Plastic. Aluminum. Carbonfiber. Graphite. There have been many advances in canoe paddle material over the years, with the goal of building a stronger, lighter, more flexible, and more efficient paddle that gives you more speed and performance with the least amount of effort and fatigue as possible. However, in minds of many canoeists from novices all the way to traditional purists, nothing beats a finely crafted wooden canoe paddle. With advances in the construction technology of laminate wood canoe paddles, paddle makers are able to achieve a wonderful mix of beauty, strength, flexibility, balance, and overall weight.

Wood canoe paddles have been around as long as canoes themselves. The first paddles were little more than sticks and tree branches carved to form a paddle. Wood paddles available on the market today range from the traditional solid blocks of wood carved and shaped into a usable tool to laminated paddle designs.

Laminate wood canoe paddles come in various shapes and sizes to fit a wide range of paddlers and paddling styles. While many construction techniques are used, the basic concepts are the same . . . glue many thin strips of wood together to form the grip, shaft, throat, and blade.

A laminate canoe paddle offers several advantages over the solid wood paddles. First, during the construction process, the paddle can be shaped into various designs. Since the wood strips are thin, they can be easily bent without the use of steam and can be formed into many angles and shapes. This allows for new variations of paddle designs like Bent Shaft and Double Bent Shaft paddles. Bent shaft paddles keep the paddle face perpendicular to the water for a longer portion of the paddle stroke, making for a more efficient stroke.

The overall strength to weight ratio of a laminate wood canoe paddle is also an important advantage. By gluing many thin pieces of wood together, paddle makers can take advantage of multiple grains of wood with the glue barrier making a stronger bond and adhesion than the wood itself. With this process, lighter weight wood can be formed into very strong paddles. Paddle blades can be thin, allowing for flexibility and can be covered with fiberglass to add strength while maintaining very light overall weight from as little as 14 oz. A paddle carved out of a single piece of wood must be made from heavier, stronger stock in order to keep from breaking and typically weigh 2-3 lbs. Also, solid wood paddles are more prone to splitting than laminate paddles.

Beauty is also a major draw for laminate canoe paddles. By layering and using strips from multiple pieces of lumber, unique wood grains, colors, and shades can be integrated into a gorgeous work of art that not only functions with superior performance, but also is a joy to view. Laminate canoe paddles not only function beautifully, but add style and grace to your voyage.

Laminate wood canoe paddles offer the best of both worlds with the tradition and comfort of wood construction with the superior strength and new designs allowed from advances in adhesives and fiberglass. These paddles are not only a wonderfully comfortable and useful tools on the water, but also beautiful works of art that are fine enough to adorn your home or cabin wall while not on the water.

In the dictionary, affirmation means confirmation of anything that is already established. In health, affirmations are useful tools to motivate one’s self achieve an ideal state of being. If you want to shed some pounds, affirmations for weight loss could be very helpful to you. It is the very first thing that you should be doing if you really would like to shed off those unwanted pounds.

Affirmations for weight loss could constitute repeating and confirming to yourself that when you are at the verge of getting tempted to eat, you just have to affirm with yourself that you must do away with it because you want to improve your weight. It is something that will guide you not to fall back into your old routines but instead will help you move forward to achieve that goal.

It could be a motto, a mantra, or it could be anything you want to call it. The trick here is to send positive messages to your brain in order to bring down your craving. Through this, there is more possibility for you to trim down. It should be something that you believe in and something that will keep you on track.

Your affirmations will be much stronger if you state them in the present tense. Do not use the future tense as this will only put off what you want to do now. If you put your affirmations in the present tense – it will give you a much stronger conviction that you are ready and that you want to do this now. It is going to happen right now and it is not something that you will have to do in the future.

Your mindset and how you use your words into your affirmations play a very crucial role. According to the author of “Your Body Believes in Every Word You Say” Barbara Hoberman Levine, if you want to focus yourself into not doing anything, the more will your mind and body converge to make a conscious effort in doing it.

For people who want to lose weight, they will find each day as a battle against cravings and temptations.

