Adidas gives top tips to keep fit.

The adidas global Fitness Trainer Marta Formoso presents her top tips on how to strengthen body and soul during busy times in order to stay healthy and fit for a good start into the New Year.

Just before the year ends, work starts getting crazy and your agenda is full of activities. You’re trapped in the middle of Thanksgiving preparations, the Christmas season is about to begin, plans for New Year’s celebrations need to be coordinated and you don’t find any time to slow down and relax? Marta helps with words and deeds showing you how to cope in hectic times. “Mens sana in corpore sano is an old Roman saying that body and mind go together,” says Marta. “If both are in balance you can achieve best results, in your private life, at work or for your daily workout!”

Marta has been part of the global women’s trainer team since 2008, touring around the world and teaching different dance styles and Pilates workouts at Fitness Academies and multiple Fitness Conventions. Her advice is to fix a date in your calendar where you get some quality time for yourself. Pilates classes or dancing classes are good alternatives to relieve stress and get good exercise with your favourite music like Latin, Reggae or Hip Hop. If time is tight, stretching is a good alternative to reduce tension in your body. In any kind of workout session, a good portion of stretching should be integrated anyway. It reduces muscle tonicity and relaxes your body from the inside. In addition to an active workout, Marta enjoys getting herself pampered every now and then. “Going for a good massage or relaxation treatments, getting enough sleep, tasty food and a good laugh with friends is priceless for body and soul,” says the 28-year-old adidas ambassador.

During the 1970s, the "quartz watch" burst onto the scene as the newest high-tech gadget. Initially, these watches had red LED displays and they cost around $500 in the United States. Since then, the quartz watch has evolved so that either an LCD or a traditional mechanical (hour and minute hand) movement displays the time, and the price has fallen dramatically. It is not uncommon to find quartz watches given away for free in boxes of cereal!
Have you ever wondered why it is called a quartz watch? Or why quartz watches are so much more accurate than wind-up watches?

Modern quartz watches now use a low-frequency bar or tuning-fork-shaped crystal. Often, these crystals are made from thin sheets of quartz plated like an integrated circuit and etched chemically to shape. The major difference between good and indifferent time keeping is the initial frequency accuracy and the precision of the angle of cut of the quartz sheet with respect to the crystalline axis. The amount of contamination that is allowed to get through the encapsulation to the crystal surface inside the watch can also affect the accuracy.
The electronics of the watch initially amplifies noise at the crystal frequency. This builds or regenerates into oscillation -- it starts the crystal ringing. The output of the watch crystal oscillator is then converted to pulses suitable for the digital circuits.

Tissot watch Ambassador Michael Owen fit for full training with Man U

 Tissot Watch ambassador, striker Michael Owen says he will be back in full training with the club this morning.

The 29-year-old picked up a groin injury during last week's Champions League win over Wolfsburg.However, he has played down the seriousness of the problem, saying he asked to be substituted in a bid to make sure the injury didn't get any worse.