Great Fit­ness iOS Apps

Posted on May 3, 2011 by The Average Joe

Fitness Apps for your iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad

Fit­ness Apps for your iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad

If you’re like me, you’re always look­ing for new apps to help with your work­outs and gen­eral fit­ness. Here’s a list of some of my favorite iOS apps for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Tap & Track — A food jour­nal (or diary or log or what­ever you want to call it) is imper­a­tive whether you’re look­ing to lose weight or try­ing to put mus­cle on. I’ve tried a few and Tap & Track is my favorite. There are both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch ver­sions. If you have mul­ti­ple devices there is a sync fea­ture. It comes loaded with scores of dif­fer­ent foods from brands and restau­rants as well as dif­fer­ent types of exer­cises so you can keep track of both your calo­rie intake and out­put. Tap & Track is devel­oped by Nanobit Soft­ware.

Weight Bot — A cool lit­tle app for your iPhone/iPod touch to keep track of your weight and mea­sure your progress. You’re able set a goal weight and date. It also cal­cu­lates a trend line. Weight Bot is devel­oped by Tap­bots.

Fit­ness Tracker 90 CE — Look­ing for a way to get rid of those work­out sheet print­outs and use your iPhone or iPod touch instead? Fit­ness Tracker 90 is exactly the way to do it. Set your work­out whether it’s P90X or P90X+, Clas­sic, Lean or Dou­bles. Set the start date then check the cal­en­dar and record your reps and weight used for that day’s work­out. Since this is for your iPod or iPhone it makes an easy com­pan­ion for those on the go. The cur­rent ver­sion is cus­tomiz­able and forum posts from the devel­oper, Steve Chen, say that the next ver­sion will be much more cus­tomiz­able. The developer’s web­site can be found here. I’m def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to ver­sion 1.3.

Num­bers — Mac users are prob­a­bly very famil­iar with Num­bers, Apple’s answer to Excel. It’s a spread­sheet pro­gram that also has an iPad coun­ter­part. One of the fea­tures allows you to trans­fer spread­sheets between your Mac and your iPad. This would be for any­one with an iPad that wants to build their own set of elec­tronic work­out sheets.

I don’t have an Android device, so I can’t com­ment on any fit­ness apps avail­able on that platform.

Posted in Featured, Fitness, Popular, Workout | Tagged iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch | Leave a comment

Is The Per­fect Situp For Real?

Posted on April 30, 2011 by The Average Joe

The Perfect Situp

The Per­fect Situp

A few years ago I asked the same ques­tion about The Per­fect Pushup. I had said how the infomer­cial caught my eye and I had to try it out. Three years later I’m still using The Per­fect Pushup and it’s a key part of my work­out rou­tines. I’ve inte­grated it into my P90X work­outs and use it in place of the Power Stands that Beach­body pitches.

My abs are the most neglected mus­cles on my body. This isn’t because of a lack of ded­i­ca­tion or the lack of avail­able work­outs either. It’s due to injury. I live in the Mid Atlantic United States and any of you that do as well are quite famil­iar with the snow and ice storms dur­ing the win­ter. Back when I was a kid I slipped on a patch of ice and fell right on my tail­bone. To this day there are still some lin­ger­ing effects. It really starts to bother me after sit­ting in a seat in a movie the­ater or on an airplane.

Now what does that have to do with my work­out you ask? Just about any exer­cise that works the abs is a lit­eral pain for me. Sit ups, crunches, you name it. I’ve also tried every­thing. I’ve bought extra padding for the floor and it doesn’t work. Any­thing that rolls over or puts pres­sure on my tail­bone seri­ously hurts. If you look back you’ll see that Ab Rip­per X is the one P90X work­out I’ve never really dis­cussed. I keep try­ing to give it a go, but don’t get very far.

When I saw the Per­fect Situp, I thought I’d give it a try since I’ve really, really like the Per­fect Pushup. The Per­fect Situp solves the two prob­lems most peo­ple have with sit ups and crunches, lower back sup­port and neck sup­port. For me per­son­ally, when using it there is no pres­sure put on my tailbone.

For those who haven’t see the web­site or the infomer­cial, the Per­fect Situp con­sists of a main cush­ioned plas­tic body that you lay on. From that there is the main back blade that comes out of the top and con­nects the main body with the head­rest. The head­rest has a soft cush­ion that pro­vides the neck sup­port as well as han­dles for per­form­ing the exer­cises. Attached at the bot­tom are two leg blades. At the other end of the leg blades are stir­rups for your feet.

The back blade and the leg blades are what pro­vides the resis­tance for the exer­cises. The base pack­age con­tains the first level resis­tance blades. Sec­ond and third level resis­tance blades are also available.

Included with the Per­fect Situp is a work­out chart illus­trat­ing the dif­fer­ent exer­cises that can be done to work the dif­fer­ent parts of the mid­sec­tion. This shows you how to use it to go beyond just sit ups and crunches.

Over­all, the Per­fect Situp is a great prod­uct. The man­u­fac­tur­ing qual­ity is high. The head­rest pro­vides great neck sup­port that helps pre­vent strain. It allows me to do ab exer­cises with­out putting pres­sure on my tail­bone. Is it a must have for every­one, prob­a­bly not. For those look­ing for some­thing help relieve dis­com­fort when doing ab exer­cises, this will prob­a­bly help. My one com­plaint about it would be that I wish the first level resis­tance blades pro­vided more resistance.