Here is when affirmations come in. As a personal mantra, the affirmations should be “owned” by that very person, not borrowed from someone else. You may consider words like “I am in the rode to fitness” or “I love how I feel today.”

To make your affirmations even stronger, write them down and place them at a place that’s part of your daily routine, say your bathroom mirror. Read them to yourself every morning and every night before going to bed.

Some psychologists also suggest that every time you come across a negative message, snap your fingers and count how many snaps you made that day. Analyze this and come up with a better, more realistic affirmation.

Affirmations for weight loss are only a mental guide for you to achieve your ideal weight. Your mind and body should be one in this endeavor.

When focusing on resistance training, and overall athletic performance for that matter, there are seven overriding principles that govern improvement. When training, try to keep these principles in mind when looking for improvement. Often people find that they reach performance ‘plateaus’, however if they review their program, they will find that they are most likely neglecting one or more of the following principles:

1. Principle of Overload

2. Principle of Progression

3. Principle of Specificity

4. Principle of Variation

5. Principle of Individuality

6. Principle of Diminishing Returns

7. Principle of Reversibility

Principle of Overload

This is one of the fundamental basics of resistance training. It basically means that if you want to get stronger or make the muscle grow, you need to work or ‘overload’ the muscle. When you overload the muscle, you are actually tearing the muscle tissue at a microscopic level. When this occurs, the body tries to over-compensate, anticipating that it needs to be done again. In doing so, more muscle tissue is laid down, causing muscle growth.

Principle of Progression

Again, this is one of the basic principles of weight training. This means that as you get stronger, it is no point continuing to lift the same weight – you need to ‘progress’ by lifting heavier weight, or pump out more repetitions. If the progression is too great, the weight will be too heavy to lift, however if there is no or little progression, there will be no performance improvement.

Principle of Specificity

The concept of specificity is that if you want to improve your performance in a certain area, train in that area. In other words, train how you play! If you want to improve athletic performance in basketball for example, there’s no use running laps around an oval – Do athletics based on basketball, such as suicide runs, ball drills etc. Resistance training is the same – if you want to improve your push-ups, do push-ups and exercises that mimic that movement.

Principle of Variation

Some people get confused that variation and specificity conflict each other. In fact, they absolutely do not! The idea of variation is that you mix up your training routine so your body doesn’t adapt too efficiently to what you’re trying to achieve. Again, using the push-up as an example, you can vary your push-up workout by changing it to incline or decline push-ups, putting a clap in the middle or moving your hand closer to make it a triceps push-up. Alternatively you can try a bench press – Biomechanically it’s nearly identical.

Principle of Individuality

The principle of Individuality covers the differences of people with the ‘X’ factor -and those athletic freaks who seem to get stronger just by looking at weights! More seriously, individuality acknowledges that all people train at different rates. This individuality can be influenced by age, gender, race, nutrition, genetic predisposition and sleep factors. This is why it is important people follow their individual training routine rather than copy what everyone else seems to be doing.

Principle of Diminishing Returns

The Principle of Diminishing Returns means that as someone gets fitter or stronger, it takes more effort to continue to get fitter or stronger. A beginner who is morbidly obese will lose a significant amount of weight when they begin, but as they lose more and more weight, it becomes more and more difficult to continue to lose the weight. Strength gains are the same. This is why world class athletes train for hours and hours every day to try and gain a 1-2% improvement!

Principle of Reversibility

This is the ‘move it or lose it’ rule. It means that exercise needs to be continued to maintain athletic and strength bases, or the results will be reversed. Generally speaking, the elderly are not as strong as when they were in their youth, partly because they are not as active as when they were young. It has been estimated that an athlete at bed-rest will lose approximately 10% of cardiovascular performance per week! This is why many sportspeople will maintain their strength and fitness in the off-season – It’s much easier to maintain fitness and strength than lose it and try to get it back.

These are the seven principles of resistance training. Try to remember these and take them into account when writing your next training program!

