What is powerballing about?

That is may be the main question for all people which have seen, held or spun this thing. Many will say it is about power, strength. Some will say that it is about technique, direction, vibration. Some say endurance, some impulse.

Well, here is my version and my vision. Powerballing is about singing. It is about hitting the high note. Yes, it is about frequency, and as you sing the song the same way you are powerballing. The nature of singing and powerballing is very much the same. Hitting higher note, yes you need a strength, technique, and... yes, you need the talent.

Put it in your mind, try to reach higher notes, not the speed, and you will see improvements, you will feel it and you will understand it better.

Sing your Powerball songs, my friends.

HHH

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Entering International scoreboards

I want to share with you my joy and happiness.

My scores are officially approved and entered into NSD Powerball International Scoreboards!

Strength 90s:



High speed:



HHH

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My Powerball 250Hz-Pro anatomy

Powerball is simple but very balanced device. Here you can see all the parts the NSD Powerball 250Hz-Pro is made of.

From up down:

1. The counter/speedometer. Simply clipping on upper shell. You will need flat screwdriver to detach it if needed.
2. Upper shell. This one is attached to lower shell, rubber band and counter. To detach the upper and lower shell you must apply pressure at screw hole zones after you remove the screws.
3. Rubber/silicon band. This one is attached to upper and lower shells, it covers the seam and screws, helps gripping.
4. The Rotor. That thing is spinning.
5. Rotor washers. Small plastic insertions for Rotor axle which protect the shells from bumps.
6. Screws to secure the shells seam.
7. Rotor support ring. This one is also moving part. Must be clean and dry! This ring is actually the one which transforms your energy into the rotor speed.
8. Lower shell. Covers lower side of the rotor. Has a hole for starting the Powerball up.

That is basically it.
Happy powerballing!

HHH

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My Powerball exercise plan

Yes, it is important. Good Exercise Plan will take you to better results in shorter time. Bad one can make you stuck on some level forever and very bad can even damage your body or Powerball. Here I want to describe my own Exercise Plan which helped me to improve my High Speed scores on 1000 rpm in about one month time.

First of all, I have to say that I am exercising every day at about 22:00. You can do it in your most convenient time, for different people time for best workout is different, some like morning, some evening, there are people doing it at night too. You must find best for your own, it is very personal, but also very important. Choosing wrong time could reduce the efficiency of exercises and also will not help much with your scores.

Another important thing is washing your hands. You have probably heard it so many times from your parents and other older people that you have to wash your hands before the lunch. Well, with Powerballing those are not just words. You MUST wash your hands before every session, otherwise your grip will be weak, you will suffer from bad blisters and very possible that your scores will be hundreds of rpm lower than you can actually reach. I use dish washing liquid soap for that. My favored one is "Fairy"


The Plan

1. Wash you hands
2. Put your Powerball counter in Revs mode.



3. Do Akis Complex. 30 seconds per each hand per each exercise. No resting. Switching hands after every 30 seconds.



4. Write down your 15 minutes revolutions into your spreadsheet
5. Wash your hands, rest for 5 minutes
6. Switch counter to Strength Mode



7. Do Full Round Two Hand UPC (Ultimate Powerball Challenge) session:

LH30s + RH30s + LH60s + RH60s + LH90s + RH90s + LHHS + RHHS = 2HUPC

/here LH - left hand, RH - right hand, HS - high speed, 30s, 60s, 90s - 30, 60, 90 seconds/

8. Write down your LH UPC (sum left hand scores), RH UPC (sum right hand scores) and 2HUPC (sum all scores)
9. Wash your hands good, rest for 5 minutes
10. Do 10 High Speed runs for each hand (you might take video here :-) )



11. Write down (or photograph) your scores
12. Wash you hands, rest for 5 minutes
13. Run 90 second Strength session with both hands switching (you take video here :-) )
14. Write down (or photograph) your scores
15. Wash your hands, rest for 5 minutes
16. Run two hands session with one Powerball. You hold Powerball with both hands
17. Run dual hands session with two Powerballs, each for each hand, simultaneously.
18. Wash you hands
19. The End.

HHH

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My Powerball collection

The value of $543 US.

