VZ Grips has revamped their website. I really like the new look. Check them out.
Obviously a Spanish product, the Eureka4 holster is demonstrated by this Spanish Police woman. Eureka4 is an innovation incubator and this is their first product. However, I’m not quite sure what to say about their marketing video.
Thanks Kevin!
We recently found out about a good turn that NEMO Equipment paid to their fellow Hurricane Sandy survivors. They provided us with this press release.
Our neighbors in New York and New Jersey have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, a fire that destroyed over 100 homes and a Nor’easter that buried the still standing homes and wreckage under several inches of snow earlier this month. While we know New Yorkers are a resilient bunch, we also know they need our help. With guidance from Robin Hood, NEMO has sent 50 sleeping bags to St. John’s Bread and Life in Brooklyn.
“We had sleeping bag samples left over from our 2011 Adventure Product Testing Program that we had set aside with the intent of donating; we just hadn’t yet picked the organization. When Hurricane Sandy and the following Nor’easter hit, we knew there’d be a need. We’re glad to be able to do something for our neighbors in New York and we’ve put the word out to other outdoor industry companies, hoping they’ll jump on board,” said Cam Brensinger, president and founder of NEMO.
For more information on how you can help in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, you can contact Robin Hood or The Red Cross.
We are BIG fans of NEMO Equipment. It’s not just about the level of innovation that they bring to shelter systems but more importantly, they are great people. And it’s things like this that show it. If you want to invest in quality outdoor equipment then take a hard look at NEMO Equipment.
Just be happy you aren’t seeing this from the opposite point of view.
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Laziness is pretty much the scourge of America these days. People want all the benefits of hard work without, well, the hard work. There’s one circumstance I can think of that laziness pays dividends though, and in fact improves the gains of the hard work you just did. The rest day, which is often overlooked. I took a quote from the Gym Jones website a few years ago that stuck with me. I had been training with a partner for an upcoming multi-week event. I was in most likely the best shape I had ever been, knocking out a 1400+ UBRR score and a sub-2 hour 12 mile ruck time. Religious adherence to a great diet, never slacking on workouts. Unfortunately I fell into a trap of being overtraining and a week before the event I tore a tendon in the arch of my left foot on a Saturday morning, which pretty much sidelined me for nearly 6 months. That one stupid rest day I decided to cram a little extra work into caused career implications that haunt me to this day. One damned Saturday morning on Fort Bragg that I wasn’t smart enough to take a break. Like the song says, “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.” I promise you, you’re better off being smart and tough. Afterwards I found this:
Commenting on a disappointing performance at the 2010 World Championships Mark Cavendish said, “It takes balls to rest and do nothing and I didn’t have the balls.” The hard work is easy, but it takes courage to rest. In an era when everyone thinks that more and harder is better few are brave enough to step back, to tell friends, “I’m taking it easy today.” I can hear the jibes from here. But one of my maxims is, “when in doubt, rest” and I admonish with it frequently.
The T-Shirt Gym Jones sells sums it up with “don’t do the work if you don’t have the balls to rest.” Recovery is a wonderful thing, it allows you to actually take full benefit of your hard work, mentally and physically. A lot of the high-stress activities we engage in are fatiguing. The body needs time to rest, rebuild, and prepare for another round of punishment. If not, it cannot grow to accommodate your workload. We plateau. We get complacent and lazy. We lose motivation. Exercise is a common example to relate to. You need to rest to build! Your body needs to heal to get stronger! When you break yourself off every day, you’re damaging yourself to a degree. Your body builds it’s capabilities to compensate for your workload. It needs the time to do that or not only will your results slow to stop, you’ll fall prey to injuries. Nobody wants to work that hard to flush it down the toilet on a strained muscle or torn tendon. One day of rest to save 6 months of cumulative work, or one more day of work for 6 months of rest…the choice is yours.
Plan rest into your activities. If possible, I like a 3/1 ratio of work/rest days on my training schedule. I use that for shooting, workouts, and other activities requiring a lot of physical activity or concentration. I know some animals that do 2/1 and still get by better than the rest of us. Get some sleep too. If you’re the guy that hits the bar or eats bad food “cause I worked out extra hard” today, it was all for nothing. A good night’s sleep is a rest day all its own for every day you’re on the job. Not only will a lack of rest and recovery stop muscle growth, but it will decrease your energy levels, and possibly testosterone production, and convinces your body to decrease muscle and store fat to feed itself. Don’t do the work and throw away the benefits.
Rest is important, arguably as important as the work you do to need it. Be man (or woman) enough to take that rest day when you need it. Plan on it! Don’t worry about your friends calling you a pussy. You’ll get to mock their “weak genes” when they’re on crutches or at the gym twice a day every day and can’t get any stronger.
Take it easy folks.
“Sold Out in 30 Min…and Crashed the System” came the headlines after the second batch of Costa’s Leg Rigs cleared the shelves in record time. Now, a third batch is on its way. This time around, I certainly hope that they’ve worked out the supply and website bug issues.
The first time Costa sold his leg rigs, they proved very popular and they sold right out. To me, it was marketing genius. They weren’t sure how well the Leg Rigs would sell so they took a page from their carbine sales with Larue Tactical and only made a short run to make sure that they weren’t left holding on to any. A second batch was offered and same story. Fair enough. It if works once, why not twice? Now, here we are with batch number three coming this week. They’ve well established a market demand so I’ll reiterate my comments earlier, “This time around, I certainly hope that they’ve worked out the supply and website bug issues.”
At this point, I’d say to offer the third batch as a short run is just flat out tired. HSGI is a great company with a long history but if they can’t keep up with the demand I can happily put them in touch with plenty of companies who can keep up. I realize that the product uses HSGI’s proprietary TACO mag holders as components, but that doesn’t mean that they have to manufacture them.
Then, there’s the software issues. I remember warning them when they launched the site to make sure that they could handle the traffic. It’s great to see Costa Ludus hit that level that demand crashes the system but I can assure you from personal experience, there’s nothing worse than infrastructure that can’t keep up with demand. Time to upgrade the system guys.
If you’re looking to purchase a Costa Leg Rig, I’m told they will be on sale again on Monday at 1300 EST. Let’s hope that from here on out, it will be a stocking item. It looks to be a great design for training. Available in MultiCam, Coyote Brown, Smoke Green and Black.