SPORTIQUE: Man Perfected Natural Body Care

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" This ancient proverb is said by many but followed by very few. Nowadays while companies are trying hard to "man up" most body sprays and shampoos, the lotion and creme market is still pretty bland. You either smell like a sore 90 old person if you use pain relief cream or throw on some lotion and smell like cucumber grapefruit before your night on the town. I don't know about you, but as a man and a top level athlete neither really works for me. I'm guessing it didn't work for the designers of SPORTIQUE either.

SPORTIQUE sells itself as "Man Perfected Natural Body Care" and for all intensive purposes they have defiantly set the bar high. After reaching out to them they were kind enough to send me a few samples. And by samples, as you can see in the picture, they sent enough for me to start a small boutique in the mall. Trust me though, I'm not complaining because from what I've used their products work. And work well at that. I have not had a chance to test them all but did manage to try a few hand creams and pre/post work ointments from the line. The hand cream is rich without being greasy. The Shea butter goes on smooth and rubs right in. I even used it on my new tattoo being that they are all natural ingredients. The shaving oil is great and a little goes a long way. It moisturizes the skin and since it's oil you don't have to keep reapplying like you do with foam creme. The Warming Up creme was actually very impressive. A client of mine had a ankle bruise from a soccer game. Real nice black and blue shiner. So figured I'd try it and just have her rub some on. She didn't know what it was but agreed. The very next day she text me asking what it was since the discoloration in her ankle was pretty much gone. She even went as far as asking if it was some miracle creme. Now while I wouldn't go THAT far, you can't argue with the results. Same goes for the Get Going Creme that you Use prior to intense physical activity to loosen up or, soothe and invigorate.
The SPORTIQUE line is very upscale products that men won't mind using and women will enjoy it when they do. The scents are relaxed without coming off too metro or over the top. Each one is loaded with clean botanicals such as lavender, aloe, almond and all kinds of other great skin promotions oils. Even the containers, while basic, have enough style for a man to feel comfortable using. My only complaint is some of the containers aren't flight size friendly with these new airport rules (I learned first hand) but that's more nit picking than anything. I'd recommend them to anyone looking to bring a new element to the hygiene table. Also if you are someone like me who likes the peace of mind that your skin care products are natural and organic while still doing what it was supposed to do, keeping your body looking and feeling good, then SPORTIQUE is the way to go. Just don't share it too much or your friends might fall in love and you'll never see it again. I recently learned that first hand too.
SUMMARY
GET IT! Chances are you care about your hygiene (if your over the age of 9 you better start) and probably spending money on body care products anyway. While the products may be alittle pricey, their well worth it in that "you get what you pay for" sense. I'd definitely recommend the Joint & Muscle Gel, Warm Up Cream, and the Century Riding Cream although all of the products seem to work equally well so if you can get, get them all.

Chapfix: A man's chapstick

ChapFix
http://chapfix.com/

I feel kind of funny reviewing chap stick on a sports/fitness site but this product makes it worth it. On the market today there's pretty much two main kinds of chap sticks. Glittery girl raspberry ones with unicorns or lip stinging medicated ones that smell like moth balls on your lips. As a guy neither of those are appealing or manly. In comes Chapfix to "fix" the issue (see what I did there? Clever I know).

Chair-Pak Travel Chair

Chair-Pak
http://www.chairpak.com/home.html

40 years ago everyone expected us to have jet packs and cars that turn into suitcases like on the Jetsons. While we're not there yet, lovely inventions like the Chair-Pak, do give a idea of how much time could be saved when that happens.

In itself, the chair-pak is essentially exactly that, a backpack with a aluminum chair built in. Sure the idea seems overly simple, but it's actually very well designed to blend the two. The chair is crafted into the backpack so while people can still tell it's a chair if they look hard enough, it's still not some gaudy eye sore or too small to be useful. It's a normal sized book bag, perfect for lugging around hiking equipment, sports gear, etc without sacrificing much space .. And with removal of one elastic strap, the chair pops out and your ready to relax at your destination. As always, I looked to test it in real world situations, so I gave it to my mom to break in. Now my mom isn't some hulking figure so the first question was would it be too heavy for her to comfortably carry. That answer is a firm no. It's surprisingly really light, lighter than your basic steel folding chair and she could lift it with one hand and swing it onto her back like a 5th grader. The next question is, being that light, could it really hold anything up. Again the chair pack cruises through. On the tag it says no one over 230 lb should sit on it. I'm roughly 240 at 6'4 and was able to comfortably relax in it. Sure if I got a running start and cannonballed onto it, it would probably snap but for sitting and watching my nieces sports events it works perfectly. My moms only concern was how to wash it all, but for the most part it's fairly easy. She's even keeping it because it's much more convenient than carrying the huge hammock fold out chair or constantly looking for bleacher seats.

