What do you think?

How do you feel about wrist straps? weight belts? arch supports and good running shoes? spf 30?

Mixed feelings on all of them for me. I can deadlift 40 more pounds for higher reps with wriststraps, and the only things not working harder are my hands and forearms.  Not super excited about getting bigger hands or forearms.

Weight belt? Never use it, but then I've had a couple of times I maybe should have when my lower back has had a weird twinge for a couple of days after a heavy lift. However I haven't had anything like that for over a year -so maybe I've built up the strength I need in that area.

I ran ran ran for years as my main form of exercise and was ALWAYS careful to wear arch supports and good shoes, and never had an injury.  I started training for some races this last summer, and granted, this was the first time I've tried to increase distance AND speed at the same time (a big no no in running), but trying to do a few barefoot training runs and getting lighter shoes gave me my first injury -plantar fasciitis, and later tendinitis.  I thought I had built up my foot strength with barefoot kickboxing for a year or so first, but maybe it wasn't enough.

What about wearing sunscreeen everywhere, all of the time? Have you heard about the big vitamin D buzz going around right now that says vitamin D can reduce cancer risk? Do you wear the sunscreen all of the time to not get cancer, or do you get lots of sunlight and avoid sunscreen because it can block vitamin D absorption/production?

Jeff and I talk about this a lot. It's the use a crutch/be safe conundrum and it applies to a lot of things in life.  Do you protect yourself, or do you expose yourself in order to build up your strength? Do you never do external rotator cuff shoulder exercises because it's so easy to injure those little muscles, or do you do them specifically BECAUSE it's so easy to injure those little muscles, and so they need to be strengthened?  Do you jump in and "save" your kids when something bad is going to happen to them, or do you step back a little in order to let them solve problems themselves?

What do you think?

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