From left to right:

• Signature, my main Powerball, most of my records are done on this one. Even with rotot broken and epoxied it runs quietly and fast
• 250Hz-Pro. My backup for Signature. Also using it for Dual runs
• Raptor - light metal. New in my collection. Didn't use it heavily yet
• Phantom - heavy metal. My main exerciser. Muscles and strength you get here
• Techno. My first one. The one my brother presented to me. Using it daily when driving to the office and back, specially when stuck in traffic jams. It is most convenient PB to use in the car while driving, although I believe it might be illegal. Large lighting digits are more readable. It has two modes: High Speed and Strength-30. I found it good enough for in car exercising. Also, it is my anti-clockwise PB.

One of these can be yours if you'll click here


HHH

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Know it and exercise well

Powerball is greatest exerciser for your hands, arms and body. And as with any other exerciser, some explanation is needed about what you can do with it and how.

Holding

There are several types of grips. Most common is when ball is down with counter side facing to your palm. You can also hold it in opposite manner, this one is good for people with smaller hands (children, ladies). You can hold it with 3 fingers: thumb, index and middle. Two fingers: thumb and index in ring. No thumb, just 4 fingers and palm. You can hold Powerball with just finger tips, with palm not touching it. It is possible to hold Powerball with both hands simultaniousely, fingers crossed. More exotic is holding Powerball between your arm and forearm, underarm, and between your legs. You can also use leg support devices.
All these different ways of holding Powerball are allowing different exercises for different muscles and groups of muscles.
For beginners I strongly recommend using wrist strap. With weak grip and beginners technique you can easily drop your Powerball down and that doesn't do any good to it.

Direction

As you probably understood already, You can do clockwise and anti-clockwise rotations. Both must be used. Using different rotation directions works out different muscles in your hand.

Speed ranges (Plastic)

• 6000-8000 rpm. Relaxation and Rehabilitation
• 8000-11000 rpm. Light strength. Beginners high speed records
• 11000-13000 rpm. Heavy strength. Experienced powerballers high speed records
• >13000 rpm. Very heavy. World Best Level High Speed Records

Managing the speed

There are 2 main types of Powerball speed managing:

• Slow increase and maintain strongly, also called "Gripper"
• Impulsive accelerations and releases, also called "Burst" or Eduard Technique (Edtech)
  

Both are allowed, although my favorite is "Gripper". Also, must say that Edtech is no good for your Powerball, it could damage it and even destroy.

Hand positions

You can keep your hand/arm lower/higher, in front of you and behind, far from your body and close to it. Different positions will work your different muscles. The best explanation of common exercises you can find in Akis Complex.

Strength, high speed and marathon

Those are different modes of running Powerball. Strength means that you have to do maximum number of revolutions in some certain period of time: 30, 60 and 90 seconds. High speed mode is about achieving maximum speed of Powerball rotot rotation. There is left hand, right hand and both hands high speed scores registering. Marathon means how fast you can make 1,000,000 rotations. There is also Super-Marathon which is about 10,000,000 rotations. Regular marathon takes about 2 hours to run. Super-Marathon is about continuous powerballing for 24 hours non-stop. Please, note that Plastic, Heavy Metal (Phantom) and Light Metal (Raptor) Powerballs have different physical characteristics, so scores of these three have different meanings, and must be registered in separate tables. 13000 rpm on Raptor is approximately 8500 on Phantom and about 11000 on Plastic.

UPC (Ultimate Powerball Challenge)

Although high speed scores and strength scores you can register separately the real number that shows how good you are mastering Powerball is UPC. UPC is a sum of 30s, 60s, 90s strength runs and one high speed run.

UPC = S30 + S60 + S90 + HS

Each run is done one hand only, with the rest time of 1 (one) minute between runs. You can collect UPC for each hand separately or you can do the Full Round UPC (FUPC). While doing Full Round UPC there is no rest time at all, right hand rests when you run left hand and visa versa. However hand switching time is allowed which should be no longer than 10 seconds.

FUPC = S30r + S30l + S60r + S60l + S90r + S90l + HSr + HSl.

