Was able to finish, though, so I'm not dead.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Quick One on Today's Workout
Had a date last night, so I got home a little late...slept through the alarm this morning...so did the workout on my lunch. Strength training session, and the warmup really jumped up a level for this one. Almost puked, got a little light-headed...kinda felt like this:
Was able to finish, though, so I'm not dead.
Was able to finish, though, so I'm not dead.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
On Kinect Nike+ Fitness (more) and Heart Rate Monitoring
I had some hiccups this week with the fitness program. Mainly that the game is FLAKY AS SHIT. It will lose connection to the Nike servers, which it needs to even start your workouts. Also, I had made a mistake when selecting my workout days. I had intended to pick Sun/Mon/Tues and Thurs/Friday. I had somehow picked Mon/Tues and Thurs/Fri/Sat. So, on the Thursday workout, before starting, I decided to fix that via an option on the menu. Except, when I did that, the program said 'Congratulations on finishing your first week of workouts'. The only way to fix this was to start a brand new program right from the fitness test.
So basically, by using the program's own option, it pretty much wiped out 2 days worth of workouts. Weird. Anyway, I just did a couple 'a la carte' style workouts that they had, and I restarted the entire program on Sunday. This time I picked the 'Get Lean' option, which is much more cardio-oriented. There are still a couple strength workouts, and one of the workouts combines strength and cardio, so I should be good here.
Also, at one point during a tutorial to teach you how to do a specific exercise, the audio just stopped. The fitness trainer guy's lips stopped moving. But he was still making these hand gestures like he was talking. It was weird. Being taught an exercise by an Ex-Football Player/Mime is just weird as hell. It came back for the next exercise, though, so that's good.
Also, starting this week, I decided to pick up one of those watch heart rate monitors, just to see what was going on with my heart rate while doing the workouts. I kept track on Sunday's workout and today's. I would have for Monday's, but I overslept and never actually did Monday's workout. Yeah, I suck. Bite me.
Anyway, I opted for the Sears special at 29.99, which was a good fit for me, because it doesn't have one of those freakin' chest bands, which I'm sure would never have gotten around my moobs (read: man-boobs) anyway. To measure your heart rate, you just push your finger against the metal bezel on the face of the watch, and it seems accurate enough.
Here are Sunday's readings (which, again, was the fitness test, because the game is FLAKY AS SHIT):
And here are today's readings (a full-on cardio workout):
So basically, by using the program's own option, it pretty much wiped out 2 days worth of workouts. Weird. Anyway, I just did a couple 'a la carte' style workouts that they had, and I restarted the entire program on Sunday. This time I picked the 'Get Lean' option, which is much more cardio-oriented. There are still a couple strength workouts, and one of the workouts combines strength and cardio, so I should be good here.
Also, at one point during a tutorial to teach you how to do a specific exercise, the audio just stopped. The fitness trainer guy's lips stopped moving. But he was still making these hand gestures like he was talking. It was weird. Being taught an exercise by an Ex-Football Player/Mime is just weird as hell. It came back for the next exercise, though, so that's good.
Also, starting this week, I decided to pick up one of those watch heart rate monitors, just to see what was going on with my heart rate while doing the workouts. I kept track on Sunday's workout and today's. I would have for Monday's, but I overslept and never actually did Monday's workout. Yeah, I suck. Bite me.
Anyway, I opted for the Sears special at 29.99, which was a good fit for me, because it doesn't have one of those freakin' chest bands, which I'm sure would never have gotten around my moobs (read: man-boobs) anyway. To measure your heart rate, you just push your finger against the metal bezel on the face of the watch, and it seems accurate enough.
Here are Sunday's readings (which, again, was the fitness test, because the game is FLAKY AS SHIT):
- Start: 114 (this seems high, but ok)
- After Flexibility Tests: 140 - these aren't really strenuous...just tests how far you can stretch.
