Professor Doug Richards from the University of Toronto covers the biomechanics of our muscles, joints and connective tissues, and covers these points:

• How much flexibility can be gained from stretching.
• Why sitting is so bad for your posture. Should you be stretching your lower back after you’ve been slouching in a chair all day? (Here’s a hint: no!)
• The effect of stretching on discomfort during exercise (starting at 31:15). Is it a good thing?
• Why cyclists and runners don’t want the same flexibility.
• Do you know why you’re touching your toes when you stretch your hamstrings? (37:00)
• Is stretching a health issue or a performance issue?
• Why do you have to walk so far to get your luggage in airports? (22:00)

I highly recommend paying attention to this one, even if you can’t help napping through your other lectures.

It’s more fun to document a problem than to solve it! So here are what I’ve guessed are the anti-rules of gym etiquette, based on what I really saw happening at my gym tonight:

1. When you are done using a swiss ball, please wedge it into the nearest exercise machine.
2. When you are done using a swiss ball, and there is no nearby exercise machine in which to wedge it, please leave it in the middle of the free weight area so that it can freely roll around.
3. When you are done using an exercise matt, please leave it where it is on the floor. That way it might still be there when you return next week.
4. When you are done using a pair of dumbbells, please leave them on the floor at your feet where you were standing. Others may want to stand in the same place and use the same weight.
5. If the floor is littered with too many objects and you are forced to return your dumbbells to the rack, please arrange the dumbbells in mismatched pairs. Others will appreciate the extra exercise gained while searching for matching dumbbells.
6. After you’re finished using a barbell, please leave all the weights on the bar. This is an opportunity for others to handle weights they’ve never attempted before.
7. When your aerobics or trendy boot-camp class finishes, swarm the free weight area as a group. Be sure to follow all the above rules while getting dangerously close to people who are lifting weights.
8. If you are in charge of the gym, and the comments box becomes full of complaints, feel free to discard the comments box.

If you have any ideas on how to restore some order to a gym that has descended into anarchy, I’d love to hear them.

But you can’t eat just any oatmeal, say the trainers. Those packaged oatmeal bars are loaded with sugar that defeats the purpose of eating them. Same thing with instant oatmeal. You need to be eating rolled oats or steel-cut oats that you cook yourself on the stove!

Well, I tried that for a few weeks. It’s disgusting. I tried adding applesauce, cinnamon, vanilla, banana, and frozen raspberries. I gave up. I’ve come to accept that I can’t stand eating oatmeal cooked on the stove.

So I decided to try baking oatmeal and eating it that way. After a few revisions, I’ve finally come up with a recipe that I find delicious! As a bonus, I added flavourless protein powder, turning a delicious snack into muscle food! Note that this isn’t a dessert. It tastes great, but it’s definitely not sweet.

Following is my recipe for what I call FitLogg Oatmeal Squares. Give them a try!

Ingredients

Dry ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats (large flake oats with cooking time of 10 to 15 minutes)
• 1 cup of any combination of the following: raisins, chopped dried apricots, unsweetened coconut, dried cranberries, any other dried fruit. (These ingredients provide the flavour and colour! Use more than 1 cup if you like.)
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds
• 2 tbsp flax seeds (optional)
• 1-2 scoops of unflavoured protein powder (optional)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:

• 2 cups skim milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking pan about 9″ by 12″ with parchment paper.

Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix some more. Fun!

Pour everything onto the parchment paper in the pan, and spread it all out evenly.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Take out of the oven. Pick it all up carefully using the parchment paper. Put it on the counter and cut it into squares while it’s still hot.

This is a very versatile recipe, so feel free to change it often. Try chopped peanuts, sunflower seeds, dried apples, vanilla flavoured protein powder, and any other healthy ingredients you can find in your grocery store. Share your ideas by leaving a comment!

Last weekend I experienced how much fun FitLogg’s goal feature can be. I had just finished an 8-week workout program, and was about to take a one-week vacation from the gym. (It’s always a good idea to take scheduled breaks.) I had some goals that I was getting close to achieving, so I didn’t want to take a break yet. So I added one final workout, a workout in which I would test myself against my goals.

In this workout, that I called a “goal day”, I wanted to achieve a new record in both the deadlift and bench press, since I had nearly reached my goals with them. I designed a workout that was fun and focused on those two exercises. It was a test to see whether my hard work on the 8-week program had paid off.

I got excited about it, as if I was going into an event for which I had been training, as if there was a prize to be won. Sure enough, I pushed myself hard to achieve the two goals, and succeeded! It was a memorable workout. The sore muscles and sweat-soaked clothes were reward enough, but seeing FitLogg reward me with multiple gold stars was pretty good for the ego too. I’ll definitely schedule some “goal day” workouts again in the future, and I’ll create more goals to test myself against.