Doing UPC and FUPC is already good exercise although you might build your own workout plan.

Akis complex

Here you can look at exercise complex of World Greates Powerballer Akis Kritsinelis.

Akis Complex


HHH

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Fixing rotor cracks

More often this problem happens to Neon and Signature Powerballs. The rotor of these models have the same design and the same weakness. Rotor fins are not hard enough and can be broken at speed of 10000 rpm. And that is what happened to my Signature. Approximately after 2 weeks of using it, my Signature started making very loud and very weird noise. It was like crying on pretty low speed at about 8000-9000 rpm. Also it started making very strong high frequency and low amplitude vibration (electric shaver like) which made it impossible to hold the Powerball in my hand, I was "feeling" the vibration even when I didn't use Powerball. It was like staying feeling in my hand. Also I got blisters, lots of them.

So, I have open my Signature and found cracks on all 4 fins of the rotor from both sides in pretty same places.



After reading some topics of NSD Powerball forum I understood that this is the problem. I have contacted RPM Sports and they've immediately sent my the new rotor. But shipping takes time and I couldn't wait, so I've decided to fix my rotor myself. The idea was about using epoxy glue. I was taking into consideration that I could disbalance the rotor if I will put a lot of this glue, but first, I had nothing to loose, second I have tried my best to make it as much as accurate as I could.

So, to fix the cracked rotor of Powerball you need:

1. The rotor :-)
2. Epoxy glue, I took special for plastic with the strength of 3500 lbs/inch which is hardest I could find
3. The brush. It is important! Not a stick, not a finger, but brush with which You can put the glue gently and accurately inside of the rotor.
4. Paper



You push the glue out on a piece of paper



You mix glue components with the brush, that makes it a glue actually



Then you paint all fins of the rotor from all the sides, and, if you want, you put some little amount of glue on LEDs, just to fixate them.



Ok, the work is done, now let it dry for at least 24 hours. Remember even if your epoxy glue becomes hard after 5 minutes it still needs to be dried out for at least 24 hours. Putting just painted rotor into you Powerball could seriously damage the counter, so don't do it. Put it away of your Powerball for 24 hours for complete dry.



Now, when the rotor is dried out put it back into you Powerball and start spinning. With my broken and then glued rotor I am doing 12411 rpm, although before this repairment I could hardly make 8500 rpm with the same rotor. Ball was just jumping out of my hand because of that bad vibration.



Of course, all this is just on your own risk. If You have cracked rotor you MUST first contact RPM Sports for replacement and they will help you immediately, but if you want to fix you rotor by your self You might do what I did.


HHH

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Measuring your scores

Well, you have started to spin this little thing.
But how good you are? Who is better you or friend of yours? How far are you from World Top 100? How strong are you? How fast are you? How well are you progressing? All these questions can be answered if you not just only spin the ball, but also measure the speed.

There are three main Powerball speed measurement methods:

1. Sound frequency

This one was used even before counters and speedometers appeared on the market. It is measuring the frequency of sound you Powerball produces. This method also can be used if you have Powerball without speedometer. Also this method is used for your video authenticity verification, if you will decide to send your qualification request to RPM Sports Official Scoreboards.

Here you can download nice Windows Application which does this measurement.

Powerballalyzer

Main disadvantage of this method is that measurement is indirect, it doesn't measure the speed or actual number of rotor revolutions. It correlates the sound frequency with the speed through formula. So mistakes of about 100-300 rpm(revolutions per minute) are possible. Also it requires having computer around and very quiet environment because any additional noise disturbs it. And, hey, you need a microphone.

2. Speedometer



The digital speedometer allows you to keep an accurate record of your performance on the Powerball. The speedometer simply clips onto the top of any regular Powerball after first removing the hard plastic cap.

It has several useful modes of operation:

- The number of revolutions made. Useful for relaxation, rehabilitation and long runs like Powerball Marathon - 1,000,000 revolutions, takes about 2-3 hours of continuous run and SuperMarathon - 10,000,000 revolutions which takes about 24 hours of non-stop spinning. Measurement unit is 100 revs, so if it shows "10" it means 1000 revs are made. Last measured result is saved in internal memory and remains even if counter is off. If you want to reset the counter, press CLR button.