- Mid Cardio Test: 171 - ok...this is getting high
- End Test: 193 - HOLY SHITSNACKS HOW DID MY HEART NOT EXPLODE THROUGH MY CHEST?!?!? (actually...I just say this because the watch said I was at 99% capacity. I'm not even sure how the watch knows my capacity. We're not friends or anything. We've never hit a TCBY together. Actually, I've never been to a TCBY. I'm a man. Men don't eat frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt is like Soft-Serve's whackadoodle red-headed cousin that everyone knows is in the family, but no one acknowledges. And I'm assuming my heart-rate capacity, but I mean, the watch already seems to assuming a bunch of shit about me. Maybe it's my capacity to eat chicken wings. Or my capacity to watch all those horseshit 'reality' shows on TLC and the history channel about rednecks doing redneck-y things. Which if that is what the watch is considering, it's sorely mistaken. My capacity for that is around 9. Or blue. Or whatever the scale is for that. Where was I? Oh yeah. Me and the watch are not 'bros'.)
And here are today's readings (a full-on cardio workout):
- Start: 78 (this seems more in the realm of reality)
- After Warmup: 174 (as I said before, the warmup is pretty strenuous)
- After 1st Round: 180 - interesting, I'm staying pretty stable here...this is good
- After 2nd Round: 177 - Wow, so...basically...I kept my heart rate in the 170-180 range for a solid 25 minutes. That's good, right?
- Finish: 146 - this is after a couple minutes of stretching, or what I call "Things Jason does while sitting to injure his groin".
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
On Resolutions, Nike+ Kinect Fitness Training, and Whatever Other Horseshit Pops Into My Mind
This is probably going to ramble, I apologize in advance.
Let's start with resolutions. I'm 36. I've made tons of new year's resolutions in my life. Some I've held on to. Most, however, have fallen by the wayside for whatever reasons I used to justify that in my mind.
Here's the thing, though. In my opinion, resolutions are stupid. They just are. For me, anyway. That doesn't mean they don't work for other people. Personally, I'm starting to think they're asinine. I'm not going to sit here and say "In 2013, I'm going to lose 50 pounds, cure cancer, and learn to speak Pashto". It's not happening.
So I'm not laying one down. I'm doing something else. From now on, for conscious decisions that aren't of the "should I wear gloves today" variety, I'm going to do something simple.
I'm going to ask myself "Does this make me better?" That's it. I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to change my decision based on the outcome of the question. I'm just going to ask the question. Sometimes it'll affect my decision. It already has a couple times since I've started. I'm willing to bet that as time goes by, it'll change my decision more and more often.
So, yeah, I guess that's my new year's resolution.
Now, I want to talk about Nike+ Kinect Training. I've had Kinect for Xbox360 for quite awhile now, and it's been gimmicky at best. The Dance Central and Just Dance games are fun for the kids, but 90% of the tunes in those games are not in my wheelhouse.
I've taken a break lately from working out, I'm not going to make any excuses, I've been lazier than I've been ambitious. The problem is, I don't have a treadmill anymore (that's a story for another time), exercise bikes are OK once in a while, but not regularly (boooooring), and with my daughter moved out, half the days of the week I can't take off to a gym or for an outside run, as I can't just leave the boys home alone. Not yet, anyway, once the older one has another year or so, maybe. But not now.
I could start back up into the Chalean Extreme program, but it just didn't appeal to me anymore.
I did, however, find Nike+ Kinect Training. I snagged it this past weekend, and started it up Sunday. It uses the Kinect to track your movements while you do them, to make sure your form is correct, etc. It's actually pretty ingenious.
The first day of a workout program, you do a fitness test. This has you do a bunch of plyometric type exercises and strength exercises to set your Nike+ Fuel score (at least, that's what I think it was called). You get a fitness score and athleticism score based on how you do. Once you finish that test, which is really damn strenuous in itself, you get your score, and can begin creating a workout plan. You're given three options, Strength, Toning, or Weight Loss. I picked Strength, just based on personal preference. Then you pick what days of the week you want to work out (I picked Sun-Mon-Tues, Thurs-Fri). Based on your choices, it creates workouts for you.
For those workouts, the ones it picked for me average between 22 and 25 minutes (30 minutes including warmup and cooldown periods)...perfect. I didn't even tell it to do that. And the workouts are strenuous. They're very plyometric-flavored, I would say. Especially the dodgeball one, which is a riot. You have to avoid dodgeballs. Shit-tons of them. Constantly. For 60 seconds. Then you get a break, and go back to it. It's actually a stupid amount of fun. If someone were looking in my windows without seeing the screen, they'd probably think I was a complete dipshit. It was awesome, though.
