Hands up!
Who all decided to embark on a New Year, New You fitness drive and went all in?
You might have emptied your cupboards of junk, stopped eating carbohydrates and signed up for the gym, where you have given your all.
And now, in the third week of January, the weight loss has slowed down, you are hangry and you are sore.
For moving more comes at a price (especially if you normally sit hunched over a keyboard for most of your day), even if the rewards are well worth the cost. You are using muscles that you might have previously underutilised and you are putting extra load onto your joints.
Now, while I do not subscribe to the “No Pain, No Gain” approach, there is something appealing and reassuring about waking up stiff (oi you lot with the dirty minds) following a good workout (not that kind).
It can make walking down stairs almost a mission impossible and doing simple things like lifting jars and opening doors a stretch
And quite often, having a post exercise stretch can help, alongside a warm down.
Far too often, we (I am guilty as charged) ignore the need to warm down and ignore the benefits. It can reduce the pooling of blood (helps prevent you from fainting), the buildup of lactic acid and also helps your heart rate and blood pressure to recover (1).
It also helps to treat your body to the occasional massage and while this will not prevent delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), it can help you relax and recover from soreness and injury while it can make you feel a lot better too.
I have medical insurance that allows me to have regular massage treatments, but what if you do not or what if time is a factor?
While it can never replace the sensation of a masseuse’s skilled hands (will you filthy lot give it a rest?), a good alternative is a home massage machine. Now, I know many of you will have wasted money on inferior and relatively useless massage machines in the past, but I have been conducting some testing on your behalf.
And in Naipo, I have discovered some massage tools that really hit the spot and really help alleviate my aches and pains.
The first is the heated Naipo Back and Neck massager which has been a godsend for my very tight shoulders and upper back (bad posture and months of stress will not have helped).
While it (and acupressure) is effective (2), it is quite bulky and needs mains supply to power it, so when Naipo told me about their cordless and very comfortable heated shiatsu massage cushion, I thought of everyone driving to work or sitting in an office or at home with aching bodies and I did what I often do best.
I blagged
But not for myself, I already have a great Naipo massager, so I managed to convince them to do two things.
Firstly, I asked them not to send me one to test, but to instead send one of them to one of you.
That’s right, you can win one of these Naipo Cordless Shiatsu Massage Cushions by simply upvoting this blog. Everyone who does so will be entered into a random pick generator and one of you will be sent one of these cushions that have an RRP of £99.99GBP
Also, everyone will be able to buy one of these for £33.74 using the code SARH5VZQ at this AMAZON LINK (not affiliate)
I say everyone, but there is one condition. This competition and offer is only open to those resident in the UK, US, Spain, France, Italy and, Canada. If my competitions prove popular, I can and will be able to run more for the rest of the world.
So please upvote and resteem and let’s get those muscles relaxed
References
Warm Down : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588693/
Shiatsu & Acupressure: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3200172/