Oh Balls!
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Mrs Green does a few stretches in between sentences (cough)
Last week I went to my osteopath who could see instantly I was spending too much time loving you people.
In other words I got told off for using the computer…
He made a radical suggestion which was to get a gym ball!
He explained that if I sat on a gym ball instead of a chair when typing, I would have to make micro movements to keep balanced on the ball and prevent myself from sliding down flat on my back underneath the desk. This, he assured me, would help prevent me ‘locking’ my back and neck in place and should stop me walking around looking like Quasimodo and feeling like an octogenarian after writing a blog post.
I hot footed it to my local Argos store to see what they had in stock and found the cheapest gym ball was less than £10 – prevention being better than cure I figured that was the cost of 1/4 of a treatment session with aforementioned osteopath, so I bought it straight away.
I was delighted to see it was packed in a cardboard box and couldn’t wait to get home to try it.
Well good old Argos had thought of everything. This little beauty even came with a foot pump. Alas we already have a industrial sized one for our blow up camp mattress so it was unneeded. And indeed it looked the sort of thing you would use once before it snapped in two. Both the foot pump AND the gym ball were wrapped in plastic bags; which to be fair were marked with a number 4, so can be recycled at my local supermarket with the carrier bags. But really – did they need to be individually wrapped? By the time I’ve put the sole of my trainers on the foot pump and put my sweaty lycra-clad arse (I’m imaging I am planning on using it for its intended purpose at this point) on the ball it’s not exactly going to be clean is it?
And of course I was forgetting the worst part of all. As I blew up the gym ball (fantastic exercise in itself I’ll have you know) I got that familiar shower curtain mixed with paddling pool smell wafting into the room.
Yep, you’ve guessed it; I’d just bought myself a whole load of non recyclable PVC <sigh>
It’s not easy being green…
plastic packaging from my PVC gymball
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Good luck with the gymball. There is always one thing you buy that has non recycleable stuff with it. It isn’t easy being green as you said.
better than having a bad back. good luck, it looks very uncomfortable
They really work Mrs G, keep meaning to get mine back out again (bought it when pregnant), so hopefully you will feel the benefit.
I had a similar issue so I bought myself one of these… http://www.posture-chair.co.uk/. It works along the same lines as your gym ball, but no nasty PVC.
Catch you on Twitter soon!
@Julie Day: Thanks Julie; there’s always something to catch us out and keep us on our toes!
@sandy: Hahahaha, it’s actually really nice; I like it alot and boy are my stomach muscles feeling it, so I’ll be toned and with a comfy back and neck – what’s not to love 😀
@LJayne: Thanks Lesley; I’m loving it!
@Recyclebank UK: Great idea; I like the look of that 🙂