above, you are also burning calories, losing weight, and keeping your heart healthy.  The reason I enjoy snowboarding so much is because the mountain does wonders for my stress and I can get into shape while having a lot of fun.  Most people do not enjoy their first time snowboarding but I think that you should stick with it since its gets a lot more fun as you get better.

A common mistake that many beginners make while snowboarding is that they do not drink enough water.  Like I mentioned above, snowboarding is both a strength building workout as well as a cardiovascular workout.  Because of this, people tend to sweat a lot without realizing it.  When you sweat too much, you lose a lot of water and become very dehydrated.  If you get dehydrated, you are likely to get very dizzy and nauseas.  This could end up cause a lot of discomfort and health issues if you do not hydrate right away.  This is why you should always carry a water bottle with you while snowboarding. Hope that this blog has been a bit helpful to everyone who wants to try snowboarding!

Willy

Kayaking...in Winter?!?

Today I went kayaking at La Jolla Shores.  The weather was perfect (for winter at least) and I went with a bunch of friends so I had a lot of fun.  After I came back I realized that I was a lot more sore than I usually would be after a workout.  I was curious to see what muscle groups kayaking worked on so I looked it up.  Not only did I find what muscle groups it worked out but I also found out that kayaking has a lot of health benefits.

The muscle groups that are worked during kayaking are your back, chest, stomach, and arms.  Since there is so much repetition in kayaking, doing this often not only strengthens your muscles but tones them as well.  For a sport, kayaking works many parts of the body all at once.  Most rowing sports (such as dragon boating and crew) are also full body workouts.  One health benefit that come with kayaking is stress reduction. Even though you are working pretty hard when you are kayaking, if you stop and take a break once in a while it is very calm.  Sitting in the middle of the ocean with the sun in your face and a clear blue sky to look at makes one feel at ease.  On top of that, kayaking helps you burn calories and lose weight.   I was actually kind of surprised when I read how many calories you burn every hour.  I found out that every hour you are pushing out about 1500 strokes and burning around 400 calories.  Today I went kayaking for two hours so it turns out I burned almost 800 calories!  I would call that a great accomplishment for the day.

Today was my second time every kayaking.  The first time I tried was when I was still young.  I do not quite remember what happened during then but after today I have confirmed my love for another sport.  I think that kayaking is a great way to look good and feel good while still having a lot of fun.  It is pretty safe and it is not that expensive.  The place we rented the kayak from only cost $20 bucks for two hours.  If you get really into it, I recommend that you buy your own kayak because it is pretty addicting and it can add up if you go often.  The type of kayak we used was a sea kayak shown in the picture below.  Here is also an quick instructional video on how to kayak.

Even after writing this blog however, I feel that a lot of people still won't give kayaking a shot.  It kind of pains me to say it but I think people take sports in general (not just kayaking) for granted now that we have things such as the internet.  Since the creation of youtube, it seems like as soon as someone sees something bad (and highly unlikely) happen in a sport, no one wants to give it a try anymore.  People get scared and never get to experience things.  The internet has made us lazy and unwilling to try new things as well.  People passively experience these fun things such as kayaking by watching TV and not actually trying it themselves. 

Still after today, I believe that I have found my new favorite water sport.  I do not wish to rely on the internet for everything.  The fast paced world today is getting too wrapped up in New Media that people are beginning to rely on technology too much.  I want to experience everything myself in real life, not through some computer screen or television set.  This being said, I think the next sport I wish to experience on my list is surfing.  It is however winter so I'll most likely be going back to winter sports and exercises.

Willy

Purpose of my Blog

It has been almost 8 years since I wrote my last blog so it'll probably take a while for me to get used to this again but here we go.  I would like to start off by saying that the blogs I will be posting will mainly be focused on everyday health.  By this I mean that I will be looking at different kinds of exercises, workouts, sports, and maybe even diets in order to stay fit.  I will also blog about stuff that affects health such as stress and mentality.  I am not saying that I am an expert on fitness but I do find the subject matter to be very interesting.  I enjoy exercising a lot so researching this subject matter will be fun for me as well.  I will also try to post interesting facts and data on health and fitness as well as experiment with the exercises and sports before actually blogging about them.  Hopefully these blogs will end up being helpful to people.

Testing Blog

Testing out my new blog... Hello World =)