Sports Blog

When I was in school, I remember in my physical education class one day when we did hand strength testing.  We had this little machine that looked like a gun with a gauge on it.  I later learned that this machine is called a Hand Dynamometer.  The machine worked by gripping the trigger as hard as possible to see how strong my hand grip was.  This is totally pointless I thought to myself.  Who cares about hand grip strength anyways?  That is what people going through rehab test, but I am fine.  Well, to my surprise, I have learned that hand grip training is more that just a rehab training.

Hand strength is very important for wrestlers.  Being quick and powerful with their hands is an important strength for a wrestler.  With their hand strength, they can overpower their opponent.  This also falls over into other fighting athletics such as boxing, martial arts, etc.

For a rock climber, hand strength is also very important.  Rock climbers have to continually be gripping rocks at places that are not very easy to grip.  While upper body strength seems to be the key focus of rock climbers because of the need to pull ones body up, hand strength should not be over looked for climbing athletics.

Aside from athletics, hand strength is important for many other purposes.  Typing on a keyboard for the computer can be very tough on the hands.  Ever notice how many people who work in an office play with one of those stress balls?  That is actually a form of doing hand strength exercise to relieve the stress put on the hands.  Eventually, the hand will become stronger and the need to play with the little squishy ball goes away.

Guitar players also find comfort in hand grip strength.  Guitar players must grip the neck of the guitar at various positions.  After playing the guitar for a while, the hands may begin to hurt due to the awkward positions and stretches that the hand must make.  A good strong hand grip can help guitar players to play longer without feeling discomfort in the hands.

There are many other uses not mentioned here for hand grip training.  It turns out that hand strength is very important.  There are many exercises available to improve hand grip strength.  Some can be as easy as playing with stress balls whiles others can be more difficult, like doing pushups without using the palm of the hand.

Wade Boden is the Artwork Director of Robbins Sports, an online vendor of Hand Dynamometers and Digi-Flex Finger Exercisers.

Now that the NBA Playoffs are done, it is time for NBA superstars to come together for a better cause, that is Team USA. Over the past few months, NBA teams such as the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Utah Jazz, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the San Antonio Spurs, and more, have been battling it out in amazing games to prove who is the best team in the NBA. Now that the battle is over, players from many of these teams and other teams in the NBA will have to shake hands, train together, and work together to take on the world in Beijing this August.

The Summer Olympics is an event that happens every four years. The most exciting part of the Summer Olympics for me is the basketball tournament. I remember watching the Dream Team of 1992 as they took on the world in basketball. With players like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing, the basketball Dream Team tore apart the competition and won the gold medal. Since then, basketball has become a more wide spread sport making it more difficult for Team USA to win the gold in the recent Olympics.

The NBA has many stars now that are not from the United States. Stars such as Yao Ming and Pau Gasol will play for their native countries during the Olympics while Team USA will feature some of their own team mates. So, how will NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant feel when he has to play along with his opponents in order to defeat his teammate Pau Gasol? Will NBA players be able to make the adjust of turning opponents into teammates and teammates into opponents?

The final 12 man lineup for Team USA that will compete in the 2008 Olympics has recently been announced. The roster features:

• LeBron James
• Tayshaun Prince
• Carlos Boozer
• Carmello Anthony
• Dwight Howard
• Chris Bosh
• Jason Kidd
• Chris Paul
• Deron Williams
• Kobe Bryant
• Michael Redd
• Dwyane Wade

These players all come from different teams, with the exception of Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams which both play for the Utah Jazz. Nearly all of them played in the 2008 NBA Playoffs as well. So, they must now come together as one team with one goal, to win the gold in Beijing. Can they do it? I think that they will do alright, but they are definitely not a team that is comparable to the Dream Team of 1992. I wish them all the best of luck in their journey to China as will be cheering for them every game. Go Team USA! 

Wade Boden is the Artwork Director for Robbins Sports, an online vendor of Basketball Uniforms, Portable Basketball Goals, and Basketballs.

It appears that Boston is the place to be for a die-hard sports fan.  In the past year, the Boston based teams in 3 of Americas top sports, baseball, basketball, and football, have been amazing.  So the question is, what are they putting in the water in Boston?  What do they have that has allowed their teams to have amazing seasons in the past year?  While I do not claim that there is something illegal or set up going on there, it is just amazing to me that Boston has been able to dominate the top sports in America.

The Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox are the professional baseball team of Boston.  They have been around since 1901.  As a new team to the league, they made a huge impact winning the World Series 4 times by 1918.  They then took a downfall for many years struggling to be a decent team.  In 2004, they won their sixth World Series and have been a prominent team since then.  Their games have sold out since early 2003 and they are now something for Boston fans to be very excited about.  In 2007, they won the World Series again and so far in the 2008 season they seem to be doing fairly well again.

The New England Patriots

Led by star quarterback Tom Brady, the New England Patriots had an amazing season for 2007-2008.  They came so close to pulling off the 5th ever perfect season in the NFL by winning all of the regular season games and going on to win the Superbowl.  Unfortunately for their team, they could not hold up against the Giants in the Superbowl.  While many criticize the Patriots for cheating during the first few games of the season, they still were able to pull off a remarkable season after that was all cleared up. 

The Boston Celtics

Since the retirement of Larry Bird in 1992, the Boston Celtics have struggled to have a good team.  In the 2006-2007 season, the Boston Celtics were the worst team in the league.  They had a horrible record.  In 2007-2008, they turned that around completely.  They had the best record of any team in the league and went on to win the NBA playoffs.  While they struggled somewhat through the first few rounds of the playoffs, when it was time to play in the championship series, they held nothing back and were able to knock out the Lakers in game 6. 

While I don’t plan on moving to Boston anytime soon just to have some good sports teams around me, I must admit that I am jealous of the people of Boston.  Here in Utah, we don’t even have a major league football or baseball team.  The Jazz are alright in basketball, but they can’t compare with the Boston Celtics.  So maybe we just need to figure out what is in the water there and send some of it our way so that the Jazz can pump up the for next year. 

Wade Boden is the Artwork Director for Robbins Sports, an online vendor of basketball uniforms, baseball uniforms, and football uniforms.