Page 5 - Tom Reding

Sports require the proper equipment to help ensure that you are safe as well as able to perform to the best of your ability. Part of that is also knowing the proper size equipment to use depending on what level you’re playing at and your body. What works for a smaller person is not going to work as well for someone who is taller, and vice versa. Your height should determine the length of your sporting equipment to help maximize your effectiveness. This rings true in sports like hockey, golf, baseball, lacrosse and more. Just like you wouldn’t wear a hockey helmet that was too small or shoes that were too big, you wouldn’t choose a hockey stick that was too long or too short, would you? Let’s take a look at how to properly choose a hockey stick that is the right size for you.

Choosing the Right Hockey Stick

Unlike shoes and helmets, hockey sticks are a little more involved when it comes to choosing the right one. While length is extremely important and can cause problems if not sized properly

Can you believe that just over a year ago, if someone would have mentioned face masks in the context of sports, most people’s minds would have gone towards helmet face masks. These days, when you hear the word face mask, our minds automatically go into pandemic mode. This past year has taught us a lot about ourselves, our communities, our government, and the inconveniences we need to go through in order to ensure that our friends and loved ones stay healthy and strong. At the start of the pandemic, the most important thing we could do was stay home, limit activities outside of the house, limit our contact with people outside of our households, and wear masks, wash hands, and social distance if you had to be out in public. With the thought that if we maintain these rules for a short amount of time, we’d be able to curb the spread of this virus and not overrun the hospitals with sick people. But it’s been over a year now and while things are beginning to look better with the advancements

It may not seem very important when it comes to playing football, but learning how to properly put a chin strap onto a football helmet can help prevent injury and make things more comfortable while playing. The chin strap is a very important part of a football helmet. It’s designed to be flexible and comfortable, while also being strong enough to take the impact of a tackle and not break or come apart. It attaches to the helmet via buttons, similar to those found on some types of denim pants, and wraps underneath your chin to help hold the helmet on to your head. It’s extremely important to have the helmet chin strap properly fitted as it can cause injury if it’s too loose. If not adjusted properly the helmet could come dislodged from your head which can lead to a head injury if it comes off during a play. It can also cause the helmet to move around while on your head, which can lead to the helmet itself causing injury to you when hit. Your football helmet is the only line of defense when

Have you ever wondered how football coaches communicate with their quarterbacks while they are on the field? A lot of times you never see the players running over to the sidelines to talk to the coaches about what plays they should run, or what formations they should line up in, so how do the players know what the coaches want them to do? The technology involved in football, and sports in general, has come a long way over the years, and some of these improvements have created an easier way for coaches to communicate with their players. But as we know with most technology, as cool or innovative as it may be, it doesn’t always work 100% of the time. Let’s take a look at some of the different ways that sideline coaches can talk and communicate with their players while they are on the field.

“Old School” or Traditional Method of Play Calling

If you’re not at the college level or the professional level, then there’s a good chance your coaches are limited to using the more traditional methods

Keep your sporting equipment clean under normal conditions is always important but doing so in the middle of a pandemic can help keep you, your teammates, and your family safe from getting sick. While some areas of the country continue to battle with the COVID-19 virus, it’s important to do whatever you can to keep you and your family safe. Schools have started back up, which means that team sports are back in session and with sports back in session it means groups of people back together in smaller spaces. In addition to situations where teammates and opposing teams are in close quarters with one another, there is also sharing of equipment between players. Ensuring that these pieces of shared equipment are properly cleaned and sanitized can greatly help to reduce the spread of germs… Keeping your equipment clean and sanitized can keep you and your teammates healthy so that you can continue playing the sports and activities you love. Knowing how important it is to keep everything clean,

With football season right around the corner, it’s almost time to put together your fantasy team! And what better way to celebrate the start of fantasy football than with the ultimate fantasy football draft party. We all know that the internet has made it a lot easier to run a fantasy football league these days, but an online draft is nothing compared to getting together with a group of friends while you aimlessly pick through a roster of pro-athletes, hoping to come out on top at the end of the season. Fantasy football has quickly become one of the most popular activity to do amongst friends during the football season. It’s a great way to engage with friends while being competitive at the same time. The best part is, the winner sometimes comes down to just plain luck. Players get injured or don’t perform well, and sometimes that guy that nobody wanted ends up blowing away all expectations. Fantasy football is a great excuse to hang out with friends every Sunday while cheering on your favorite

When it comes to playing outdoor sports that take place on a grass covered field, dirt, or turf, proper cleats are an essential part of the game. We’ve all seen that one person that doesn’t have a pair of cleats while playing flag football or a pickup game of soccer, he’s usually slipping and sliding all over the field – and not in a fun way. The problem that people run into when it comes to cleats is that there are different types of cleats for different sports, and that can become confusing. What type of cleats should I wear for a certain sport? Can I wear the same cleats that I wore for baseball, on the soccer field? Those types of questions come up a lot when talking about cleats and sport footwear when people are still trying to figure out what sports they want to play, or they are getting back into a sport later in life and don’t necessarily want to buy new cleats if they already have them. Unfortunately, not all cleats are allowed in all sports either. For example, if you wanted