Having the specific goals had a few effects on me:

• Even though I was allowed to take time away from the gym, I didn’t want to! Stopping before completing my goals was like quitting a video game right before finishing a level. How can you stop when you’re so close to finishing? Anyone who has stayed up way too late at night playing a video game knows how that feels. I used to have trouble motivating myself to get off my butt and get to the gym. That definitely hasn’t been a problem lately. Motivation is easy when success feels so close.
• Exercise became fun. Being at the gym wasn’t a chore on goal day. The workout was a challenge that I wanted to conquer.
• I learned that I can actually lift heavier weights than I had been using before. In the case of deadlift, I added 20 lbs to what I had previously tried. That’s a big jump in weight, or so I thought. It turns out that it was probably exactly the right weight for me. I expected it to feel a lot heavier. As a result, I’ll probably be more willing to put some extra iron on the bar in the future.

So, give goals a try. Create some specific goals and work towards achieving them. You’ll be amazed at how they’ll help you stay motivated. FitLogg has some gold stars it’s dying to give you!

When I decided to commit myself to a year-long exercise program (New Rules of Lifting), I also made the decision to change the way I eat. I didn’t want to waste all my hard work in the gym by eating garbage foods that would sabotage my efforts. Sadly, this meant that I needed to learn how to cook healthy meals. Cooking isn’t a hobby of mine. I’m not the type of person to have people over to eat my cooking. It doesn’t pain me to admit that my cooking isn’t worth showing off. For me, the best recipes are the ones that are easy and support my fitness goals.

So when I stumbled on a new CBC show called “Best Recipes Ever” on Monday afternoon, I was glued to the screen. First of all, I was shocked to be hooked on a cooking show. Second, I was shocked at how easy and practical the recipes were. The host, Kary Osmond, wasn’t trying to show off her mad cooking skillz, or wow us with innovative recipes and obscure ingredients. The episode I caught was called “Fridge Clean-Out Dinner“, so maybe she does get a bit fancy in other episodes. But this episode was exactly the type of cooking I wanted to learn.  Easy, fast, healthy, and with simple ingredients.

If you’re like me and want to learn to cook basic, delicious, healthy meals to support your workouts, check out the show on CBC in the afternoon. Better yet, go to the website and watch the episodes any time you want! (Who needs a TV anymore?) The Fridge Clean-Out Dinner episode is a great one to start with. There’s nothing better for learning to cook than by watching someone demonstrate it. Reading recipes online and in books isn’t as effective, in my opinion.

I made the Clean-Out-The-Crisper Creamy Soup last night, and it’s delicious! I added an extra potato to increase the calorie count and make it even more creamy.

Leave a comment if you know of any online video resources that teach cooking.

(Photo: “No soup for you!”, Bah Humbug)

The first time I heard of him was from his Death of Squats video. Squatting, that thing we do when we sit on the couch and get up from the couch, has gone out of style, apparently. All the people who have gotten stronger and built muscle by doing squats were wrong. They shouldn’t have done it that way. Now there’s a new way to get the same results, but better! Click Add To Cart to find out how!

Well, most people who go to the gym don’t like doing squats and don’t do them. So I guess that video didn’t enrage enough people into buying his book.

So the next step was to provoke everyone who does cardio: The Death of Aerobic Base Training. From the video, he says, “So what’s aerobic training good for? Nothing.” Elsewhere in the talk he admits that it’s good for getting better at running, swimming, cycling, and other distance sports. But apparently those aren’t good for anything. Let’s not forget that aerobic training is good for improving cardiovascular health, but again that doesn’t seem to matter to Boyle. Who cares about the health of my heart and lungs? No one can see those when I’m at the beach, so they’re useless. Let ‘em rot!

No wonder it’s so hard to get accurate and honest fitness and nutrition information. Marketing tactics are at odds with facts when there’s a product to push. Boyle’s actual message is probably more nuanced than the video lets on, but the marketing is a tad heavy-handed.

Saying that aerobic training is dead ignores the fact that there are people who enjoy aerobic exercise! They do it because it’s a form of exercise that they want to do, not because they’re forced to do it. Oh, and it’s good for them!

I’ve tried to do things that I was told are good for me many times. But if I didn’t enjoy them, then I didn’t stick with them, and got nothing in return. I want that time back! If someone enjoys aerobic exercise, and gets benefits from it, then aerobic training is certainly not dead.

(Photo: “Oh the struggle to be thin”, MoToMo)

Your Own Roadmap

A milestone in FitLogg, like in real life, is an action that marks an important stage of your mission for overall fitness. It’s a checkpoint, a little victory, and a time to party! In FitLogg, reaching a milestone means that you’re getting fitter. Different people enjoy different exercises, so our ideas of what “getting fitter” means will vary.

