by Bidz Dela Cruz

In one of my articles in www.gloves.com.mx entitled, “Gloves for Gym Workout”, I mentioned about developing callous to do away with the use of gloves. Callouses are not replacements for gloves but they are even the better option in working out (rather than wear gloves).

Gloves are not necessary in working out. Our coach back then in the powerlifting team always scold us if he sees us wearing gloves. Wearing gloves in the gym gives you minimum workout output. Gloves are restrictions in working out. They are a hindrance, dragging you from carrying heavier poundage or allowing you to do higher repetitions. When you are serious in working out, you really should develop calloused hands. Callouses will be your protection from the metal plates and bars. Having a thick palm covered with several callouses makes you endure the pain of the direct contact with metals. With gloves on, your grip are limited. The thickness of your gloves gives you an unnatural grip. But when you make a bare contact with your hands on the metal, you can be able to grip the bar more firmer, thus allowing you to carry heavier poundage or allowing you to do higher repetitions.

Callouses are also very essential in rock climbing. Rock climbers whether they like it or not, develop callouses as time goes by. This is their system of adaptation to be a better climber. Callouses are the rock climbers best friends aside from their belayers and spotters. Callouses protect their hands from cuts due to uneven surfaces of the rocks, they also serves as lock points when gripping a sloper (a type of rock hold where you use your open palm to stick to the rock), they also prevent you from slipping because the roughness of the rock compliments the roughness of your (calloused) skin. These are just but of a few of the many advantages of developing callouses for rock climbing.

In developing callouses, it is necessary to manage them as they inhabit your palm. It doesn’t mean that once you have several callouses already, you are always assured of the advantages mentioned above. Callouses have a life span. It starts from a neat smooth skin, slowly emerging to form thick marks on your palm until it is fully developed (thick and rough enough to irritate a handshake with an non-calloused hand). When the callous reached its peak of thickness, constant exposure to water and continuous climbing will tear it apart from the palm and thus leaving a non-calloused spot, virgin and sensitive again for difficult holds. Sometimes, when the process where the callous is tearing apart from the palm is starting, difficult grips cause it to prematurely tear apart totally, thus giving you cuts and blisters (and a little bleeding). This is where callous management comes in.

Managing your callous is both an art and a skill. Sometimes you have to minimize the thickness of your callous by mans of sandpaper or nail file. There are times during the start of the separation of a developed callous when you have to cut the initial parts separated by a nail cutter so as not to lead to premature separation. Over cutting or over filing a callous might give you unpleasant cuts and blisters as you hold your next rock hand-holds. It is your hand, you are very much aware how you grip the rock, so you should know how much callous to file and cut.

If you are not into powerlifting, weightlifting, gymnastics and sportclimbing (rock climbing, wall-climbing and bouldering), and you have shook someone’s hand with so many callouses, before assuming that he is a construction worker (I am not ostracizing the construction workers here nor saying anything that would belittle them.), ask him his/her sport first, you might just get surprised!

The author is a content provider of gloves

If you want to know more about gloves, rock climbing, fitness, health and the outdoors, visit www.gloves.com.mx

Keyword Tags: gloves, rock climbing, fitness, health, outdoors

Cost of Cruise Vacations vs. Ordinary Vacations

When dealing with the cost of a vacation, a cruise vacation compares very favorably with most land-based vacations. When you book a cruise vacation, your fee’s will include your lodging, all of your meals, as well as many daily activities that would cost extra if you took a typical land-based vacation. On land vacations you usually initially just pay for travel and hotel, having to add on daily meals and extra activities.  Once you start factoring in the cost of gasoline for travel, restaurant meals and admission fees to parks and other excursions, you almost always come out ahead by booking a cruise instead.

The Food is Fabulous!

When you go on a non-cruise vacation, you are usually on your own as far as food is concerned. Since you will be eating at various restaurants, you are at the mercy of a different chef every time, and you can never be sure of the quality of the service or the food. On cruise ships, however, the food is considered one of the best aspects of the entire trip. You will have plenty of choices for your meals from traditional dining room fare to pizza and burgers at a dockside café. You can literally graze your way through the entire day, starting with poolside breakfast buffets and ending with a midnight snack in a cozy bistro or in your room. You will never go hungry on a cruise, for anytime you need food it will be there for you.

And Then There is the Service…

Your cruise staff is dedicated to ensuring that you are treated like royalty the entire time you are under their care. Eating in the ship’s dining room is comparable to dining at a world-class restaurant. The service is cheerful, impeccable, and very friendly. If you are unhappy at all with your meal, they will happily return it to the kitchen and bring you anything else you desire.  If you have special dietary considerations, the kitchen will know about them beforehand and will have made arrangements to honor them. You are not a customer on the ship, instead you are considered an honored guest.