- The real time revolution speed of the rotor. Simplest mode, just shows what is your current speed in rpm.



- The highest achieved speed in a given session (this will remain in the speed meters memory until either manually cleared or until surpassed by a faster score - it add's serious fun to your Powerball and brings out the competitive edge to all as you set about trying to beat either your own high score or that of your colleagues. This mode is actually 2 modes in one. It works like that - once you started the rotor it starts measuring the speed, it measures highest speed you achieved and if it is higher than recorded highest, recorded highest score is overwritten. Current high speed score remains in the memory until you press CLR (while rotor is spinning) or you switch the mode. If counter goes off, it still remembers the recent high speed. If you will press CLR button when rotor is NOT spinning - your recorded highest score will be erased. So again, there are 2 numbers: your current high speed and your recorded highest, first is erased when rotor is spinning, second when rotor is not spinning. First is you current most recent measured speed, second is all-time the best score you have ever achieved. Little complicated, but you will get use to it very quickly.



- The Physical strength mode - this counts the number of revolutions made by the rotor in a 30, 60 and 90 second period and makes for a worthy stamina challenge to help indicate just how strong you are becoming from using the Powerball. This is real exercising mode. Number of revolutions in 30, 60 and 90 seconds. These are as good as hours of your gym workout. The whole body becomes wet. This is MAIN Powerball mode. It is good and for your body and for health of your Powerball.



Unfortunately nothing is perfect and Powerball Counter sometimes makes errors. Most common is 15360 (256Hz) speed measured in Highest Speed mode while rotor was running about 8000 or 9000 rpm. This is firmware bug and if you will get it don't take it too emotionally( like I did ), just repeat the run and see what is your actual result is.
To be 100% sure about measurements you can combine together first and second methods (counter + sound), so when you will see similar results you can be sure about accuracy.

3. Bluetooth Speedometer



The Bluetooth Counter is good to monitor Powerball runs on computer screen. The software allows up to four players to compete simultaneously with both the high-speed and strength index runs supported. It is very good for mass competition. It also allows some additional types of challenges.

Disadvantage is that yet it requires having computer around and you can't see scores on the Powerball itself, so you will have to switch counters all the time.


HHH

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Which one to buy?

Well there are hundreds of different Powerballs available via internet. But not all of them are good. Not all of them you will be happy with. Let me introduce to you top three Powerball models, which I consider the best of the bests.

NSD 250Hz-Pro Powerball



This model is may be most successful Powerball in the World. Many World Records were achieved with particularly this model and I might even say that this one is Legendary Powerball. Very good for beginners. Very good one for professionals too. Most reliable construction. Smooth and speedy. Very pleasant to hold and makes very nice sounds. The price? Well, it is $40. You might find some cheaper gyroscopes but I doubt you can find better for this price. Its rotor is capable of producing over 16,000 rpm. Can't imagine this number? Well, if that was your car tire rotation your car would've drive 2,000 km/h (1,242 mph)! You laundry washing machine at its top speed does maximum 800-1200 rpm which is 16(!) times slower than NSD Powerball.


NSD 350Hz-Phantom Heavy Metal Powerball



Well, this model is currently most challenging Powerball. Twice as heavy as plastic model, with excellent balance, this Powerball will put a really heavy pressure on your hand, wrist and entire body. The best body exerciser ever invented. Technically it is capable of making 21000 rpm. With this Heavy Metal world greatest powerballers currently could reach just 13,000 rpm. There is yet big potential for future champions to bring new records and incredible results. Price for this Powerball is $120.

NSD 350Hz-Raptor Light Metal Powerball



The Queen of all Powerballs! Beautiful, golden, gorgeous, royal, excellent, yet this model is the fastest Powerball in the World. 20,000 rpm barrier is broken! What will be its highest speed? Can we human, without any motors, using only our biological strength, run something with such speed? Yes, we can and hopefully we will run it even faster. There is NO other thing on Earth in its entire history which could run faster than Raptor in human hands when no other power or energy but pure human strength was used. The current price is around $190, but, hey, this is the Queen.


HHH

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