Although, perhaps, it is the most important thing, any of us, might possibly do, few individuals, consistently, proceed forward, in an introspective way, and give ourselves, a realistic, check – up, from the neck – up! If, we hope to become, the best we can be, it is essential to perceive and conceive of, create, and emphasize, having meaningful goals, pursuing them, proactively, and considering which options, and alternatives, might, be best, for you, and proceeding to, STRIVE for them! How, and what one seeks, and is ready, willing, and able, to put forth an elevated degree of effort, and emphasis, on, and towards, and knowing/ understanding, why this matters (to you, personally), is an essential, first step! With that in mind, this article will attempt to, briefly, consider, examine, review, and discuss, using the mnemonic approach, what this means and represents, and why it matters.

1. Solutions; system; strengths/ stronger; service: It’s important to identify, both, your personal strengths, as well as weaknesses, and use every area of strength, to become stronger, and better, while addressing areas of weakness! One must seek solutions, and develop, a personal system, which makes sense to you, and serves your best interests, in both the shorter, and longer – term!

2. Tastes; tendencies; tenacious; try: Are you willing to try, with maximum efforts, to become better, and stronger? It takes a tenacious attitude, which addresses, your personal tendencies, and understands your tastes, and reasoning!

3. Relevant; realistic; rationale; relationships: Avoid the tendency to, either, lie to yourself, or minimize potential ramifications! It serves your best interests, to proceed, in a realistic, and relevant way, examine your rationale, and determine if your existing relationships, are positive, and/ or, productive!

4. Integrity; ideas; ideals/ ideology; imagination; innovate: Only, when one proceeds, consistently, with absolute integrity, and avoids short – cuts, even, when a path – of – least – resistance, may be simpler (in the short – term), will he proceed, with a well – developed, imagination, and a willingness to innovate, rather than settling for the same – old, same – old, approaches, etc! Strive to align your ideas, with genuine ideals, and learn to understand, your personal reasoning, reasons, and ideology!

5. Vision; views; values; valuable: Is your vision, truly, valuable, to you, and what you want, out – of – life? Examine, and consider, how you determine, your views, and whether, you fully understand, your personal values!

6. Excellence; efforts; enrich; expertise; expectations: Will you demand your utmost degree of personal excellence, and align, your efforts, towards enriching, as many aspects, of your life, as possible? Will you learn from everything you hear, and experience, in order to gain the expertise, to proceed, with more judgment, and, hopefully, greater wisdom? Examine your expectations, and, know, what you, really, want, out, of life!

What do you STRIVE for, and why? Will your attitude, aptitude, efforts, and actions, serve your best interests?

If you want to change your body, exercise. If you want to change your life, become a runner.

Running is an integral part of any triathlon event, but for some reason it does not get as much focus as swimming and cycling. It could have something to do with the fact that there’s no additional skill required for running. While that may be true, what’s also true is running requires focused training. It’s not just about putting on a pair of shoes and making a dash for the finish line. It’s a test of your strength and endurance as an athlete.

Running training for triathlons is even more specialized. Think about it – running is the last component of a triathlon event. It comes after you are already completed the swimming and cycling course and the fatigue has started to set in.

Also, running on a pair of legs that have just ridden a bike is different from running on a fresh pair of legs. That’s why you need specialized training for triathlon runners.

Building Strength

The first thing triathletes need to focus on to improve their strength running is increasing their overall strength with some workout routines. Triathletes are advised to strengthen their muscle because a stronger and more powerful muscle is faster, more enduring, and more resistant to injury.

What do you do to get stronger? Add strength training to your running regimen. Exercises like squats, lunges, good mornings, and plyometric box training are highly recommended to increase the power and strength of your leg muscles and consequently your ability to run for a greater amount of time.

Become Better Pure Runners

Coach and published author Matt Fitzgerald, writing for Active.com, says that in order to become better triathlon runners, triathletes need to be better pure runners. He says the most effective way for triathletes to become better pure runners is to focus on running during triathlon off-season.

He recommends running a few races during the fall and winter seasons and run up to six times a week to train for them. It would only be a matter of time before you experience an improvement in your running, which you can carry over to the next triathlon season.

