Interview of The Force (Steven Van dijk), 14204 RPM.

-Hi Steven! First can you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit more about you?

Well, my name is Steven van Dijk and I am 31 years old, married, and I have 3 children. I live in the Netherlands and I work as a patent attorney for Philips Intellectual Property & Standards. My hobbies are Volleyball, Online-Gaming (Counter-strike 1.6/Source) and not surprising of course....Powerball :-)

-How did you discover Powerballs, why do you like it, since when do you have one?

The first time that I held a Powerball in my hands was on a LAN-party with some friends somewhere in March this year. I was immediately enthousiastic about this product and tried it a lot on that LAN-party. I was so impressed by the force it creates, but also the sound it makes. Man I love that scream :-). But anyway, the result of my first powerball session on the LAN-party was heavy muscle pains in my arms, because I was not used to this kind of exercise (my gaming performance also suffered a little because of that ;-) ). Obviously, I said to myself "I want to have that product too". On the 8th of April, 2005 was my (31st) birthday and I got one so called "Wristbal" as a gift (for some reasons my family did not manage to find a shop where the real stuff was sold). Well, the evidence that that product was a cheap imitation of the NSD Powerball was given at the very same day. My sister tried to spin it at high speed and she accidentally dropped it on the ground. Result...three sad looking pieces of Wristball.Was I sad? Well...yes and no. Yes, because it was a present which just got broken. No, because I now had a good reason to order the real stuff :D :D. So, I then ordered via internet my very first NSD Powerball (at www.powerball-europe.com). The type I ordered was the Green Light with counter. My first scores were lying around 11000rpm, but I managed to get above 12000rpm quite rapidly (1 week). And a few weeks later (3/4 weeks) I reached my first 13000rpm score. That felt very good :-) Obviously, I took the hint from Akis into account and bought more Powerballs lateron (all of the Regular type). At this moment I have almost 7 months of experience.

-Now tell us about your training habits? how much in a day?

I train about 4 days a week, sessions between half an hour and one hour. I have had periods where I trained every day, but for me that did not work out that well. Lot's of injuries/blisters on my fingers were the result. I just need recovery days.

-Do you have some special techniques?

Well, this is a difficult question. I think I hold the Powerball in a very conventional way, counter pressed in the palm of my hands, rotor pointing in a direction between thumb and fingers. For high scores, a locking grip is important. That is what I focus on in my high-speed sessions. The moments where I did my records, I managed to get this ultimate locking grip. By the way, I can also hold the powerball reversed, rotor pointing to the palm of my hands. Especially in endurance sessions this is convenient when you want to take over from one hand to the other.

-What do you think about the new metal powerball? And the next bluetooth counter?

You don't want to know how much I long for this metal Powerball and all options like the bluetooth counter. I ordered 8 metal Powerballs, one for myself and 7 for family and friends :D . As far as the bluetooth counter is concerned, that would definitely be a great asset for the Powerball. Training would be much more comfortable as you can read your score immediately (very nice for endurance training). The connection with the computer would also allow to see your performance back in graphs, which is really great. I also foresee great online competition possibilities where your graphs are automatically uploaded to internet :-) .

-What kind of future do you think Powerballs will have in the next years?

I think the Powerball is still ramping up in popularity. And now that we can see that NSD is continuously improving on their product (Metal, bluetooth, etc) I think that the Powerball will remain popular for many more years.

-Any hints for others?

- Try to focus on your weak hand/arm in case your performance between both hands differs a lot. If you do that, you will become balanced in the end. After all, who likes it to have a big arm and a thin arm ;-)

- When you feel pains, STOP your exercise. I have had a couple of times that I just kept on pushing harder and harder when my body clearly shows that the energy was gone. The result for me was, lots of injuries, overtraining and dropping performance.

- A little bit related to the previous one, take your days off. Although it is difficult to stop (especially when you are making very good scores) I think that it is the moments of relaxation where you gain strength and thus not the training sessions themselves. Actually, it is exactly the same with fitness and body building. With the exercises you "damage" your muscles, then in the periods of rest your muscles recover and become stronger.

Well, more hints may follow later on the forum

Okay that's all, thank you for the time you took to answer my questions and your readers thank you for your advice.

Interview of Steven Van Dijk by Frédéric REMY (October 26th 2005).

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