How exercising every day positively effects my work...

When I think about the many benefits that I receive by exercising everyday, I mostly think in terms of improved health and fitness.  And while doing research about daily exercise and the physical benefits, I realized that there are many great reasons to exercise, that are specifically related to improving my work performance.

Exercise has many positive mental benefits: reducing stress and anxiety, improved focus, better mood, increased energy, and better sleep quality!

Every one of these mental benefits translates to better performance at work.  When exercise reduces my stress and anxiety, I go to work more relaxed and calm, and enjoy my interactions with co-workers and clients even more than usual!  When exercise improves my focus, I'm better able to efficiently complete the tasks at hand and helps me to innovate effectively!  And when exercise improves my sleep quality, I arrive at work more alert and feel rested throughout the day!

I exercise everyday, and I have since I turned 40, over 8 years ago.  It has had a positive effect on my work and my family life.  Consider pushing yourself to break a sweat every day!  It is amazing what you might accomplish!

Here is a video showing off what I have accomplished over the last 3000 days of exercising everyday.

Even the US Government has done research to prove the benefits of exercise in the workplace.  Read more about it here.

Thanks for watching!

Find more at www.earlyworkingretirement.com
My youtube channel is /footbagenlightener
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New iPhone 6 vs. GoPro Hero3+ Slow Motion Side by Side Comparison

This is the best head-to-head comparison of the new iPhone 6 and the GoPro Hero3+ slow motion cameras.  

It puts an amazing world champion athlete in front of both cameras at sunset facing south toward the City of Chicago from Montrose Harbor.  

If you are wondering, should I buy an iPhone 6 or a GoPro Hero 3+, watch this video (and be sure to change the sprocket setting to 1080p quality) and make up your own mind!

A worthy example of the slow motion capabilities of the 60 frames per second (60 fps) of the new iPhone in comparison with the Hero 3+.

Enjoy!

Footbag Summer Camp Programs - Summer 2014 - Chicago Area

Footbag Summer Camp Programs 

Now Available for Summer of 2014

Footbag is a fun and addictive form of exercise.  A simple, inexpensive footbag is just one of the tools we can use to help in the fight against the epidemics of Childhood Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes!  

Footbag provides constant challenges for individuals and groups, and a fun activity that gets them off their video games and into their driveways and living rooms to practice and get better. The first challenge is learning the basic kicks and aiming for ever increasing consecutive kick goals of 5, 10 or 50 in a row... and there is something about it that makes people want to keep trying.  If consecutive kicking isn't challenging enough, doing tricks with a footbag is the next set of challenges, and there is no end to it!   

Scott Davidson, Education Director for International Footbag Players Association, Certified Instructor and Footbag Freestyle World Champion, has been practicing and competing for 30 years and continues to improve and innovate new tricks.  Additionally, he has also been exercising with footbag freestyle for the past 2675+ days in a row.  

Scott is now offering summer camp demonstrations and instruction on a limited availability basis for the summer of 2014!  While we are very flexible in our presentation, our typical workshop format includes a dynamic demonstration and introduction footbag, followed by an instructional opportunity for the summer camp participants.  We recommend that you opt to include one of our affordable starter footbags for every participant to take home with them, which can be included in the cost of the program.  Please contact me immediately, as I am only available on Mondays this summer, unless I have at least 4 weeks notice.

Apple iPhone 5s Slow Motion Demo Sample 120fps 720p - Footbag (Hacky Sack) Freestyle amazing example of a great camera

I have been shredding every day for 2472 days straight, and it feels great!  I had access to an iPhone 5s Apple camera for an hour so I shot this video.  I hope you agree, when viewed in real time, footbag tricks are difficult to figure out, but at 120 frames per second (120fps), it is an amazing visual.

I have a gopro with a wide angle lens, but I desire having a camera with this capability alongside my phone, in case I get the urge to film.

Play everyday!

See ya!
-enlightener

Integrating fliers into strings, and warming up my fliers… Is the most tiring thing I do all day.

I have to say, by adding flyers to my warm-up strings, I get sweatier faster than ever before. I'm also more tired than ever before. I no longer believe I need to include fliers in my warm-up regimen. I can get warm using the normal warm-up strings, and expend the additional energy needed for linking fliers into strings later in the session. In other words, because fliers drain energy there is no need to warm them up, it just expends needed energy.

The trick to doing big tricks out of flyers, is controlling their sets. As with any trick. I have been integrating fliers into my strings for a long time, but I've been treating them like something I need to recover from, rather than something that I need to control. For instance, I already do spinning fliers mid-string, but almost always followed by a recovery osis and butterfly to get 'reset' and continue to the next more difficult strings. What is different here is that in order to do a difficult trick directly from a flier, the set needs to be perfectly placed at mid-chest height and straight up and down, and the body has to be ready to land and snap into the next trick. I am out of film, so I can't video this yet, but I will soon.

So far, I have gotten control of spinning flying butterfly, and phairy flying butterfly so that I can go directly to tricks like Whirl, Torque, Blender and DLO, and it looks unexpected and awesome!

In summary, I plan to be able to pull a flier in mid-string and continue seamlessly onto another difficult trick. If you ever see me do an osis out of a flier, it is unplanned and essentially a bail/recovery maneuver. Combine this with my Seamless Juggling and my strings are going to continue to impress. I can't wait to play today!


Shred notes: I have been breaking the new shoes in. The top of my left foot hurts from practicing those Forklift tricks http://youtu.be/Wvg8qPXKwHE that I re-introduced a few weeks ago, the pain is from the movement, not the new shoes. Day 2080 is today. This type of pain feels like a bruise, broken vessels, and causes me to not be able to crank the left ankle. So I'll only work on those in small bursts, see if I can't build up the strength in my feet to be able to do those cool tricks without penalty of pain.