Fitzgerald is also of the opinion that triathletes should work on become stronger cyclists. “I strongly suspect that strength on the bike is one of the keys to running well off the bike,” he says. To become tougher cyclists, Fitzgerald recommends riding more, riding faster or both.

Posture is Important

Having the right posture can not only cut out several minutes from your running time, but also protect you against athletic injuries. Coach Krista Schultz has some valuable tips to give on maintaining a proper running form.

According to Schultz, it’s important to keep your head in a neutral position. Visualize an apple or a soft ball under your chin like you are trying to clench it and look 15-20 feet ahead of you at all times taking care not to drop the chin too low or bring it up too high.

Your neck should be relaxed and shoulders relaxed and open, as should your arms. Maintain a neutral pelvis, pull the belly button in and under to keep the core nice and tight, and lift the ribcage, she recommends. Your body should be slightly tilted forward and you should be landing on mid foot or the heel and pushing off with the fore foot. Finally, Schultz says, triathletes should aim to maintain a stride rate of 180 strides per minute.

Eat Right

Any triathlete knows that eating the right food is essential for peak performance. You need to be on a diet that not only provides you energy, but also aids recovery. Simple carbs combined with a little bit of protein are the best pre-run snack.

Also, studies show that caffeine improves running performance so don’t forget to gulp down that cup of coffee 30 minutes before the run.

Get off the Beaten Track

Runner and writer Brian Metzler strongly advises triathletes against running all their miles on the road. It is boring and repetitive with the exact same gait pattern on every stride. Instead, he recommends running an extra 10 to 20 minutes on a soft trail where every step is different. It forces you to shift weight and change directions and use dozens of muscles that go unused otherwise.

Metzler also suggests hill workouts to build muscle strength and bring some much needed change to your mundane running routine. Running up hills helps make your leg muscles stronger, while increasing your speed and endurance.

This training will really come in handy when you are fatigued from completing your swimming and cycling course and struggling to finish the race.

Metzler recommends two types of hill workouts – short and fast reps (say 8 x 20 seconds) that send you into oxygen debt right away, or longer reps (8 x 200 meters) that start at a moderate pace, but eventually growing in intensity because of the incline.

This off-season, work on building your running strength to become a superior runner and a better triathlete. Show the world how it’s done!

Insect Strength Compared To Size

The rhinoceros beetle is a colossus in insect terms and is ranked among the mightiest animals on earth compared to its body weight. You have probably heard that the rhino beetle can carry up to 850 times its own weight without even buckling at the knee segments, incredible!

Indeed, it is proportionally stronger than an elephant which is the strongest land animal in terms of brute force.

Having said that, it’s worth mentioning that if an elephant were shrunk to the size of a bug its strength in relation to its mass would increase x-fold.

All this is down to a phenomenon known as the scaling law officially recognized by Galileo in 1638.

The Scaling Law Preventing Insects From Becoming Giant Monsters

Galileo discovered that if a sphere’s diameter is increased by 2, the surface area is multiplied by 4 and the volume eightfold. This signifies that elements of a body are not scaled up or down by the same amount.

In plain terms, if a bug grew to the size of an elephant without changing the original shape of its body, it would be so heavy in proportion to its legs that it wouldn’t be able to move its own carcass, let alone carry eight hundred and fifty times its own weight.

It would need to radically modify its proportions starting with its legs. This can be illustrated in the growth proportions of a human being.

In the human, the head becomes proportionally smaller and the legs larger and stronger as the person grows to adult size. If the legs remained proportionally the same from infancy to adulthood they wouldn’t have the strength to hold the body.

Increased Need For Oxygen And Food

There are other anatomical constraints such as the insect respiratory system, which would become insufficient with the increased volume compared to the bug’s surface area. It would require lungs instead of just absorbing air through its spiracles to be able to meet its increased need for oxygen.

Furthermore, unless it was born in a massive dung pile the size of a hillock, it would not be able to provide itself with the huge amounts of food it would require to keep going.