Also, if you're an Xbox Achievement whore...this has 'em too. I'm not going to lie, I've gotten a few already, and they kind of jack you up mentally. Especially when you hit one in the middle of a workout. During a warmup, I got an achievement for beating my personal record. For jumping jacks. There was still about 5 seconds or so of them left to do. When I got that achievement, I completely spazzed out and started trying to crank out as many jumping jacks in the remaining time as I could. Well played, Nike, well played.
But here's the rub. You need space for this game. Lots of space. Just...huge amounts of space. Probably at least 8 feet back from the sensor, with 10 feet available side-to-side at the 8 foot mark. So yeah...you need space. I had to completely re-arrange the living room.
Ok, that's all for now.
Let's start with resolutions. I'm 36. I've made tons of new year's resolutions in my life. Some I've held on to. Most, however, have fallen by the wayside for whatever reasons I used to justify that in my mind.
Here's the thing, though. In my opinion, resolutions are stupid. They just are. For me, anyway. That doesn't mean they don't work for other people. Personally, I'm starting to think they're asinine. I'm not going to sit here and say "In 2013, I'm going to lose 50 pounds, cure cancer, and learn to speak Pashto". It's not happening.
So I'm not laying one down. I'm doing something else. From now on, for conscious decisions that aren't of the "should I wear gloves today" variety, I'm going to do something simple.
I'm going to ask myself "Does this make me better?" That's it. I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to change my decision based on the outcome of the question. I'm just going to ask the question. Sometimes it'll affect my decision. It already has a couple times since I've started. I'm willing to bet that as time goes by, it'll change my decision more and more often.
So, yeah, I guess that's my new year's resolution.
Now, I want to talk about Nike+ Kinect Training. I've had Kinect for Xbox360 for quite awhile now, and it's been gimmicky at best. The Dance Central and Just Dance games are fun for the kids, but 90% of the tunes in those games are not in my wheelhouse.
I've taken a break lately from working out, I'm not going to make any excuses, I've been lazier than I've been ambitious. The problem is, I don't have a treadmill anymore (that's a story for another time), exercise bikes are OK once in a while, but not regularly (boooooring), and with my daughter moved out, half the days of the week I can't take off to a gym or for an outside run, as I can't just leave the boys home alone. Not yet, anyway, once the older one has another year or so, maybe. But not now.
I could start back up into the Chalean Extreme program, but it just didn't appeal to me anymore.
I did, however, find Nike+ Kinect Training. I snagged it this past weekend, and started it up Sunday. It uses the Kinect to track your movements while you do them, to make sure your form is correct, etc. It's actually pretty ingenious.
The first day of a workout program, you do a fitness test. This has you do a bunch of plyometric type exercises and strength exercises to set your Nike+ Fuel score (at least, that's what I think it was called). You get a fitness score and athleticism score based on how you do. Once you finish that test, which is really damn strenuous in itself, you get your score, and can begin creating a workout plan. You're given three options, Strength, Toning, or Weight Loss. I picked Strength, just based on personal preference. Then you pick what days of the week you want to work out (I picked Sun-Mon-Tues, Thurs-Fri). Based on your choices, it creates workouts for you.
For those workouts, the ones it picked for me average between 22 and 25 minutes (30 minutes including warmup and cooldown periods)...perfect. I didn't even tell it to do that. And the workouts are strenuous. They're very plyometric-flavored, I would say. Especially the dodgeball one, which is a riot. You have to avoid dodgeballs. Shit-tons of them. Constantly. For 60 seconds. Then you get a break, and go back to it. It's actually a stupid amount of fun. If someone were looking in my windows without seeing the screen, they'd probably think I was a complete dipshit. It was awesome, though.
Also, if you're an Xbox Achievement whore...this has 'em too. I'm not going to lie, I've gotten a few already, and they kind of jack you up mentally. Especially when you hit one in the middle of a workout. During a warmup, I got an achievement for beating my personal record. For jumping jacks. There was still about 5 seconds or so of them left to do. When I got that achievement, I completely spazzed out and started trying to crank out as many jumping jacks in the remaining time as I could. Well played, Nike, well played.
But here's the rub. You need space for this game. Lots of space. Just...huge amounts of space. Probably at least 8 feet back from the sensor, with 10 feet available side-to-side at the 8 foot mark. So yeah...you need space. I had to completely re-arrange the living room.
Ok, that's all for now.
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