Saying Good-bye...Saying Hello

About six weeks ago, give or take a week, my mini-tramp almost bucked me off when two of its elastic bands broke accompanied by a ripping sound. We suspect they were sun-rotted from the tramp spending the late summer and fall days of 2009 standing on its side on the front porch with its underside exposed to the afternoon and evening sun. The top side was protected by the blue vinyl cover seen in the pic below taken when it was fresh out of the box in October of 2008.

The slide show above is of me working out on it in late November 2008.







Above it sits on my in-laws front porch in November 2008 and below it sits on my Mom's front porch in February or March of 2009. (late Feb to mid March based on the blooms in my Mom's front yard in other pics taken the same day)







Above shows a section enlarged and cropped out of the pic seen below to show the frayed and broken bands. This pic was taken tonight of the dismantled tramp sitting in the back yard awaiting the next trip to the dump.



We have rescued the blue cover off of it and I intend to attach it to the underside of my new mini-tramp bought last Thursday seen below fresh out of the box with it's resistance bands, pedometer and DVD of workout instructions.



Or I may put the silver one on the bottom and the blue one on top. Either way I'm hoping that by having both sides covered the elastic on this one will survive the summer sun.

Of course if it were up to me, I'd make sure it wasn't left in the sun for ten to twelve hours a day. Especially with the bare elastic exposed. But the front porch is my FIL's domain and he rearranges it at several times per month between Easter and Thanksgiving and maybe half as often between Christmas and Easter.

Who am I to fault him for that? As witnessed by yesterday's post and all the others on the same theme, I've rearranged and reorganized my workstation at least as often if not more.

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May Flowers

Closeup of a flower in my Mom's yard.

Technically it's an April flower since I took this last week and it's probably one of the flowers that went into the vase my nephew put together to greet his Grandma when she arrived home from the hospital Monday. Along with probably most of those in the following two pics.

I believe this is called a Japanese Ornamental Maple. This was the view from the sidewalk last week. This week my sister has been out in the yard and weeded some and trimmed this tree.

Below is my view of the same tree from my mini-tramp on the porch. I love it's brick-red leaves. But I'm finding myself missing my view of those tangled limbs. They served as a kind of Gordian Knot for my eyes to trace and my mind to pretend to be occupied in solving their intricate puzzle.

But I'm getting used to this view after spending several hours total on the tramp since Monday. I'm actually hankering to go back out there now even though I've had a forty minute session already today but we're having a thunder storm. An April shower with a bad sense of timing.

Which means I'd probably be wise to power down my laptop. Ugh.

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Thursday Thirteen #118 Mini-Tramp Benefits

Thursday Thirteen

This is a pic of my tramp taken in early November a week or so before I was clobbered by the first of two colds. The research I did for this post suggests that I shouldn't have stopped cold just because I was feeling like crud.

Yes, I know TT has been discontinued by the hub owners but I have a tenacious streak. I've not missed a week in 117 weeks and something about ending in the middle of a month bothers me. Besides the topic I wanted to post about today lends itself well to the TT format. So even without a hub to announce at... I'll probably do it again next week. Then I'll reevaluate the first week of 2009. I'll likely be in Longview WA helping with my Mom's hip surgery and stroke recovery by then anyway. Would have been a week ago if not for the snow and ice on the roads between Sourthern Oregon and Southern Washington.

Thirteen Things About the Benefits of Rebounding aka Mini Tramp Exercising

1. Mini-trampoline workouts aka rebounding is low impact and thus less stressful on joints, especially knees and ankles.
2. It exercises every cell in the body via gravitational forces, including immune system cells.
3. It improves blood circulation to all parts of body and oxygen circulation to the tissues.
4. It stimulates circulation of the lymphatic system which aids in moving toxins out of cells and into the elimination system and nutrients into cells. The lymph system has no pump of its own and depends on the body's movement to work efficiently. It carries nutrients from the blood to the cells and waste from the cells back to the blood.
5. It improves the efficiency of the entire gastro-intestinal system.
6. It eases menstrual cramps and other associated discomforts.
7. It is fun and relaxing. I find it meditative at times. Thus there is less resistance to staying committed.
8. It is safer for someone with visual impairment like me as there are no curbs, cracks, cars, bikes. trikes, tykes, twigs, rigs, pedestrians, pets, puddles or other obstacles to trip me up or startle me.
9. It can be done indoors or outdoors. Some models are portable enough to travel with.
10. It can be done while listening to music, talking on the phone, watching TV. Unless of course, like me currently, you can't have it indoors. I've been using the time to visit with my husband when he happens to be there (smoking usually because he can't do that indoors either) but when I'm alone I meditate or think about one of my writing projects, talk to the cats, and pay close attention to what's going on nearby in the life of the trailer park to soak up the ambiance and inspiration for my novel in progress, Mobile Hopes. I could listen to my discman I suppose but there is something wrong with the latch so the lid won't tolerate bouncing.
11. It seems to help minimize the issues I have with balance and dizziness which tend to get extreme whenever I get a virus and tend to hang on for weeks and months after. I sure have noticed significant reduction in dizziness and the tendency to fall or bump into things which had been plaguing me since I had the flu around Easter.
12. I've also noticed that workouts invigorate me physically, mentally and emotionally. I stay more active and alert and ambitious in the hours after a workout and more focused. I don't know why this should be so more than for other forms of activity but I have repeatedly found it so in the years since I first encountered them in the late eighties.
    
    I had one for most of the nineties though I wasn't continuously faithful in its use. I gave mine away when we moved to California in 99 and missed it so replaced it a year later and made huge strides in physical, mental, and emotional areas in the following three months. But that one went into a storage unit when my husband's dot com job went bye-bye and ended up abandoned along with everything else when we had to flee the Silicon Valley on a Greyhound in August of 2001. So I've been without since March of 2001.
13. Even though, because of the effect discussed in #10, I used my brand new mini-tramp to help me stay awake and engaged for the entire 23-hour-read-a-thon, I've also noted that my issues with insomnia are much improved as well.
    

For more info:

Why rebounding is beneficial

Mini Trampoline Troubles Solved
see lower left sidebar at this site for info links on benefits.

The following video is of a woman demostrating the beginner's level--the health bounce in which the feet stay in contact with the mat and the movements are gentle and slow. This is the level I am back at again after two colds in less than four weeks.







Here's a video of the same woman demonstrating the next level, a vigorous aerobic workout involving the feet leaving the mat both at once as well as one at a time. Other than an easy marching step in which I could lift one foot at a time until the knee was level with the hip, the only time I ever reached anywhere close to this level was in the fall of 2000 when I had a self-imposed rule that I couldn't watch more than one hour a day of news or talk shows except if I was on the tramp. I watched the coverage of the 2000 election recount obsessively through to the inauguration.

Here's a video talking about how calorie burning is %15 more effective with rebounding exercise versus walking or jogging.

Here's one with a doctor talking about the benefits, especially for the lymph system.

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