Category: Fitness

The NBA has specified basketball sizes not just for official men’s, women’s, and junior league games, but also unofficial games for children and youth. These size specifications help you choose the right ball for yourself or your children, and it is recommended that they be followed strictly to avoid injury during play.

Basketball is a physically vigorous game, with moves that involve running, jumping, blocking, and shooting. The injuries during the game are categorized into upper body and lower body injuries. While lower body injuries can be prevented by proper shoes, training, and padding, upper body injuries are best prevented by using basketballs of proper size and weight.

According to a survey published by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), basketball ranks fourth among the major causes of injury in the US. A study quoted on iqHealth.com says that basketball causes 20% of all injuries in children aged 10 to 14. iqHealth.com goes on to suggest that proper basketball weight and size go a long way in preventing such injuries. The NBA recommended basketball size for children in this age group is 27.25”, with weight around 12 oz.

Injuries due to improper basketball size are also prevalent among children below the age of 7. NBA recommends that very young children be given foam or rubber basketballs with a 22” circumference and weight of 8 oz.

The CDC found that girls are more frequently and acutely injured than boys during basketball games. For adolescents girls between the ages of 14- 16, NBA recommends “junior” basketballs of circumference 27.75” (size 5), with a weight of around 18 oz. Also, the ball for women’s official games is 28.5” in circumference (size 6) and weigh 20 oz. The men’s official basketball, by comparison, is bigger (29.5” or size 7), weighing 22 oz.

Even training balls that are not used for official matches have certain size and weight criteria. For shot training, the men’s training basketball has 36” circumference (size 9). The women’s basketball is 33.5” or size 8. The men’s weighted ball used for muscle building exercises is 29.5” in circumference and the women’s ball is 28.5”, with weight a little more than the official balls.

Choosing the right ball is important for your health and safety, and these guidelines should be adhered to while purchasing basketballs for official or unofficial games.

Wet suits keep you dry. That’s what they do. Not in the rain, although if somebody could invent an inexpensive, yet stylish, slip-on rain suit, I’m sure it would sell very well. Wet suits are for people who immerse themselves in cold water under various different circumstances. Designed initially for scuba divers and then popularized by surfers, the wet suit has evolved from a simple layer of protection from the wet and cold into a “system” that warms, protects and aids the swimmer, surfer or deep sea diver that uses them.

Heat moves from a warmer object to the colder object. This is one of the basic laws of physics and you can argue about it until the cows come home and it simply will not change. Knowing is no suit that can prevent the exchange, but the transfer of heat from your body to the water around you can be slowed long enough to allow a diver to enjoy a deep dive for a much longer time by using a wet suit. The amount of time it would take for a diver to suffer a serious loss of heat depends on his size, the temperature of the surrounding water, the diver’s physical exertion and the insulation material in his wet suit. A good, state-of-the-art wet suit is composed of three layers — a wicking layer, an insulation layer and the outer protective layer.

The purpose of the wicking layer is to keep the diver’s skin dry. Wet skin loses heat at a much faster rate than dry skin, so the wicking layer removes moisture from the skin and transports it to the next level of material, slowing down the loss of heat from the diver’s body. The insulation level slows down the heat loss considerably. There is no single, universal insulation that works for all divers under all conditions. In fact, a diver who spends a lot of time underwater in different locations and under different conditions will have a selection of wet suits to accommodate his variety of choices. There are four basic types of insulation packages – the wooly bear (any fuzzy wool-type insulator), open-cell foam (excellent when dry, but stiff), type-B marine thinsulate (considered the best) and radiant barriers (great in space, need to be combined with one or more of the other types to be effective in water). The outer protective layer’s sole purpose is to keep the inner layers dry. Polymers — rubber and plastic conglomerates — are often used by wet suit manufacturers for this purpose.

Other than youth wet suits that contain built-in flotation devices — or the odd, extremely expensive wet suit made for that tiny scuba diver or mini-athlete in the family — these swimsuits for kids are mostly about style.

Yes, they slow down heat loss from the swimmer’s body and yes, even without a built in flotation device, they provide some small measure of buoyancy; but they are mostly about having your little one look good at the beach or in the pool. Made from most of today’s popular swimsuit materials, these wetsuits come in a variety of flashy colors and even flashier designs that look like space age swimming devices.

You’ll see little ones trotting around the beaches in bright red and orange-colored wet suits that are so thin they barely provide protection from the sun, not to mention, the water. In fact, one mother told me she dresses her son in a youth wet suit predominately because she prefers not to slather on the sun goop every time he goes outdoors to swim and because he thinks he looks cool.

There are manufacturers that specialize in professionally made, expertly designed youth wet suits that are most definitely not simply a fashion statement or sun protection. Wet suits made for kids who scuba dive are actually more thermal heat loss resistant than the adult varieties for a few basic reasons.

One is that children’s hearts beat faster. Their body metabolism operates at a higher rate than adults simply because they are still growing. As a result, children will lose body heat faster in the same temperature of water as an adult. Therefore, youth wet suits have to be just a little better at preventing heat loss than the adult versions if a child is to stay submerged for the same time as the adult who is usually accompanying him on a dive.

The second reason is that because the body mass of a growing child is much smaller, and much less dense than an adult — even if the two metabolisms are somehow identical — the child will still lose body heat at a faster rate. And once again, the properly designed youth wet suit will have taken this into account.

Scuba wet suits were not taken seriously until World War II and the advent of Navy Frogmen (SEALs) who became one of America’s most effective weapons of the war. On any kind of measurable basis, costs of operations versus costs of effectiveness, man-to-man, or overall kill ratios, the SEALs exceeded expectations on any level. Once recognized, the military put a much time and money into improving the effectiveness of its frogmen. That meant improving the design, effectiveness and durability of wet suits.

