Athletic Equipment

A year ago, you hardly ever saw them outside the free-weight section of your local gym. Now they're everywhere--on bus drivers, garbage collectors, plumbers, hardware-store clerks, janitors, day-care workers, nursing-home employees, even homemakers. They're back-support belts--those suspendered, Velcro-and-elastic midriff girdles that provide intra-abdominal compression and keep the thoracic and lumbar curves in alignment.

For those times when you can't get to the gym -- or don't feel like breaking out your credit card to pay the membership fee -- home workout equipment is essential. But as these innovative, lightweight and very portable devices show, a home gym doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg or take over the entire living room. They don't even have to stay at home anymore. -- Hanging around GFlex Portable Gravity Gym: Simple clip-on, strap-and-pulley suspended bodyweight device that turns any door, tree or solid structure into an all-body strength-training apparatus.

Michael Jackson is the $20-million corporate spokesman who won't speak. "Protect me. . . . Don't let them ask me any questions," Jackson whispered Wednesday morning to a top executive from L.A. Gear, moments after the enigmatic pop star told a Hollywood Palladium full of reporters that he was "very happy" to be a part of the L.A. Gear team. By next spring, Jackson will be starring in L.A. Gear commercials. In the meantime he will help design and market a new line of L.A. Gear shoes.

With plans to hike the towering San Jacinto Mountains outside of Palm Springs, Suzanne Russell recently stocked up on sports equipment for the trip. During the recession, the avid hiker from Laguna Hills cut back on outdoor gear. But, encouraged by a strengthening economy, she visited a huge new REI store in Tustin, where she shelled out $100 on poles and $25 on shorts to pursue her favorite pastime. "I did cut back for a while but, then again, hiking is something you can do really cheaply," she said.

Here's a little secret about me: When I exercise, I sweat like oxen plowing fields in August. It's not pretty, and it doesn't make me smell good. In fact, I smell horrible. Actually, it's not me, but the clothes. After a workout, their musty eau de funky locker room aroma is so pungent that getting them into the washing machine requires a hazmat suit. I've been through the litany of laundry regimes.

After more than a century of girding the loins of American male athletes--and giving its name to those who wear it--the jock is slipping. Although the jock alone may be an endangered species, it's still issued by many college and pro teams. And protective cups, both hard and soft--with cup supporters that, with any luck, keep them in position--have never gone out of style in contact sports. But novel fabrics and designs have helped to create a new generation of athletic underwear.

This year's Summer Olympics may be remembered not only for demonstrations of athletic prowess, but also for the hurdles that Nike and Reebok surmounted as they peddled their sportswear from Barcelona. The footwear giants launched multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns, hoping to win the gold medal with consumers. Yet their quests for global recognition, like that of some Olympic athletes, encountered numerous challenges.

The father of a high school football player has admitted sharpening a buckle on the chin strap of his son's helmet before a game in which several opponents were cut, one badly enough to need 12 stitches. Stephen Cito said he did it because game officials had failed to penalize players for roughing up his son in an earlier game, the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday. Officials stopped a game Oct. 12 between St. Pius and Albuquerque Academy after five Academy players were cut.

It was Dick Klein, the NBC football director, who planted the idea in Betty Watanabe's head: She had to do something about those nose clips worn by synchronized swimmers. "A director gets fixated on them," Klein told Watanabe, who is director of U.S. Synchronized Swimming. "You have some of the most attractive female athletes, and that clip takes away from the beauty." Klein knew firsthand because he doubled as the director of NBC's coverage of synchronized swimming at the 1988 Olympics.

The officials who control Los Angeles County beaches thought that lifeguards should make a bolder fashion statement, the popularity of "Baywatch" notwithstanding. But a resulting deal with Izod has many lifeguards fuming this week over their new red, black and white togs, complete with the prominent logo of the clothing manufacturer. They say that the new uniforms are unprofessional and downright ugly, with their bold stripes and baggier fits.