The glorious pampering continues outside the dining room as well. You will find chocolates on your pillow at night, and your coffee made just the way you like it when you sit down to the table at breakfast. After one night your dedicated wait staff will know you and your family, including your likes and dislikes. If you want anything at all, all you need to do is locate a cruise attendant and chances are they will arrange for it to be delivered to you as soon as possible.

Cruises Make Vacationing Easy

Remember those long car rides with your children in the back seat poking each other and growing crankier the longer you were in the car? You will never have to worry about that on a cruise vacation. No maps, no counting the miles to the next bathroom stop, no looking around for a decent restaurant or the next McDonald’s on the side of the road. When you are on a cruise, all the planning is done for you. All you have to do is sit back and relax, and decide which of the dozens of activities they have to offer you want to enjoy.

Cruise ships offer an incredible variety of activities to participate in. The newest ships are floating resort cities. You can drift from activity to activity depending on your mood and vacation style. Even better, cruise vacations offer something for everyone. If you have ever tried to put together a vacation that will please your sports-loving husband, your adventurous son, your shopaholic daughter, and your own delight in experiencing the best foods of the world, you will really appreciate a cruise vacation. Your kids can enjoy a morning at a deck side water park complete with water slides and wave pools while you relax at the shipboard spa with a top-of-the-line massage. You can golf, gamble, hike, and climb rock walls all before you even add in the on-shore excursions.

Whether you choose a leisurely cruise to smaller islands, or an adventurous cruise that takes you on a tour of the Alaskan coast, a cruise vacation simply ca not be beat for cost, convenience or pure fun. When you book a cruise vacation, you are booking an exciting getaway where the world does not interfere with all of its troubles and inconveniences.

If you have never considered a cruise before, this is the year to check it out. With the economic turmoil, most cruise lines are going all out to offer tempting deals to attract vacationers of all kinds. Shop around online and take a look at all the options and advantages that a cruise vacation offers.

Bidz dela Cruz

Just recently, I enrolled in a membership of one of the Philippine’s best (if not the best) indoor wall-climbing gym. I am so attached to rock climbing these days and I realized I need an indoor gym where I could train. The thrill and excitement of each training day is unparalleled. I get to meet and climb with the Philippine Team that trains there as well. Each day, a new story there is for me with regards to my development in rock climbing.

I would be a hypocrite if I say that training is easy. Training is fun, yes, but is never easy. I was a former Powerlifter for the UP Diliman University. We are trained for power, to lift with one full burst all amount of power you have in the body. Training for powerlifting requires lifting heavy poundages in few repetitions. But when I shifted to Rock Climbing, my training was entirely different. Because in this sport I am building for endurance, strength, and stamina, I am now required to lift light poundages in so many repetitions. So imagine yourself so used to a system already then suddenly you totally shift into a different system at an age older than before (because obviously we are not getting any younger) where it is more difficult to adjust. Such is the difficulties that I am going through these days. The long hours of climbs and work-outs to develop endurance, the calloused hands I get from constantly gripping rock holds (not to mention the frequent blisters), the burning sensation in the back, shoulders and the forearms every time these muscle parts get pumped up, all these add to my pains.

But as I said earlier, there is the fun part. What do you think that I will stupidly spend money enrolling in an indoor wall-climbing gym just to get pain? I am no masochist! All these pains in training is for me to become a better climber. That’s why I sacrifice pain for gain. As they always say in the tough world of sports and competition: NO PAIN, NO GAIN. But then again, you might ask, why use a title: “The Joys of Climbing”? Shouldn’t I use the title: “The Pains and Hardships of Climbing” instead?

Well, this article is not yet done. In every pain there is a reward. My reward in all the hardships of training is to see me be a better climber each day. I see that each training day, I climb more walls, I climb more difficult walls, I climb for more and more hours. For each training, the pain is worth it all because I get to finish my program, get to accomplish the quota for the number of walls to climb. This is the joy of climbing. And for all the pain of it, it just seems negligible when you cherish the joy.

This same joy is what I wanted to share with you. Climbing is a community. It is also a movement, it is not just a hobby, it is a calling. Why climb? Aside from the joys of it, you also get to reach places no ordinary person can go. There, you will appreciate God’s wonderful creation to the fullest. There, like the Road Not Taken, you will have a different perspective of the world. The challenges also as you climb will develop in you a sense of love and responsibility for nature and the environment. You will begin to be more environmental conscious, which is good. You will appreciate different cultures as you climb around the globe. All these larger than life benefits from climbing! So what are you waiting for? Work less, climb more!

The author is a content provider of literally

If you want to know more about rock climbing, travel, exploration, fitness, health and the outdoors, visit www.literally.com.mx