Adrenamag - Adrenalin Activities

Need a Gift that Can’t Fail to Impress? How About an Activity Passport from the Biggest Activity Network in the UK?

A beautifully presented, full-colour Adrenalin Activity Passport that you can personalise with your own message. This will probably be the most exciting gift you will give this year and it is only three clicks away from arriving by email, or you can have it delivered. It’s your choice. This store is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, so it doesn’t matter how last minute your purchase.

Established in 1995, The Activity People is now the biggest and most diverse activity network in UK with over 883 venues. So, when you give an Adreenalin Activity Passport from The Activity People, you are giving the recipient the choice of taking part in any of those activities, anywhere in the UK – an unrivalled adrenalin activities gift.

The Activity People are the preferred activity network for Visit Britain, who put their trust in them to provide activities to UK travellers together with visitors from overseas. The Activity People’s numerous locations and activity diversity means they can also provide activity-based incentive and reward schemes to leading UK companies together with activity options for event managers, gift experience companies and stag and hen organisers.

Click here to buy a full colour, Adrenalin Activity Passport that will either be delivered instantly to your email address on completion of your purchase, or delivered to you or the person receiving the gift – your choice!

A new report by Relate suggests the midlife crisis is hitting earlier and harder. Ouch! The survey of over 2,000 adults reveals one in five 35 to 44 year-olds feel lonely or has suffered depression. This follows on the back of a report in 2008 by the European Centre that indicated happiness dips between the ages of 40 and 49. So is midlife in crisis and how can this age group bounce back? Adrenamag got the views of professionals as well as extreme sports enthusiasts who believe they have the recipe for a midlife adrenalin boost.

Claire Tyler, CEO of Relate, commented on the report’s findings: ‘It’s when life gets really hard – you’re starting a family, pressure at work can be immense and increasingly money worries can be crippling. We cannot afford to sit back and watch this happen.’

Lisa is a professional woman in her early 40s with two children, is she happy? ‘Yes. I believe it is important to have time for yourself. Of course my priority is the family, but I make time for exercise because it makes me feel good, and renews my energy.’
Tristia Clarke of TalkTalk, who were partners in the survey, said: ‘People in their late 30s and early 40s are a time-poor generation. Long hours at work means they have less time to spend face-to-face with friends and family.’

Robert, a 49-year-old engineer, agrees: ‘I think you need to retain a balance, after a bad day at work I like to do something different. Then I can come back refreshed.’ Robert’s colleague Peter, 48, who works in IT, thinks friends are an important part of happiness. ‘I enjoy active sports with friends, the banter, the competition, are all part of the fun.’

Relate’s report says that 27 per cent of people feel lonely a lot of the time. Robert believes this is an easy trap to fall into. ‘I know for me it is an effort sometimes to join friends but I think it’s worth it.’  Ben, who together with a group of friends, has recently cycled the length of the country to raise money for charity, said: ‘I feel a bit of a fraud because although we have raised a good sum for charity, I have personally got a lot out of it. It was great fun and really boosted my self esteem.’

So what’s the secret of midlife happiness? ‘Balance,’ says Lisa. ‘Health, fun and challenge,’ believes Robert. ‘For me it’s having something that recharges my batteries. That can be friends or exercise. Whatever turns you on, really,’ says Ben.

If you want to try a range of adrenalin activities with friends, which may or may not tackle a pending midlife crisis click here.

Until the 2010 FIFA World Cup final on July 11, one half of the country will be pinned to the television while the other half prays for the end of the South African torture. So, how can each of these World Cup camps survive the next few weeks without fraying nerves and expanding waistlines? Adrenamag has come up with its own alternative World Cup survival guide.

1. World Cup Widow. He’s not interested in you anymore. He only loves men with small round balls. So if you can’t beat them join in. Book a day inside a large ball. Try zorbing and get in it together. Just make sure there’s not a big game on.

2. Coping with disappointment. However much you tell yourself it won’t, you know it’s going to happen. When the time comes and England’s World Cup journey plunges off a South African cliff, you will need an adrenalin pick- me-up bigger than Table Mountain. So get out there with your white water rafting, paragliding or zapcating. Click here

3. Stuck to the sofa. You’re so into it, you can’t move from the sofa. Don’t worry – there are activities where you can still sit down. Try karting or quad biking.

4. Hate football. You think Messi is what happens when you forget to use your napkin. Don’t even try to compete. Drift up into the air in a hot air balloon and leave it all behind. You won’t even hear the roars.

5. Trauma of penalties. You can’t look at the penalty shoot-outs. So try a real shoot out – where you have to look and you’re in control. Clay pigeon shooting or archery will train your nerves for the big shootouts.

6. World Cup widower. A rarer creature perhaps. But they do exist. Take her extreme horse riding. And put blinkers on her so she can’t see the football.

7. World Cup withdrawal. What happens when all those days in the pub watching football with friends are long gone? You need to come down gently. Book shared activities like paintball, karting or high ropes where you can laugh and play together. Like the old days.