Phil Mickelson's Ping is gone for now. The No. 2-ranked golfer in the world made it clear Wednesday that he wants his game to create the buzz, not his much-discussed wedge with the square grooves. In a preemptive move, Mickelson, the two-time defending champion of the Northern Trust Open, said he would not be using the controversial Ping Eye 2 when play begins Thursday. "I'm playing too well to get sidetracked here," he told reporters. "I've got a unique opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it without other distractions."

Scott McCarron says he's sorry he used the words "cheat," "Phil," and "Mickelson" in the same sentence last week. McCarron says he has apologized personally to Mickelson, the No. 2-ranked golfer in the world, and that they are now on the same side in all things having to do with golf clubs, grooves and even Ping Eye 2s, which are legal but only thanks to a legal loophole. Oh, and the controversial Ping Eye 2 wedge that Mickelson used last week? It's still in play. Welcome to the "groovy" Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club, where McCarron told reporters that he talked to Mickelson for 10 minutes Tuesday after a previously scheduled players' meeting.

Van Nuys sporting equipment maker Easton-Bell Sports Inc. has acquired lacrosse goods manufacturer Talon Lacrosse for an undisclosed amount, the companies said Monday. The deal will result in a new Easton Lacrosse division, to be based in Scotts Valley, Calif. The more than 2,000 employees at Easton-Bell produce equipment for sports including baseball, ice hockey, cycling and football. Talon founders Doug Appleton, Cort Kim and Blake Kim, who launched the private firm in San Carlos, Calif.

It's common for people to do a double take when they enter Ernest Debs Park in Bell. Children frolic on the grass field, teenagers play pickup basketball and people chat on benches. Then there is the cluster of treadmills, rowing machines and air walkers at the front of the park. City officials didn't know what to expect a year ago when they opened a free outdoor gym. But it's become a big success, drawing droves of residents in the working-class town who cannot afford gym memberships.

Board shorts, bikinis and flip-flops were again the dress code at the biannual Action Sports Retailer trade show. But unlike last September's subdued event -- hampered by buyers scaling back orders amid a deepening recession -- many companies were upbeat as they displayed the latest surf and skate styles and products for next spring and summer. "This year it's a hundred times better," said Christel Hathaway, North America sales manager for swimwear company Banana Moon USA, which by Friday afternoon had already signed about 40 orders -- more than three times its total from last year's show.

When the first snow fell last season, traveling by air with skis or a snowboard to a mountain resort was mostly just burdensome. Now it's become costlier. The changes in baggage policies in the last year mean, at the outset, that most all but elite fliers will pay for checked bags, usually $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second. And that's if it doesn't exceed the weight limits, which could be as little as 50 pounds.

The NCAA put the North Carolina State basketball program on probation Tuesday for two years because of violations involving the sale of complimentary tickets and sneakers during the past four seasons. The sanctions will keep the Wolfpack out of this season's NCAA or National Invitation tournaments.

Andre Agassi, who departed the Lipton International Players Championships after losing in the first round to Carl-Uwe Steeb, spent last week in Bradenton, Fla., at Nick Bollettieri's tennis camp. Agassi practiced with brother Phil and was trying to get used to a Donnay racket frame. Donnay is paying Agassi $6 million over five years to use its racket, which Agassi junked after losing to Tim Mayotte two months ago in the semifinals of the U.S. Pro Indoor Championships at Philadelphia.

A dispute over how Oscar De La Hoya wraps his hands for a fight grew contentious Friday before the Nevada State Athletic Commission said his taping method can effectively remain status quo. De La Hoya's tape man, Joe Chavez, uses two-inch-wide brown medical tape around his fighter's hands and then rolls up the tape between the fingers to help cushion what the De La Hoya camp describes as sensitive hands.

What do Wonder Woman, Superman, Catwoman and Michael Phelps all have in common? Well, they don't all have blazing speed in the 100-meter freestyle, although Catwoman probably has some decent fast-twitch muscles. They are all included in the ongoing exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy." Amidst all the men and women of steel and savvy happens to be a Phelps figure, wearing the Fastskin LZR Racer. World records are one thing.