But a sure way to get nowhere is to perform at exactly the same level every time we exercise. Arnold didn’t get big by lifting the same 25 pound dumbbells day after day! Our bodies are adaptable things, and they need to be challenged. When an activity starts to feel easy, it’s a sure thing that our bodies have adapted and are no longer going to respond. The fat won’t melt off as easily, and the muscles will stop getting bigger and stronger. Creating milestone goals is a great way to keep your sights on the road ahead, to motivate yourself to keep pushing and getting results.

Read on for instructions and ideas for milestone goals.

Creating Your Roadmap

Setting up some milestones for yourself is easy. On the Goals page, click “New Goal »”. On the new goal page, you’ll see two types of milestone goals: Strength Milestone and Cardio Milestone.

Each of these forms works just like the forms you use when you’re logging a workout. You simply enter the name of the exercise for which you want to set a milestone, and then fill in the fields you want to improve on. You don’t have to use all the fields. Just fill in the ones you care to focus on. Let’s look at some examples.

Cardio Examples

Cardio exercises, like running and swimming, have many variables that you can strive to improve. You can set a goal to perform the exercise for a certain duration, over a certain distance, at a certain difficulty, to burn a certain number of calories, or any combination of them. Note that all of the values you set need to be surpassed for the goal to be achieved.

Here’s an example of a goal to run for at least thirty minutes and at least 2.5 miles:

Note that this isn’t a goal to run 2.5 miles in 30 minutes or less!

Other example goals:

“Run burning at least 300 calories”: a calorie-only goal is good if you don’t care how long it takes or how far you have to go to accomplish it.

“Jump-rope for at least 2 minutes, and at a difficulty of at least 15″: If you use the difficulty field to record how fast you spin that jump-rope, then this would be a great goal to push yourself to go really fast for two minutes. See how much space people will give you in the gym, you jump-rope fiend!

Strength Examples

I think it’s safe to assume that anyone who lifts weights wants to lift heavier than they do today. Who doesn’t like slapping an extra weight plate on a barbell and lifting the heaviest weight of their gym-going life! The strength milestone goal is about that, but also a little more.

Strength milestones are also composed of sets and reps. If you only fill in the weight field, then it is assumed that your goal is to lift a certain weight in a certain exercise only once. This will make sense in some situations, but most of the time it’s best to set a goal to lift a certain weight a certain number of times. The following are some examples.

This example goal reads “Barbell Bench Press with 135 lbs or more for 3 sets of at least 10 reps each.” It means that each set must have at least 10 repetitions each. You won’t get extra credit for doing 11 reps in one set, but only 9 reps in another. The milestone is not reached until the conditions are met exactly. So, setting a strength milestone with more than one set will force you to have some endurance with that heavier weight.

Here are some other examples:

“Deadlift with 225 lbs or more for 1 set of at least 1 rep”: Deadlift 225 lbs only once, with perfect deadlift form. This is a good goal if you are trying to reach a new one rep max.

“Squats with 135 lbs or more for 2 sets of at least 25 reps each”: This goal is all about endurance. If you want to improve your ability to handle major burning in your legs, this goal is for you.

“Push-Ups with body weight for 1 set of at least 50 reps”: This is a goal to do 50 push-ups. Note that the weight field is left blank when you create this goal.

“Ab Crunches with body weight for 1 set of at least 100 reps”: Do 100 crunches without rest. Just like the previous example, the weight field is left blank.

Set Your Milestones!

So those are the basics of the Milestone Goal. Have a look at your workouts and decide which exercises you should define milestones for. Give it a try and find out how motivating it is! Let me know what kind of milestone goals you’ve created by leaving a comment.

First Steps

If there’s one thing that personal trainers, coaches, fitness buffs, and gym rats can agree on (except for one outrageous exception), it’s that doing something is better than doing nothing. Being active is better for your health than being sedentary. To encourage this behaviour, FitLogg has a type of goal called the Workouts Goal.

The Workouts Goal is used to motivate yourself to make exercise part of your routine. It can be set in two ways: by setting the number workouts you want to perform per week, or per month. For most people, a weekly goal is best, since it encourages consistent, evenly-spaced exercise. But for people whose lives are full of commitments that get in the way of getting to the gym or going for a run, a monthly goal might be a better choice. Monthly goals are more forgiving of life interruptions, allowing you to stay motivated despite your erratic workout schedule.

For many people, just getting started is a challenging first step. So, the Workouts Goal is a great goal to start with.

Note that you can only have one workouts goal at a time, but it can be changed at any time.

Tracking Your Goal

When you have a workouts goal set, FitLogg will always show how you’re doing on the top right of the website when you’re logged in, underneath your avatar. There’s a little progress bar, and some text to remind you exactly what your goal is. Fill that progress bar every week or month, and celebrate! Maybe you have a little dance that you could do! Or not…

To see your full history for a workouts goal, go to your Goals page, and then click the workouts goal in your list of goals. You’ll be shown a list of each week/month that has passed, and a graph of the achievement in each week/month. This will give you a good idea of how active you’ve been.