SUMMARY
The Chair-Pak is a good investment for any outdoors man no matter if your hiking, watching a sporting event or just lounging in the back yard. Being able to carry a chair without forfeiting space or comfort is a time saver and well thought out. Now hopefully Les, the Chair-Pak creator can get started on my suitcase Jetsons car next.

FIRSTAR Compression Shirt: the next big thing.

FIRSTAR Sports Shirts
http://www.firstarsports.com/

As everyone knows, I'm a under amour guy. Tops, shorts, hoodies, even ones that haven't come out yet, I have. I literally have two draws of just UA workout tops.Well those tops might be making room soon because FIRSTAR may have stolen some of the spotlight.

I contacted FIRSTAR about the compression shirts after hearing through the grapevine about them but not knowing much detail. I assumed it would be another Kmart type compression shirt jumping on the trend. I couldn't have been more wrong. Putting the T3 on you notice it's a lighter material than most compression shirts which is always a plus as long as the material is durable. Being that FIRSTAR was originally made for hockey players (it's a Canadian company ah) you know the material is meant to last. Now some confusion came after getting the shirt on as it wasn't as "compressed" as I expected around my upper back giving me a weird bat man cape look. After pulling on the shirt a little and lining it up better, it was form fitting and had a nice feel to it. At first glance, it passes the looks test with nice colors and smooth seams that don't restrict any motion, a issue most compression shirts seem to overlook. Also the way that the seams are done around the shoulders, the fabric has give where most outfits would pull. If I shoot a jump shot or do a shoulder press FIRSTAR gives me free range while my lovely under armor pulls up the rest of the shirt making it uncomfortable and constantly needing to be pulled back down or worse changing my form . FIRSTAR 1 - UA 0..The next step was to see how it held up in a workout setting. Now I'm no hockey player but I assume they don't sweat a lot on the ice but me ( I was later corrected that their actually pretty sweaty guys), but I sweat like Shaq. This is where FIRSTAR really raises the bar. While my face was dripping with sweat, my body felt perfectly dry. Always a big concern of mine was how if you sweat in most compression shirts, the shirt shows the sweat. But not FIRSTAR. After a hour workout and basketball that had my face dripping, the shirt was almost dry to the touch and "cold dampness" at very worst. No huge wet sweat mark, no body clinging sweaty shirty. When I got home it was already basically good to wear again. You can tell they really put effort in how to handle moisture when designing these shirt.

SUMMARY
FIRSTAR impressed me. What I expected to be pretty much another basic compression shirt turned out to be my new go to shirt on intense workout days. With its free range of motion and amazing moisture control, I like it so much I might even get some for my training staff to wear as uniforms. So when you get a chance, head over to FIRSTAR and get your self a pair before other people find out and they start getting pricey.

Jay Wolf's Star Shooter

Jay Wolf's Shooting Star
http://www.starshooter.net/

Basketball fundamentals are commonly overlooked now days in order to sell flash and style. I can name about 10 NBA all star stars who can't even hit a jump shot on a regular basis (I'm looking at you Ben Wallace). Well shooting coach Jay Wolf took it into his own hands to make that easier to rectify.

Now let me start off by saying there's TONS of shooting aids on the market. All make the same claims they can turn any kid into Ray Allen. And while they help, few helped as fast as Jay Wolf’s SHOOTING STRAP did with me. As a college player and even when I trained with the NJ Nets, I always had good form on my shooting hand, so most aids didn't really effect me in a positive way. They became more of a hindrance that made my shot awkward. The SHOOTING STRAP though wraps on the off hand instead which made a immediate difference. First off the STRAP wraps around your off hands forearm and loops onto your thumb. This set up stops your thumbs from pushing the balls off center during your release, something most people do without realizing. Secondly by isolating your shooting hand to this extent, it makes it even easier for the shooter to realize their mistakes upon release. Only having one hand to worry about, you can correct your arm and stroke faster just by how the shot comes off your hand. I'll admit the first day it threw off my shot to where I couldn't hit anything but once getting past the learning curve it became a fluid motion even after I took the strap off.