There is a controversy that developed at the time over whether or not wet suits had to remain dry. Sounds like a set up for a joke but it’s not. All underwater, rubberized protective outfits are called wetsuits. The controversy was over whether heat loss from the diver’s body could be controlled better if the wetsuit kept his skin dry or not. It was Hugh Bradner who is credited with the first wet suit in 1952. Mr. Bradner was actually working as a physicist at UC Berkeley’s radiation laboratory where he was testing the reflections of shock waves on unicellular material and was invited to attend a Swimmer’s Symposium. His concept was that the diver’s skin does not have to stay dry to prevent heat loss if the thermal insulation used in the wet suit was obtained by air entrapped in the material of the suit.

With the French invention of the Aqua-Lung, Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) was used in the war and afterwards spawned investigative teams exploring the ocean’s many mysteries. As soon as this began, the pressing need for wetsuits was made painfully obvious by the divers suffering from hypothermia after only a few dives. The divers tried everything from greased long johns to leftover Air Force survival suits, and the Bradner wet suit. Bradner was the first to use a unicellular material similar to the type he was working with in the radiation laboratory in his wet suit. The material came from a company called Rubatex and was called Neoprene and the original model for today’s high-tech, three-level wet suit was born.

Triathlon wet suits are designed with state-of-the-art materials to help athletes get in and out of the water quickly, efficiently and of course, to keep the wearer warm. Triathlon wet suits are much more than the normal wet suit employed by divers simply to slow heat loss underwater and keep warm. Designed specifically for athletic competition, their first priority is to keep a competitive swimmer on top of the water, reducing drag and stalling muscle fatigue, enabling the swimmer to race faster and for longer periods of time.

Furthermore, the rubber used on the outside of the wet suit is of the slickest and most slippery materials possible to emulate the scales of a fish as closely as possible. The manufacturing technology employed in creating these wet suits has been a bone of contention between athletes and committee members because they reduce the difference between weaker swimmers and stronger swimmers, not only in speed, but also in all-around efficiency.

Because the triathlon wet suit enables a competitor to spend less energy on the first leg of the competition, he or she is able to reserve energy for the other two legs of the process. This can be a huge edge over the rest of the field, assuming of course, that you are not all wearing the same suits.

To begin with, the rubber used in most of these wet suits, regardless of the brand name featured, comes from one supplier – the world-famous, Japanese rubber manufacturer, Yamamoto. There is an important difference in the thickness of the rubber used in each and every different brand name of wet suit produced. Some manufacturers opt for the 2mm thickness, going towards producing a suit that weighs less and subsequently feels lighter to the user and is more flexible.

Other manufacturers go with the thicker rubber, up to 5mm thick, following the rule of thumb that shows that the thicker the rubber used, the more buoyant the suit will be and ultimately, even though it weighs more, will save the user more energy. In the end, it’s the swimmer himself who must decide which option best suits his style.

Surfing wetsuits are a breed unto themselves. To begin with, there are cool, surfer-dude designations used to describe the different styles of surfing wet suits.

The first is the spring suit which has short legs and short arms and is used to keep the upper body warm and has a thickness of materials of about 2mm. Short Johns are like spring suits but without the sleeves and are also usually 2mm thick. Long Johns have full-length legs and are mostly about 2mm thick. Full Suits are self-explanatory, the most commonly used — especially in colder waters — whose thickness is determined by the temperature of the water the surfer usually finds himself in.

Another difference in surfing wet suits is that many have two layers of material and the area under the arms is thinner than the rest allowing for easier arm movements critical to performing well while surfing. Furthermore, it is common for surfers to add an additional spandex suit underneath their wetsuits if they venture into cooler waters.

Surfing wet suits need to be more flexible in the upper torso and shoulder areas than diving wet suits to make the balancing and control contortions of the surfer easier. Especially sensitive are the knee areas as the surfer is constantly shifting his weight to maintain his balance.

Unless the knee areas move easily and don’t stretch during this movement they will inhibit the surfer and cause the suit to crack with wear at the knees over time. Because of the extreme physicality involved with the sport of surfing, the entire suit has to be manufactured with ease of movement and durability at its core.

Unlike other wetsuits, surfing wet suits don’t really care about thermal heat loss as much as diving suits. And because of the movement capability in the suit, gender specific manufacture is mandatory.

In this category, the bulk of available choices in infant wet suits is all about buoyancy in the water. Since the occurrence of infant scuba divers or infant competitive swimmers is extremely rare, almost all designs center around the single most important factor for infant swimmers — keeping them afloat in the water. In the rare instance where you happen to have an infant who is also a scuba diver or a competitive swimmer you’ll probably have to purchase the smallest wet suit you can possibly find in the marketplace and then have it custom-tailored to fit your special infant.

There are individuals around, although they are few and far between, who have the tools and the skills necessary to custom design a wet suit without altering its heat-loss properties or its buoyancy which can result in a beautiful, colorful and still effective infant wet suit should someone need it. But no company is going to manufacture them, with the same input and features as an adult wet suit, for such a tiny market.

There are, however, a vast array of choices for infant wet suits depending on the cartoon character your child likes or the color patterns he might look best in. In addition, there are infant wet suits with varying degrees of buoyancy built in, depending on the swimming ability of your child.

Obviously, the Barbie Princess wet suits are for that sweet little girl in your life and those Superman ones are for the little guy who thinks he’s a superhero. The most important feature to look for when purchasing an infant wet suit is maximum swimming help. Many have built-in flotation devices while some are made out of the same materials as triathlon swim suits, only more so. Since competition is not a factor, the suits can be a bit thick and clumsy, but as long as they’re keeping that little one safely afloat, that’s all they have to do.