So rest reassured, even if someone invented a magic hormone drug to grow, say, cockroaches to the size of a human, the resulting monsters would be about as nimble as a wheel dozer with flat tires. Unless, of course, their morphology evolved.

Horny Goat Weed Benefits Include:

• Elevated Libido
• Larger ejaculations
• Increased sexual thoughts and motivation
• Stronger Firmer Erections

Horny goat weed is a very descriptive name for the plant, Epimedium, but there’s logic behind the name. Early shepherds watched their goats and noticed that every time they ate the weed, they were in the mood for mating.

The ancient Chinese took many of their medicines as a tea and Yin Yang Huo, the Chinese name for horny goat weed, was one of those. This herb has been used as an aphrodisiac in China for centuries. Now it is used all over the world to increase libido, and erection quality in men.

This herb with natural testosterone boosters is one alternative to Viagra, the little blue pill. Just like Viagra, it dilates the blood vessels and allows more blood to fill the penis. It contains a compound, icariin, which acts similarly to Viagra. Both block the activity of PDE-5 and allow the penis tissue to receive increased circulation. This results in stronger, firmer erections.

Unlike the Viagra, this herb also increases desire, and sexual motivation.

More Horny Goat Weed Benefits!

This herb does more than just act on libido; it also lowers your blood pressure. This occurs because it increases nitric oxide in the body which causes the muscles to relax and allows the blood vessels to dilate. If you already have low blood pressure, check with your primary care physician to make sure it’s safe for you.

Studies done with it have also show that it might be a viable treatment for some forms of coronary heart disease. Just the fact that it lowers the blood pressure is one indication.

Men don’t just get the natural libido boost from this herb, women also benefit. It increases the libido of women too. When it’s combined with Morinda, it’s used to treat menopausal women for hypertension.

The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences show its one of the few herbs that they found to not just promote longevity but also slow the aging process.

Recent scientific discoveries show that it contains powerful antioxidants in the form of flavonoids to boost the immune system.

Horny Goat Weed Side Effects!

At high doses, side effects include dry mouth, rapid heart rate or dizziness.

At proper dosages, side effects are rare.

Sometimes our most obvious and daily “tool” can be the source of creative ideas.

I am talking about our Five Senses.

This tool can be used to produce ideas for designing products, spaces or rooms, ideas for parties or special events, and much more.

Here is how you can use our natural gifts for coming up with creative ideas.

First – think of the product, the place or the event.

List the senses that are activated by it and involved in it.

Then do one of the following:

1. Intensify a sense:

   Choose one of the senses that is involved and make the experience stronger – intensify the visual effects, make the sound more dominant, the touch more memorable, the taste stronger or the smell more noted.

   Example:

   In food products – make the taste and smell intense, and call the products in names that stress the extreme experience of eating it and enjoying it.

2. Switch senses:

   Replace on of the senses with an alternative sense.
   Instead of sound – use written words, instead of vision – let people feel it through touch, and so forth.

   Example:

   Lots of fun classroom or party games may be easily invented in which participants need to use one sense instead of the other.

3. Combine several senses:

   This is used to make the experience more holistic and powerful.
   Make the product or place so that when you use it – several senses are activated together – taste, smell, sound, touch or vision.

   Example:

   A playroom in which when you touch the surface of the walls you hear a sound, and a combination of lights (e.g. vision) is switched on.

4. Neutralize a sense:

   Take one of the existing senses out of the experience.
   Remove or minimize its use as much as possible.

   Example:

   A children’s museum wished to convey to kids the meaning of being blind.
   It came up with an exhibition in which there was total darkness in the room and visitors where guided by blind guides, who helped them feel their way around – without the help of normal sight.

What are the advantages of using interlocking pavers?

o    Numerous paving styles

o    Unlimited color possibilities

o    Create your own design

o    Low relative lifetime cost, no regular maintenance

o    50%2B year life expectancy

o    No cracking

o    3 times stronger than poured concrete

o    Pavers move with soil conditions

The many shapes, patterns, and colors of Concrete Pavers allow for design creativity, as well as delineation of pavement areas, such as parking lanes, cross walks, and intersections. The beauty of pavers adds value and visual appeal to any property. By adding flexibility not possible with rigid pavement, pavers can flow with existing landscaping to deliver beauty to any property.