SUMMARY
I've accepted I'll never be Ray Allen from the 3 point line, but the SHOOTING STRAP defiantly made me more confident in my shot. While you can do form shooting for hours right under the rim, it's harder to form shoot on jump shots and off the dribble. With the SHOOTING STRAP you can and instantly see results just by dissecting your own release. So like me even if your not Ray Allen, eventually people will learn not to leave you wide open anymore. Its a good investment for any player on any level.

Fat Gripz: Your Body Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link

The importance of grip strength is nothing new but still often overlooked. Tons of toys and tools have said they can fix your grip but it becomes so tedious that most gyms and clients completely ignore it. If you've read any of my other articles you know how grip strength effects your lifts. ALLL the big lifts need grip strength; deadlifts, rows, bench, even holding a bar during squats. So its still amazing how many people jump right over forearm and overall grip work. Well if this finally opened your eyes, don't run and get a wrist roller or super gripper. Just go to FATGRIPZ and get a few of these blue wonders.

Fat Bars have been around for a while but only the most hardcore and exclusive of gyms usually spent the time to get them. Whats a fat bar? By increasing the diameter of the lifting bar, your forced to grip harder and activate more muscle fibers. But since their so hard to come by, people have tried to rig up their own such as wrapping towels around bars or using squat pads. Fat Gripz had their own ideas. Fat Gripz are a hard rubber that you slip on to any bar or dumbbell (literally almost anybar) and it increased the bars size without any fancy bars or mcgyver towel wraps. As a athlete I had always been trained at places that had fat bars, so while I knew of Fat Gripz, I had never used them. Well I was recently given a pair to try and was quickly put in check. After a few reps you'll probably notice fatigue setting in the thumb areas of your hands. Now if have very big hands and even for myself it was a struggle to just bully these like I thought I was going to. After a routine of bench, lat pulldowns, rows and dips my upper body was shot. Oh and for the record, heavy lat pulldowns with Fat Gripz on are a evil evil exercise. If you doubt me try it yourself and have your friends watch as you struggle with your usual warm up weight. After the workout my hands were sore and I had some weird lobster pinch thing going on when I tried to grab things because my forearms were so tight but it still wasn't the "beware fat grips" type pain I was expecting after reading all the things on the site....until the next day. Me and my gf both were sore the next day. Like the "havn't worked out before, omg why does that muscle hurt" kind of sore. So I was impressed, while I wasn't going as heavy as I normally do because of the Fat Gripz, you couldn't have told my body that the next day. So yes, Fat Gripz work. They work so much that I apologize to any of my old workout buddies and teammates that I didn't have them before for them to use. But I do now so I will be passing on the pain.
SUMMARY
Step 1) Go to FATGRIPZ....Step 2) Buy some Fat Gripz.....Step 3)Have yourself a mans workout and build some muscle...
Train Harder AND Smarter


"The important thing is to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we can become."

Bionic Gloves: Stylish or Effective?

Next on the product review trip is the BIONIC GLOVE.
Bionic Glove is known mostly for their baseball and golf gloves and both are pretty effective. Lucky for me I was able to get my hands on some of their new workout gloves. Would these Gloves have the same standards as their golf and baseball ones?

When they got here the first thing I noticed was the style. I've never golfed but one of my concerns was I'd be working out with some funky looking attention grabbing glove. These are attention grabbers but not in a negative way. I ordered a pair of fingered gloves and cut off gloves just to see the difference.Their sleak look was more reminiscent of my wide receiver gloves from football than bulky lifting gloves or golf gloves. Theres a velcro wrist strap that is strong enough to give you support and keep the glove snug but not get in your way like other gloves. Also each glove has pads/notches built in to press your grip better in certain areas. When you get the gloves their "test" is to pick up a weight with a bare hand and one with the gloved hand. And while it worked and you noticed right away, its not a real test because lifting light dumbbells are not a real struggle for gloves. To spice things up and really push these gloves, I went to a lift that is all about grip strength, the deadlift. Deadlifting can be a struggle for most lifters because your grip goes before the rest of your body is tired. So if your body can deadlift 600, but your hands can only deadlift 300, well your deadlift is 300lbs. So I set up 315 on the bar just to see if the gloves made any difference and after the first rep you could tell. The gloves give a solid grip that would usually lead to your hands aching and stop the bar from rolling in your hands. After a couple sets the gloves were still doing their job. I went up to 405 just to finish up and my hands were still fine. Now my one complaint was that the gloves might be TOO nice. While at 405 the gloves still worked, but the material (suede or leather type stuff) on the glove did have alittle wear from the bar attempting to roll. It was nothing drastic or even really noticable if I wasn't purposly trying to push their limits in the review but it makes me wonder how long they will hold up and still look this nice.

