Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iTS, iTunes
TUAW Resolutions: Get in Shape
Looking to get in shape in 2007? Your new iPod makes a great workout companion. Yes, you still have to "just do it", but your iPod can help you "do it" if you let it.
Consider the Nike+iPod sports kit. It lets you track your training progress in real time by connecting a transmitter in your sneakers to a receiver on your iPod nano. This is great for people who want to start easy and work on pushing themselves a little at a time towards more and more progress on their goals.
Tangerine from the Potion Factory is another great workout tool. It allows you to build workout playlists from the music in your iTunes library, creating training sets at either a steady BPM or using BPM profiles that ramp up and down for interval training.
You can also download any number of training podcasts that provide a personal electronic trainer. Here are some of my favorites, both with and without coaching.
Marina's Walking and Aerobics Marina offers 10-15 minute workout sets that range from 126-150 bpm. The free samples available at the iTunes link are pretty lame. You have to go to her website to purchase and download actual work-outs. You put together four or five of them and you get a full hours' workout. Marina is a love-her or don't-love-her phenomenon. I personally love her style, her reminders to breathe, her focus on walking for fitness. If you like the music but not the coaching, you can purchase the workouts without instructions.
Podrunner Great music at varying BPM, running about an hour each in length. Fantastic stuff, easy to work out to. No coaching or voice-overs, though. If you're looking for nicely paced high intensity music, this is the podcast to turn to.
My Pod Bod This is a mix of audio and video how-tos, including coached exercises and interval training. The audio sessions run about twenty minutes and the video how-to's are just a few minutes in length.
Muscle Audio Workouts David Greenwalt's "world class" muscle workout training involves weight lifting and resistance training. I find these work best over speakers so your headphones don't get tangled in the equipment.
Workout On The Web Short how-to video fitness info. Good reference material.
Fitness Attack Amy McIntyre's 60-second fitness inspirations. For when you're looking for a little fitness boost in your life.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pete Rock said 11:38AM on 12-26-2006
First post? My newyears resoluton will be about 300 dpi in the beginning and willg scale down to a fuzzy 72 as the night progresses.......I give you the best in lame ass nerdy jokes, no?
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Pete Rock said 11:41AM on 12-26-2006
First Post? My resolution will start off @ 300 and go down to a fuzzy 72 as the evening wears on....... Nothing but the best lame ass printing nerd jokes here, right kids?
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Craig said 8:43PM on 12-27-2006
Something else you can do: develop your own workout using, say, exrx.net, then use Voodoo Pad to export the workout (i.e., which machines to use on a given day) as notes on your iPod.
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Jdoe said 7:11AM on 12-27-2006
Lose weight? Hey, I just lost 25 pounds by cutting soft drinks from my diet! No more Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Coke, etc. Those suckers are 380 calories a can! The sugar alone is very high.
Exercise? Heck just get up and move around more. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park farther away and walk more. My wife likes those dance video workouts and they burn a lot of calories without a lot of physical stress.
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Charles said 5:20PM on 12-26-2006
I lost 55 pounds exercising with my Nike+iPod and let me make a few recommendations:
1. Avoid in-ear isolator headphones while jogging, models like the Etymotic seal the inner ear and makes your ears pop with every step, this can damage your hearing. Use the regular iPod headphones.
2. I prefer audio books while jogging. It is hard to create a music mix that is appropriate to your walking or running pace, your steps naturally fall in sync to the music, I found this to be a huge distraction. I think it is easier to attain a natural pace when listening to spoken word files like audio books or podcasts.
3. You do not have to run with the Nike+iPod, you can walk and it will accurately record your distance. The Nike+ unit has two calibrations, one for your walking pace and a different one for your running pace. Brisk walking is sufficient exercise to lose weight.
4. Start slow, do not overdo it. Fitness is a long term goal, most people burn out quickly from overexercise and injury. I recommend the Aerobics system by Dr. Kenneth Cooper. His program is tailored to your age and physical condition, and will slowly bring you up to speed, in a variety of different exercises (like walking, swimming, bicycling, etc). I used his program and lost tons of weight just walking 45 minutes every other day.
5. Exercise will improve your fitness, but if you want to lose weight, you will have to diet too. "The Hacker's Diet" is a popular introduction to dieting, you can read it free on the web.
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Mike Kaspari said 8:11AM on 12-27-2006
Ahh Tangerine. A truly great concept with one hidden flaw, and its a big one. It can't read Apple's DRM protected music. This factoid is hidden in the bottom drawer of the site behind the link that says "Beware of the Leopard". So if the bulk of your Itune's catalogue is from our favorite music store, you might want to reconsider Tangerine.
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Rob said 6:07PM on 12-26-2006
Does anyone have a recommendation for an application (or excel template) that can log workouts (i.e., distance, duration, description, etc.)?
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Workout CD said 8:36PM on 12-26-2006
These are nice but what if you don't want to listen to cheesey disco remixes or played out songs that come on mtv, the radio, etc? www.WorkoutCD.com should be on this list. The site is described as Downloadable High Energy Workout Music. They're having a big end of the year sale on their electronic fitness mixes.
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Steve Boyett (dj steveboy) said 4:20PM on 12-27-2006
Thank you so much for including Podrunner in your recommendations! It was a great year, and 2007 will bring a lot of growth and change. Hapy New Year!
And for "Workout CD," does it really help your promotional self-interest to (inaccurately)put down someone else's work. Podrunner -- NOT cheesy and NOT disco, but professional mixes of modern electronic dance music -- has managed to stay on top of iTunes for the better part of a year without having to stack up any bodies to give it a lift. Rather than question someone else's merits, I'm more than comfortable letting my own merits speak for themselves. Happy New Year!
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Roy Kamen said 9:56AM on 12-28-2006
Marina, www.marinaonline.com, actually writes all the music on her workouts. She was one of the first aerobic instructors dating back to 1980 and has lost over 100 pounds after the birth of her 3 kids. She also has 1/2 hour workouts and will be featured on treadmills in clubs all over the country.
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