The Top Ten EFS Gifts for the Chronically Injured Athlete in Your Life
How do you know if your loved one is a huge fan of elitefts™? Look for these tell-tale signs…
Do more than half of the t-shirts he owns say EFS, TRAIN or Strong(er) on them?
When you ask him if he’s going to “work out,” does he correct you and say that he “trains?”
Does he put posters of Dave Tate and Jim Wendler on the wall like they were rock stars?
Does he look happy and excited when you wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him that there’s a Prowler in the house?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, your holiday gift buying just got a lot easier. The following list includes my personal recommendations for people with multiple sports injuries…so stop wasting time and get shopping!
Extra Firm Rumble Roller: Foam rolling is all the rage now for recovery, but a real strength athlete needs something as aggressive as a steel-belted monster-truck tire. Foam just doesn’t cut it, especially if you’re at a full, manly weight of 300 pounds. The Rumber Roller has deep, stiff lugs that hit all the trigger points and break up scar tissue you didn’t know you had. The first time I rolled with it, I broke up scar tissue I had from when my mother beat me with a wooden spoon circa 1973. But the good news is that since rolling with the Rumble, I no longer have to go to therapy. I’m not talking about physical therapy, either. I mean therapy from my mom’s spoon beatings.
Blue Heat: If it’s good enough to warm up a thoroughbred race horse, it’s good enough for you gym rats. Blue Heat cures what ails ya. Just rub a generous amount on muscles and joints, and it’ll warm you up until you’re as loose as a pre-teen limbo champion. Caution: Avoid contact with your genitals. If that happens, just wet your junk down and stick your crotch out the window while driving down the highway in winter. After a few hours, it should cool down…just make sure a friend is doing the driving. Remember, safety first!
Oversized Relief Pack: A big lifter needs to ice a big area, and that package of frozen peas in the back of your mom’s freezer isn’t going to cut it. Just keep this relief pack in the freezer, and it’ll be ready at a moment’s notice. It’s the next best thing to sleeping with an Eskimo chick.
Collegiate Box Squat Box: Take it from someone who gets injured a LOT. After knee surgery, the safest way to get back into squatting again fast is by box squatting. Start out with the box at the highest setting and move it down as your range of motion improves. I also use this around the gym to change light bulbs and to kiss very tall girls I can’t normally reach.
Chest-supported Row: If you have a broken leg or a lower back injury, you still need to work on your back, right? This piece of equipment is a must. It supports the chest and totally isolates the upper back. Imagine, by the time your leg or back is healed, you’ll have a back as big as the stealth bomber! People will start referring to you as The Bomber. You could even have one of those silky-looking warm-up jackets made with “The Bomber” embroidered on the back. Your life will change forever.
45-degree Back Raise: I can’t tell you how many times I personally used this piece of equipment to help me rehab and to warmup my stiff body. No need to take time off after those pesky lower-extremity surgeries. I had nearly a dozen knee and ankle surgeries, and this is a great, non-aggressive way to hit your hamstrings, glutes and lumbars afterwards. The last thing you want is to heal up from your injuries and lose your glutes. The 45-degree back raise is a great way to keep your buns perky…like Stevey P’s.
Hooded Sweatshirt: Okay, what’s worse than being burned over 60 percent of your body? When you’re in the hospital enduring one painful skin graft after another, it’s bad, but when your muscles are wasting away, it’s worse. So when you’re waiting to see if the cadaver skin is going to take hold, you’ll want to cover that disgusting mess up and look stylish while you’re at it, right? What better way than an EFS hooded sweatshirt to cover up the fact that you’ve dwindled down to nothing during a painful recovery and you now look like a burnt matchstick?
TK (Tommy Kono) Bands: As time goes on and you’ve been lifting for 20 years or more, it’s just a fact of life that your joints get worn out and are harder to warmup. All of your non-lifting, or “pussy,” friends are wondering why you’re still training if your knees hurt so much. But you know that quitting is NOT an option. That’s when it’s time to ensconce yourself in neoprene and forge ahead. TK bands are just what the doctor ordered to keep your mummified knees feeling good. The compression and warmth will feel like Jesus himself lovingly cradled your knees in his warm, healing hands.
The Prowler: People don’t usually think of the Prowler as a rehab tool, but I’ve seen people at my gym use it to rehab from injuries ranging from tweaked hamstrings to a broken femur. Its versatility allows you to do a variety of different movements, and the puking you do after really keeps your mind off your injury. It is also a known fact that the prowler can cure full-blown AIDS.
Bumper Plates: Bumper plates are a godsend to your body if you’re an overhead lifter. Let’s say you’re currently training in some lame gym with no bumpers, and you’re forced to do your overhead lifts on metal plates you can’t drop because you’ll “catch flak” from the pencil-necked gym manager. You finally get that 300 pound clean and jerk you’ve been training for, and now you have to somehow put that down gently…BOOM! That’s how you get hurt. It’s a lot harder to control that weight when it’s coming down on you, than when it’s going up. With bumper plates on the bar, you can just drop that weight safely to the floor, saving the floor and your body. But the gym manager will still probably yell at you because the noise disturbed the Pilates class.
Yes, there are many more. I could go on, but these are my top 10 products. If you scan through the site, elitefts™ has something for anyone. To the most hardcore strength training gym, to your crossfit box, to the celler-dweller training at home, anyone can dominate if he gets his equipment here.
Happy holidays to all,
Steve Pulcinella
elitefts™ GIFT CARDS
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Steve Pulcinella has been passionately strength training since he was 13 and competing in strength athletics ever since the age of 14. Fueled by his early influences of Strength and Health Magazine and the Wide World of Sports airing the Worlds Strongest Man, he strived to build the biggest and strongest body that he possibly could. He started out as a powerlifter and progressed into doing strongman. His biggest pro strongman title was the 1993 North American Champion and he was selected as a competitor in the 1994 Worlds Strongest Man Contest. He has also been a Highland Games Professional since 1994 and still competes as a top ranked master competitor. He also started Iron Sport Gym in 1995. It is a commercial gym in Philadelpia specializing in strength training, powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman. www.ironsport.com
View Steve’s Training Log 
Awesome list! I think I need to build up more repressed injuries/memories before stepping up to that serious roller.
I just don’t see myself going to a meet wearing a “The Bomber” jacket. That’d be like wearing a shirt that says “Unleash the ‘Take It!’” or saying you do 5/3/done.
“Does he look happy and excited when you wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him that there’s a prowler in the house?”
Steve sleeps with a LWFD by the bed, I knew it.
Hey Dave, you need to put the EFS TROLL on some of your tshirts. I know I for one would love to order one!
Well, unfortunately, when I went to look up the “Blue Heat”, all they had was “Hot PInk”. Ordering the cold pack (Hey, I’m 57, my joints need all the help they can get). Got the Kono Bands and Prowler, and love ‘em. I WANT that Back Raise in my gym!