If you want to practice your tennis swing, you check out a ball machine from the local club, right? After dumping a hundred or so balls into the basket, it launches them at you one at a time so you can whack them all over the court. Good practice, but there’s one problem: who’s going to pick up all the balls afterwards? Unless there’s some kid around you can bribe with a free soda, it’s probably going to be you. Bend and pick up, bend and pick up… all around the practice area. You thought you were going to be working on your back swing, but instead it looks like it’s just your back that’s getting all the work. So, what’s the solution? How about a tennis ball pickup tube?
These devices let you suck up the balls without hunching over to pick them up by hand. The tubes also hold up to 15 balls, so you don’t have to try and balance any on your racket as a temporary holding spot until you reach the ball machine again.
You can buy a pickup tube (in your choice of 8 colors) from Mansion Select for about $27:
Riding a bucking brunco… what could be a better workout? Assuming you stay on long enough to burn some calories (and don’t get trampled when you fall off). It does sound a little dangerous, doesn’t it? But wait… now you can get an iGallop fitness machine that simulates the workout you get clinging to a bucking horse’s back. You don’t have to have any horseback riding experience for this one, just a willingness to hold on tight and flex those inner thigh muscles.
The iGallop comes with three levels to choose from: trot (for warming up), gallop (for extended toning and shaping), and race (to really work those muscles). If you’ve got $600 to spend, you can plop this machine down in front of the television and ride your way through your favorite shows. (The reviews at Amazon are surprisingly favorable, so I guess this is a little higher quality machine than your standard plastic ab-flattening gizmo.)