Air Compressors & Air Tools

Upper Body Toning In The Fresh Air

Sports that take place in the great outdoors are more popular than ever. Especially when its warm outside, nobody likes being stuck indoors where the air recycled and the only wildlife is a couple of woodlice and the odd spider. The trouble with outdoor sports however is that the majority of them focus on working the muscles of the lower body.You could just throw a ball about a bit or stick to push ups to help work the upper body, but lets take a look at real sports that work really well?

Kayaking. Sports like kayaking or rowing are fantastic for toning every muscle in the upper body. The arms and shoulders provide the vast majority of the movement, but the upper torso is also called upon lots to stabilise the body. The most attractive part of kayaking though has to be the ability to stop paddling and just bob about for a bit when you get fatigued. If you don’t like getting wet though, this might not be the sport for you.

Climbing. If you are looking for a sport that works every muscle in the body then rocking climbing is the one for you. That said, your legs are not actually worked as much as you might think as a lot of the grip comes from special sticky slim line shoes that look like cycling shoes. However, the arms are responsible for a substantial amount of work when climbing. Simply keeping yourself vertical on a climbing wall can be an effort and the muscles of the lower arm and shoulders will be toned in no time.

Hand Bikes. Cycling is one of those sports that is enjoyed by millions all over the world. Having said this, cycling is more of a leg sport than an arm workout. Hand bikes however such as Pinarello Dogma ones are geared in such a way that you can pick up some great speed just by turning your arms. They are often used by those who cannot use their legs, so have been designed with usability and endurance in mind.

For bike accessories and road bikes, check out In Gear.

Neglecting air resistance, how long is the ball in the air?

I throw a ball into the air with a speed of 26.73 m/s. After 3.43 seconds, how high is the ball from the ground?

Well, acceleration due to gravity is normally taken to be a constant 9.81 m/s^2 vertically downwards near the surface of the Earth. So if we take the upwards direction as positive, that’s an acceleration of -9.81 m/s^2 upwards.

We have three pieces of data, the initial velocity, the time and the acceleration, and we want to find the displacement, therefore we must use the formula:

s = u*t + 0.5*a*t^2
s = 26.73 * 3.43 + 0.5 * -9.81 * 3.43^2
s = 91.6839 – 57.7068345
s = 33.9770655

s = 34.0 m (to three significant figures)

So after 3.43 seconds, the ball is 34.0 m above the ground.