All posts in Exercise

Fitocracy: Fitness Made Fun

by Alessio on April 26, 2012 in Equipment, Exercise with 5 Comments

Last week I discussed Runkeeper, a mobile app that makes fitness easier for geeks. I dug a little deeper and found Fitocracy, an app by geeks for geeks. The app’s founders were a pair of body conscious gamers who wanted to get into shape. Brian Wang was skinny, while his co-founder, Dick Talen, was overweight.

The pair now have eight-pack abs, and a booming fitness startup. Fitocracy initially started as a social fitness website in late 2010. Users can follow other members, members’ workout routines and various fitness groups. Like many current social networks, Fitocracy also has a news feed to follow the events of the members and groups the user follows.

The one thing that sets Fitocracy apart, however, is the gamification of fitness. Users are awarded points for their workouts, and because it integrates with Runkeeper, users can also get points for their runs. Users accumulate points which allow them to level up, earn badges and rank on a leaderboard. Once your workouts are complete and you’ve been allocated points, you can share your progress on Twitter and Facebook.

Since I’ve only started going to the gym lately, I decided to give Fitocracy a try. I’m lucky in the sense that I have two gym partners who keep me accountable and motivated, but that also gives me a chance to log my workout between sets.

I personally think that turning fitness into a game, with points, levels and quests is a win. Hitting the gym can be particularly daunting, but Fitocracy brings the challenge to the gym and gives you the opportunity to earn points.

The app is only available on iOS at the time of writing and it has a beautifully clean interface making it a pleasure to use. When entering an exercise to track, the application also gives the user instructions on how to perform that exercise. This is especially helpful for beginners who have joined the gym, gotten a workout routine, but aren’t exactly sure how to perform the specific exercise.

Fitocracy is a free application on iTunes.

WIN with Adventure Boot Camp

by Chris M on April 23, 2012 in Exercise with 1 Comment

Keep moving this winter with Adventure Boot Camp!

Winter’s approaching and we all know what happens.. we hide inside, we eat badly and we do very little exercise. It’s time to change that frame of mind and realise that the cold weather should not keep us from looking and feeling our best!

Ladies, I’ve got great news, Adventure Boot Camp for the Women is exactly what you need to keep fit and look great! But that’s not the good news, that good news is that they’re running a special, you can take part in 2 camps for one price, nationwide, between June and July! You want more information? No problem, click through to www.AdventureBootCamp.co.za and register or give them on a ring on 021 447 27 46.

COMPETITION TIME

iMod and Adventure Boot Camp are giving one lucky lady a one 4-week Adventure Boot Camp experience at any location nationwide! It’s really easy to enter, simply pop me an email on (removed) with the answer to this simple question along with your name:

Name one of the camp locations situation in the Cape Town area?

Please note: This camp does not form part of the Winter Special offer

Deadline for entries is May 7, 2012.

Introducing GymClassDj’s

by Chris M on March 30, 2012 in Exercise, Music with 2 Comments

More and more ‘geeks’ are heading to the gym these days. Initiatives like SleekGeek are fast gaining traction and encouraging those who sit behind desks all day to get off their asses and get to the gym.

In an effort to make those gym sessions more enjoyable, @yellowllama – a SleekGeek in training – setup GymClassDJ’s. Regularly updated with fresh music, the site aims to provide a steady stream of gym workout music for you to add to your iPod and take with you to the gym.

The current list includes music in the dub step, electro and trance genre’s with more to follow. Other local DJ’s are slowly but surely getting involved and will be submitting more stomping sets to keep you amped at the gym.

The sets are tailored to steadily increase in speed – starting at around 125bpm and working up to 130-135bpm. Each set is tried and tested before making it live so you’re guaranteed of some epic workout music.

The cost of the music is currently covered by GymClassDJ’s but there is a Paypal donate button which you can use if you feel the urge to give a couple dollars towards the purchase of new music.

Otherwise the music is all free so visit GymClassDJs.co.za now and grab your free gym workout music.

Back to salsa

by Chris M on January 10, 2012 in Dance, Exercise, My Life with No comments

So last night whilst I was at the Fire & Ice Hotel with a mate, he persuaded me to come back to salsa and that’s exactly what I did. It’s been well over 6 months since I took a salsa class and I’d forgotten how much fun it was – I had the time of my life this evening and am pumped up! No better feeling than mastering a move to the awesome salsa beats with a group of people who are just as eager.

I was lucky, my favourite type of moves are cuban moves and this evening we learnt a 4 step cuban move so I was in heaven, that music speaks to me and I find myself not counting or thinking about anything, just feeling the music and connecting with my partner – bliss.

So yeh, this is another thing I should add to my 2012 goals list – Attend salsa classes every Tuesday evening!

Here’s a quick video of some cuban styled salsa:

This fridge will help you lose weight!

by Chris M on January 10, 2012 in Exercise with No comments

It’s all about Smart Thinq technologies at the moment – Or at least LG think so with their new fridge that will help you lose weight. Smart Thinq technologies allow your mobile devices to connect with your home appliances, but in this case it’s a featured called Health Manager that we’re interested in.

Health Manager will assist you in building a personal profile, which will allow the software to compile and communicate meal plans, recipes and menus based on your weight, height, age and so forth. It goes one step further though, get this – you’ll be able to choose and send your shopping list to your phone, and then send recipes to an LG Smart Oven, which in turn will automatically adjust the cook settings.. haha, I kid you not!

