Paul Hickey: Getting in shape for summer and Christmas parade joy

Last year's Christmas Parade. Photo / File

Life can get so busy at times.

It's sometimes hard to believe that it was only seven months ago that most of us were in a very slow mode during lockdown.

Life as we knew it has pretty much picked up again where it left off and some of those really busy times in my life have meant that it has been a few weeks since I wrote a column for the paper.

But here I am back again, and in the few weeks I have been missing from these pages, we've had a couple of elections, a couple of referendums, the All Blacks have won a couple of games (and not won a couple too!), and all of a sudden it's the middle of November.

Christmas displays are up in stores, and the lure of a long hot Kiwi summer is irresistible.

And that, in turn, brings us to the need to maybe shape up for summer, and the latest hot fitness trend, which is …crawling!

Believe it or not, many fitness experts are getting aboard with the concept that crawling can be an important part of a fundamental fitness regimen.

Apparently, when you crawl, it's like "pressing reset" on your central nervous system and revisiting mobility patterns you learned as a baby (no kidding!).

But they say it helps to bring all of the parts involved in co-ordination, movement and reflexive stability into synchronization.

It also forces you to work in order to be able to breathe, keep your head up and crawl at the same time.

Crawlers also have to contract their abdominal muscles and use their back and other core muscles to maintain that position while propelling themselves forward.

And yes, crawling is rough on the knees, but many crawling exercises involve being up on your feet rather than on your knees, which further activates the core muscles and the body's ability to balance.

What do you think? If you're like me, it's not like it'd be the first exercise that brought me to my knees!

Christmas buzz is back

In a year that has been full of so many negative and sad news stories, how good was last week's announcement that the Rotorua Christmas Parade is back on?

Kudos to the anonymous local benefactor who has stepped up to make the event possible, after the earlier decision that the parade would not happen due to a number of factors, including the major impact of funding in this new covid world.

So the news last week came as a big relief to many people in town, including my wife Katie and daughter Destiny.

For many years now they have their own personal 'festive list' that they tick off to make it officially Christmas in their minds.

The annual Rotorua Christmas Parade is at the top of the list, along with hearing and seeing the bagpipes from the Rotorua Highland Pipe Band, having a Starbucks Christmas drink, seeing the Santa statue at Pak n' Save, watching The Santa Clause movie, and hearing Snoopy's Christmas on the radio.

What's on your list that makes you feel like Christmas is actually here?

Funds for floats

And on the topic of the parade, there are now only five weeks until the big day, which means there is a short turnaround to get all those amazing floats prepared.

Entries are open now, and at The Hits, we're doing something special to try and encourage some new groups to consider being part of the parade.

We are giving away $500 to one lucky group to go towards helping build their float for this year's parade.

So if your community group/school/business/club would like a bit of financial help to make it happen for this year's parade, register now at thehits.co.nz win page.

You'll find all the details there, so just tell us about your float ideas and you could be winning The Hits $500 Parade Float FUNd.

Paul Hickey is the host of the locally based 9am-3pm show on The Hits Rotorua 97.5FM. Follow on Facebook The Hits Rotorua and on Twitter @paulhickeynz.