But In Real Life…

Always keep in mind the needs of your body. Achieving your workouts goal every week or month might look good on a graph, but ultimately your goal is to be fit and healthy. So, keep a few things in mind:

1. Bigger numbers are not always better. A goal of 7 workouts a week isn’t better than 3 workouts a week. It all depends on what you’re doing. If your workouts consist of 30 minute walks, then 7 workouts a week is fine.  If your workouts involve strength training in the gym, then 7 days a week is probably way too many! Figure out what your definition of a workout is, and then come up with your goal. Be realistic with yourself.
2. Rest is important. The health benefits of exercise don’t happen during exercise, but during rest. Our bodies can only recover from exercise when we rest. If your workouts are strenuous, then you should plan to take a week or two off every four to eight weeks. While FitLogg might complain that you’re “failing” your workouts goal during these rest periods, who cares? It just means that the graph will show a few low points.  In fact, you should plan these low points in advance, and expect to see them in your graphs. I like to plan my rest periods to coincide with holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s nothing better than lots of food and relaxation to replenish the muscles!
3. FitLogg doesn’t know you. The only way to know how often and how intense your workouts should be is by evaluating yourself. FitLogg can’t do that. A personal trainer can help. But ultimately, you’re the one who needs to decide when to take it easy and when it’s ok to push towards achieving your workouts goal. A workouts goal graph with occasional drops is ideal.

So that’s the Workouts Goal. It’s a great first goal to set yourself on the path to better health. Once you’ve got a taste of success with this goal, you’ll want to try the Milestone Goals, which I’ll write about next time.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people (mostly men, I’m sure) who work out to gain weight. To some people, skinny is an insult. So FitLogg will include a weight gain goal as well.

Then there are people like me who don’t have a clear goal about their weight. My goal is to burn fat and build muscle. When I step on a scale, what do I want to see? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. Rather than measuring progress according to the number on a scale, I’d rather measure my waist size. If my weight stays the same, but my pants are looser around the waist, then I’ll be happy! So, some sort of “measurement goal” will probably be added to FitLogg too.

In practice, I don’t think that a weight loss/gain goal is critical. It might be very motivational, but by itself won’t help you to succeed. To lose or gain weight, you need an action plan. An action plan can be created with the milestone goals that FitLogg has today.

So, in the meantime, create a couple of milestone goals for yourself, and set the number of workouts you should be performing every week (a workouts goal). These goals help to define your action plan. If you can follow through on your action plan, the weight loss or gain you want will follow!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. How would you like to see a weight loss/gain goal implemented?

(Photo: “Scale 2″, peter_w, Germany.)

Who Am I?

I’m Neil, the creator and developer of FitLogg! Posting pictures of myself on the Internet isn’t how I get my kicks, so drawings will have to do. The picture on the left comes from an ad for jeans in an old comic book. Can you believe people used to buy clothes based on drawings of the clothes?  Amazing!

I’m a guy who likes making stuff, especially on computers. I got interested in programming on a Commodore 64 when I was a kid, and have been doing it as a profession and as a hobby ever since.

Why Did I Make FitLogg?

FitLogg started when I got home from the gym one day, sweaty and tired, and muttered to myself, “I have no idea what I’m doing. Am I wasting my time?”  Like most people, I was an off-and-on exerciser.  I rarely saw results from my efforts in the gym. My motivation to exercise typically lasted two or three months before I would give up.  I kept trying new things, without measuring what was working and what wasn’t.  So I threw together a simple iPhone web app for myself (and only for myself!) and started tracking my workouts.

About a year later, I had lots of data and could see that only a few things I was doing were giving noticeable results. Mostly, I was clueless.  I humbly conceded that I could not come up with workout routines for myself, so I bought a book called The New Rules of Lifting and started following that instead.  FitLogg showed me that suddenly I was seeing improvement in many areas, and has been a great tool to keep me motivated and excited about getting into shape.

Seeing how well FitLogg was helping me, I decided to put some serious time and effort into it.  I made it good enough to let other people use it, and that’s what you see today.

So, at first I built FitLogg for me, but now I’d be thrilled if other people used it. Are you using it?  What do you think so far?

I’ve got a lot more that I want to add to FitLogg, so stay tuned to this blog for news about new features.

Coming Soon on the Blog

Articles I plan to write include the following:

- What new features are planned?

- Tips on setting goals for yourself.

- Using FitLogg on the iPhone.

- and a lot more…

I might even talk about what I’ve learned about fitness so far, and comment on the latest fitness industry trends.  Come back soon and find out!