8. Seeing red. Football has a way of upping the blood pressure. Remember David Beckham’s sending off in France 1998? Water is said to be calming for the nerves. Try kite surfing or kayaking.

9. Bored. Everyone can have enough of football – even if you love it. Remind yourself there are other things in life. Try off-road karting or driving a tank.

10. England win the World Cup beating Germany on penalties. You’re so high you parachute down without the plane even taking you up.

Steve Ralph is the man who taught Robin Hood to shoot an arrow. Quite a claim to fame. The production company making the new Robin Hood film needed a professional to turn the star Russell Crowe into a credible bowman, so they turned to Steve Ralph.

It’s not the first time, he’s taught stars how to loose an arrow. (Steve says this is the correct term – ‘guns are fired, arrows are loosened and shot’.) Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Dame Judi Dench, Ray Winstone and Clive Owen have all been his archery pupils.

Ironically, it was Robin Hood who inspired Steve, 55, to pick up a bow. ‘There’s a family tradition of making bows but it was my father reading me Robin Hood books that fired my imagination,’ he says. Steve describes his job as a bowyer – the ancient art of making bows. And he’s been making bows for film and stage for over 25 years.

Steve spent two weeks in Australia – the only continent not to have the bow and arrow – teaching Russell Crowe to be an authentic Robin Hood and he was impressed with the star’s commitment. ‘He’s a very competitive guy who’s sport mad. If he had to fire 1,000 arrows a day to get it right, he would. And that kind of attitude is rare,’ says Steve. In fact, Steve says Russell Crow is so taken with archery that he asked him to make bows for his children. ‘He’s now a very good shot,’ says Steve.

All of which is a far cry from Kevin Costner’s early 1990’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which Steve left in a hurry after making a number of bows for the production. ‘I walked out because it was terrible. Little John says, “Robin of Loxley, you’ve got balls of solid rock.” I said to my wife “we’re out of here”.’

For Steve, the image of the precious Hollywood star is a myth. ‘I have found all the actors I have worked with to be very professional and keen to learn. Dame Judi Dench is a natural archer because, like a lot of women, she listens,’ he says.

And his favourite Robin Hood? ‘I grew up with Richard Todd and Richard Greene but I can honestly say Russell Crowe, because he’s my Robin Hood,’ says Steve.

For people who want to try the ancient art of the longbow, Steve believes modern target archery is a good place to start (click here).

If you wish to learn more about the longbow, try the English Field Archery Association or the National Field Archery Society. 

And when you get as good as Russell Crowe and want your own bow, Steve will make you your own longbow http://www.steveralphs.com/.

It’s not just Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) sufferers who breathe a sigh of relief as the clocks return to British Summer Time. There’s a national jump for joy as, like hibernating dormice, we can wake up to light evenings. Hurrah!

Surely, it can’t be any coincidence that the countries with the highest suicide rates are all located in the frozen dark north.  After all, there’s only so much chess you can play without reaching for the shot gun. So, what’s the best way to use those precious hours of evening sunshine – or maybe not daytime rain – that we can now enjoy? Here’s a few ideas:

Paintball: Hibernating animals often double their body fat before winter hibernation. Now it’s spring, we can start burning the calories. An evening paintball session with work colleagues is a great stress reliever. How else are you going to shoot the boss – and stay out of jail? As a seasonal treat, Adrenamag has negotiated special reductions for readers with Go Ballistic, the UK’s biggest paintball network.

Adrenamag Special Paintball Offers:

Get 100 FREE paintballs as part of a full day ‘pay as you play’ paintball package at the following Go Ballistic venues:

* Chester-Le-Street

* Colchester-Ipswich, Indoor Paintball

* Inverness

* Newcastle

* Pontefract

* RAF Dishforth

* Shotts, Lanarkshire

* Swindon – Cotswold

* Wolverhampton

* Yarm

Also one FREE place for bookings of 30 or more players at any Go Ballistic site (free places are for the same package booked by the group). Simply quote this reference for either offer: adrenamag/pbgb when you book. Click here to visit Go Ballistic Paintball

Outdoor Karting: Go-karters love to peek out of their burrows and race on the outdoor tracks. It’s the nearest thing you can get to ‘real’ racing so we are told. Evening sessions are available across the UK.

Clay pigeon shooting: Game shooting has a season, but clay pigeon shooting keeps on firing. Blast off the winter cobwebs with an early evening’s clay pigeon shooting.

Zorbing: As we roll back the dark, enjoy an evening’s tumbling down a hill in a zorb. Or have a riot by wet zorbing across a lake.

Archery: The long bow did for the French at Agincourt, could it be a winning way to spend a light, early spring evening?

Quad biking: Quad bikers like the mud therefore winter is often seen as the best time to straddle the quad bikes but April showers can turn the hardest terrain into a glorious mud bath. So an evening’s quad biking could be a slip, sliding success.

If you want to spring outside and take advantage of the light nights to squeeze in an activity, your biggest choice is right here so click here for more