Take a peak:

The Sleek Geek Challenge

by Chris M on November 14, 2011 in Exercise, My Life with No comments

I’ve mentioned the Sleek Geek Challenge before, “Other news includes an event called The Sleek Geek Challenge, which sees about 15 of us taking the next 6 weeks incredibly seriously from an exercise and eating correctly point of view. Each of us have chipped in R500, sent in before photographs and measurements, and the person with the most progress after 6 weeks gets all the money in the pool! I was going to do a blogger challenge to the same nature and have the first post drafted, but decided to drop that when I saw this as it would be easier for me to focus on results than running the whole thing. I look forward to the 6 weeks being over where I can look back at the before photograph and hopefully see a lot of progress made”. We’re now half way I think, or at least I have my forth weigh-in this Tuesday.

I started out as most people do, I wrote down my weight and measured it each week, but as I’ve been going I’ve learnt that weight’s really not the important thing to measure, it’s more about how you feel. Sure, I’ve lost a good few kilograms, which is really awesome, but I can feel myself toning more, I can feel myself getting fitter and I definitely look a lot more in shape (note: I’ve still got quite a while to go, so don’t expect a 6 pack pic, haha). What I haven’t done is re-calculate my % body fat, so I’ll do that next to see how that’s going.

I’ve cycled every single evening since the challenge started, excluding weekends and I started doing some simple home resistance training thanks to Brendon’s guidance. In the beginning I was just doing some situps and pushups, I’m now doing situps, pushups, lundges and I’ve got myself a set of 5kg weights to work my arms a bit more. I’ve also introduced the occasional jog before cycling, which absolutely kills me, but it gets the blood flowing and the heart going which I try to maintain afterwards when cycling. I’m also eating about 1000000000000000x better than before ;)

I put out a message on the Sleek Geek Challenge Facebook wall and I really meant it:

Exercise is really hard, creating the routine is even harder and without the support of my fellow challengers I don’t think I would have been able to do it, so I’m truly greatful to all of them and hope that they too are seeing a difference in their bodies and that we’ll all arrive at the end in smiles – if the prize money means nothing at the end, it’ll have been a success!

Oh, and another thing for me, my energy levels are way up, instead of feeling like I’m going to fall over at 22h00 in the evening, I’m still pumped to do things which is really important for me, so that’s an added win.

Are you exercising? Share your experience! :)

It’s okay to stare..

by Chris M on September 19, 2011 in Exercise, Humour with 1 Comment

Ok, so I nicked this one off a mate of mine, comedian extrodenaire, Peter aka Blade aka @solidgame. Had such a good laugh at it and thought it was rather cheeky and brilliant. Being a geek, I run into so many t-shirt designs and slogans and this has got to be one of the better ones that I’ve seen in a really long time.

So, what do you think: Continue reading →

Get behind the Coast2Coast challenge

by Chris M on July 20, 2011 in Events, Exercise with No comments

Following the death of 8 year old Sharks fan, Connor Bell, and his mother Gillian, in a car accident in Durban earlier this year, the Rugby Legends have
rallied in support of the rugby development trust formed by Connor’s father in memory of his son.

The Connor Bell Sports Trust aims to support the training of rugby coaches in underprivileged areas. “Connor was completely mad about rugby, and especially loved The Sharks. By forming this Trust we are able to keep his memory alive in a very positive and pro-active way. As a volunteer coach at his school, DPHS, I became aware of the need that exists to train coaches at schools in less affluent areas. We hope that the Trust will help develop the people who develop the
players.” – Jason Bell Coast2Coast for Connor.

Touched by Jason Bell?s commitment to his son?s love for sports, Philip Adamson, GM of the Royal Hotel in Durban, challenged his staff members, Connor’s dad and uncles, as well as some Rugby Legends to cycle from Cape Town to Durban to kickstart the Trust…and thus Coast2Coast was born.

These 11 friends of the family are doing something extreme to help raise R 1 million for the Trust by cycling from Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, through Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein, to ?nally arrive at Kings Park Stadium in Durban, on the morning of the South Africa vs. Australia Tri-Nations game on 13 August 2011.

kid
Jason Bell Philip Adamson, Mercia Basson, John Allan

The team will be cycling past as many rugby stadiums as possible over the 11 days, to pay tribute to Connor?s love and appreciation of the game.

You can keep track of the Coast2Coast challenge at http://www.coast2coastcycle.co.za, or make a donation via EFT with the details below:

Account: The Connor Bell Sports Trust
Bank: Standard Bank of South Africa Limited
Account number: 330 695 827
Branch: Musgrave Road
Branch code: 042626

Please use C2C as a reference

Another good cycle

by Chris M on July 17, 2011 in Exercise, My Life with 2 Comments

Yesterday I took my fiance for a ride through Keurboom Park and we thoroughly enjoyed it, so we decided to go again this afternoon, especially after all the champagne we consumed last night – had to burn off that stuff you know!

Anyway, we took it really slow as we had her puppy with us, it was amazing to see just how busy Keurboom Park gets, literally hundreds of people cycling, walking dogs, playing football, playing rugby, etc. Awesome vibe!

Here’s the ride:

Good Saturday cycle

by Chris M on July 16, 2011 in Exercise, My Life with No comments

I really want to start cycling more often, but during the week I can’t seem to find the time, so I make an effort every weekend to go for a good cycle, breathe the fresh air and exercise this body, mind and w.

I’ve just returned from a bit of a ride, took my fiance with for the first time and it was great to not being the only one whose butt is stinging and legs burning! We did a bit of a looped ride, in, out and around Keurboom Park and we even went through Rondebosch Boys’ High School, it’s probably been a decade since I was inside, it’s changed so much!

Anyway, here’s today’s ride:

← Older Entries