SUMMARY

All in all the BIONIC GLOVES passed with flying colors. They fit nice, gave me added grip without being sticky or needing me to wear wrist straps. Also an important and overlooks glove aspect, they didn't stick after working out. Anyone who has been caught off guard by the smell of their sweat gloves knows what I'm talking about. The gloves performed well and outside of my little nit picking about the scratch the bar left, they were pretty much 100% effective. I'd recommend them to anyone working out looking to get a good grip or just keep their hand modeling career intact. Not to mention the price so its overall a winning situation. Go to BIONIC GLOVES check out all thier styles, maybe even pick up some nice driving gloves next.

"The important thing is to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we can become."

Evidence Based Apparel: Is the the real deal?

I spend most of my mornings before clients get here scouring the net for athletic equipment and new things to add to my training collection. Recently I came across a site called Evidence Based Apparel. Now EBA makes posture apparel to, well....help with your posture. They claim their posture shirts and S3 will improve posture, reduce:neck, back, and shoulder pain, increase shoulder function, improve range of motion and increase strength. Now this all sounds fine and great but rule number one ESPECIALLY in fitness and sports, anything that seems too good to be true usually is. So I searched left and right for some super small "results are not typical and may vary" hidden escape clause that pretty much means you just wasted money on their product but couldn't find one. I reached out to one of their representatives about trying one out and she responded the next day saying sure. Now anyone who has read my other reviews here or on other sites knows, when a company allows someone to review their product for free its usually a HUGE THUMBS UP because it means their confident in their product. No ones going to let you review something for free if they know with explode the second you open the box, well unless your a super hero but i digress. So after a few short days I get the box in the mail and now look to answer the ultimate question....does it work?

Shake Weight: Bang for your Buck, or Invented by someone with TOO much alone time?

By now we have all seen the lovely Shake Weight Promo....if your lucky you've seen the SNL spoof of it which is what we all were thinking when we first saw it anyway...


At first I didn't think anyone would take this thing serious, but once again, fads win and people started getting it. My dad even got one for christmas, so trying to be unbias I decided to try it out. As appealing as the Shake Weight might seem when you’re watching late night TV, there’s not much muscle behind its infomercial hype.

A spring-loaded weight that moves up and down. You try to hold it steady (and try not too look too raunchy). Ads claim the weight forces up to 240 muscle contractions a minute, resulting in a complete upper-body workout in only 6 minutes. Sounds good in theory. Who doesn't want to do hours worth of work in 6 minutes? Sadly like most things that seem too good to be true, this one is. Simple logic and research says even if muscles contract, it doesn’t mean they’ll grow. You need to progressively add weight to challenge your muscles, says Mark Peterson, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at the University of Michigan. The Shake Weight for Men weighs only 5 pounds, and hundreds of reps with minimal resistance won’t grow muscle. Sure you will feel some muscle fatigue but I could have you tap your index finger on the table for 60 seconds and eventuallyt your hand will cramp up...does that mean in 4 weeks you will have the hands of the hulk? More likely some kind of crippling finger arthritis. Save your money and your time here, just use normal weights.

P90x: Life Saver or Latest Fad

Each year, a handful of fitness fads explode onto the American scene. And, each year, an equal number fizzle out in far less spectacular fashion. But every so often, one sticks around, and for the last several years running it has been P90X—a wildly popular home-based fitness routine with a growing (and near fanatical) following among weekend warriors and A-list celebs alike (Ewan McGregor, Ashton Kutcher, and Donavan McNabb are among its devotees). It’s also one of the most popular search terms on MensHealth.com. But if you’re reading these words, you’ve found the only ones we’ve ever written about it. Why? Because while P90X might be able to accomplish what it claims for $120 (i.e., “transform you from regular to ripped in 90 days”), it’s likely not the total-body fitness solution that most people are looking for.

If you watch late night television, you’ve seen the infomercials: Fitness trainer Tony Horton and a handful of attractive models explain that by constantly introducing new exercises and workouts—which run the gambit from traditional strength sessions to Kenpo karate classes—you’ll achieve a constant state of “muscular confusion.” The less your muscles adapt, Horton explains, the faster they’ll grow.

The idea of “muscular confusion” isn’t new. And unfortunately for Horton and the folks at Beachbody—who also introduced the world to Hip Hop Abs and the Turbo Jam workout—it’s not based on science. “It’s a marketing term invented by Joe Weider [the creater of the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest] back in the 1980s,” says Bill Hartman, C.S.C.S, a strength coach in Indianapolis. “And it’s kind of counterproductive.”