Proper installation of the product results in a pavement that is rigid yet flexible. The joints between pavers allow the driveway to move without cracking. In addition, they can be unzipped to allow for repairs or access to utilities. Unlike asphalt, pavers are virtually maintenance-free and do not need to be regularly sealed or replaced. By definition, concrete pavers have a minimum compressive strength of 8,000 psi (about 3 times stronger than regular poured concrete) and a maximum water absorption rate of 5%.

Concrete pavers are extremely dense units which possess exceptional strength and durability, superior stability under severe loads, and are unaffected by the extremes of heat and frost. Each unit has joints that allow for a small amount of movement without cracking. Factory made pavers last for decades.

Manufactured to tight dimensional tolerances, pavers are stronger than regular poured concrete surfaces and more durable than black asphalt. They can take more abuse and last for generations. A segmental paving system allows for expansion and contraction without producing surface cracks, unlike monolithic concrete surfaces and stamped concrete.

Remove and reinstate the same pavers with no ugly patches after repairs to the base or underground utilities. Asphalt, concrete, and stamped concrete can’t make this claim. Pavers are low-maintenance and offer low life-cycle costs.

Stained or broken pavers can be easily replaced without patches. Darker colored pavers can help hide stains. Ants and weeds in joints can be prevented with sealers or herbicides. Pavers can be repaired by lifting the affected area, re-grading and re-compacting the base and bedding sand and reinstalling the same pavers. It is an inexpensive procedure that leaves no unsightly repair patches.

Pavers are easy to maintain. Regular sweeping and occasional rinsing are usually the most maintenance needed. For heavy soiling, pressure washing or a simple spot treatment with a brush, cleaner, water and some elbow grease will solve the problem.  We recommend that you re-sand the joints between the pavers after a pressure wash.

On both vehicular and pedestrian applications, pavers have a non-skid surface even when the pavers are wet they are safe to walk or drive a vehicle over them.

Swimming with Maya appeared on my TBR (to be read) pile toward the end of my pregnancy. The memoir was said to be “heartbreaking and heart-healing,” but I was pretty sure I would never be able to handle the heartbreaking part under the circumstances. I picked up Swimming with Maya and put it down after a few pages. I loved the story but was fearful of how I might deal with the loss and heartache Eleanor had to endure. Vincent’s writing and her triumphant spirit kept pulling me back in. I was so drawn in by the heart-healing part of the story that I found myself enjoying the memoir so much I couldn’t put it down.

No parent wants to think of the unthinkable death of a child; and yet each of us does. We don’t want anything to happen to our children, and yet as we carry them we fear miscarriage, after they are born we worry about sudden infant death syndrome, then there are school shootings, traffic accidents, etc… since death is a fact of life, we encounter thoughts and fears of loss each and every day. Eleanor Vincent raised her two daughters, Maya and Meghan, virtually as a single-parent and in my opinion this makes the mother-daughter bond even stronger.

It’s impossible to imagine what Eleanor Vincent was feeling when her 19 year old daughter, Maya falls from a horse and is left in a coma which eventually took her life. Eleanor’s made the courageous decision to donate Maya’s organs. Eleanor uses her difficult situation and Maya’s death to tell an inspirational and motivational story and Eleanor is even stronger (as is the reader) at the end of the story.

Swimming with Maya was more about triumph than I had imagined. I was thankful to have read through the difficult times to see the memorable and motivational message. I admire Eleanor Vincent for being able to put her story down on paper for all to read. I cannot imagine the tears that were shed as she relived those moments that would forever change her life. Thank you to Eleanor, Maya, and Dream of Things Publishing for sharing this triumphant story with readers everywhere. My personal thanks to Eleanor for writing in such a way the healing is more pronounced than the hurt – it was this reason alone I was able to read and finish Swimming with Maya.