Posted in Exercise, Featured, Workout | Tagged Abs, Crunches, Sit Ups, The Perfect Pushup, The Perfect Situp | Leave a comment

P90X One On One, Chest, Back, and Balls

Posted on April 25, 2011 by The Average Joe

Chest Back and Balls cover Pushups on Medicine Balls

Pushups on Med­i­cine Balls

This is my first full post on the P90X One on One series of work­outs. It’s actu­ally the third vol­ume of One on One work­outs Tony Hor­ton has done but the first to carry the P90X name. What makes this one dif­fer­ent is that it’s actu­ally a trial for the exer­cises and rou­tines to be used in the suc­ces­sor of P90X which will be called P90X:MC2. The MC2 stand­ing for Mus­cle Con­fu­sion 2.

Last sum­mer my work­outs were start­ing to get a lit­tle stale and I was look­ing for some­thing to freshen it up. I was read­ing about how some were doing P90X/Insanity hybrid work­outs and was think­ing about going in that direc­tion. I’m still think­ing of doing that in fact and may go down that road real soon. When I found out about the new One on One series I decided to sign up for it. I get billed monthly and get a new disc each month to cycle into my routine.

Chest, Back, and Balls is the first disc in the series just like Chest and Back is the first disc in the orig­i­nal P90X. Through­out using these new discs, I’ve found myself mak­ing the com­par­isons back to the orig­i­nal. This work­out is very much like the orig­i­nal in that it alter­nates between pull ups and pushups, but it also kicks it up a few notches by adding med­i­cine balls and sta­bil­ity balls.

Doing pushups on med­i­cine balls works so many more mus­cles than just reg­u­lar pushups. Your arms are used more as you work to keep your­self sta­ble as you do the exer­cise. With this rou­tine you’re also doing the pushups with your feet wide. This engages and works your entire core. There are also exer­cises where you are doing pushups on a sta­bil­ity ball. They’re harder than they sound and work more that you real­ize. I def­i­nitely feel it a few min­utes after fin­ish­ing my reps. This is no easy work­out and if you told me just a few years ago that I would get to a point where I could do pushups on a sta­bil­ity ball, I would have told you that you were nuts. The pull ups also take it up a few lev­els. Exer­cises like Lever and Core Crunch Chin Up also work the entire core area.

This 60 minute rou­tine will work you. I know it does for. It doesn’t kick my ass like Core Syn­er­gis­tics used to. I’m just com­pletely spent by the end.

Posted in Featured, P90X, Workout | Tagged Chest Back and Balls, One on One, P90X, P90X:MC2 | Leave a comment

Work­out Tunes

Posted on April 20, 2011 by The Average Joe

Besides being a work­out fanatic, I’m also a technophile and I’m not that sur­prised that I really liked the movie TRON Legacy. It’s a really enter­tain­ing movie and Olivia Wilde didn’t hurt either. The sound­track for the movie was from Daft Punk and it fit really well with the movie. You know how some­times the music used in movies feels forced or arti­fi­cial? Not here.

TRON Legacy Soundtrack is great for a workout

The TRON Legacy Sound­track, great for a workout.

Now I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of Daft Punk and the whole elec­tronic or techno scene. I’m more of a rock and metal fan with Metal­lica, Dream The­ater, and Dis­turbed mak­ing up much of my work­out playlists. But after watch­ing TRON Legacy the music stayed with me and I ended up buy­ing the sound­track. I’ve found it makes a great work­out playlist. Tracks like Arena, Derezzed, End of Line, and TRON Legacy (End Cred­its) really get the adren­a­lin pump­ing for me. If your look­ing for some new tunes to add to your work­out playlists, I highly rec­om­mend check­ing out these.

Posted in Featured, Workout | Tagged soundtrack, TRON Legacy, tunes, Workout | Leave a comment

Wow, just wow.

Posted on April 15, 2011 by The Average Joe

Holy shit! Has it really been about 18 months since I last posted here? Well, after a long break I’m back.

I’m still rock­ing P90X among other things. In fact, I sub­scribed to Tony Horton’s lat­est round of discs, “P90X One On One”. What can I say, I’m a brand loy­al­ist and that’s not just with Beach­body prod­ucts. I’ve got a Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, and now an iPad. Yes I’m an Apple junkie. My last few cars have been from the same dealer. As a cus­tomer all I ask is treat me well and I’ll be back.

Any who, back to the real point of this post. I really like the pace of the One On One discs. They just seem to move a quicker pace. What’s also really cool about the lat­est vol­ume of the One On One series is that these are the tri­als of what will be the next ver­sion of P90X which they announced is com­ing this fall. It’s a beta of sorts and very cool. I’ll talk more about it in more detail.

I’ll talk to you soon and I promise it won’t be 18 months from now.

Posted in P90X, Workout | Tagged One on One, P90X | Leave a comment

P90X, Day 92 — X Stretch

Posted on November 8, 2009 by The Average Joe

P90X X StretchDid you ever sleep the wrong way and when you woke up your back or neck is just stiff and sore? Yep, hap­pened to me this morn­ing. I woke up with a sore back and when I got out of bed I could feel my lower back tighten up. I don’t know exactly what I did in my sleep, but it was sore when I woke up.

Today was sup­posed to be Ply­o­met­rics and I tried to do it this morn­ing, but with my back feel­ing that way that work­out was a no go. I decided to go with X Stretch, some­thing seri­ously less intense just to get my body mov­ing and to hope­fully loosen up my back. The three Sun Salu­ta­tions in the begin­ning of the rou­tine didn’t feel too great at first, but sev­eral of the stretches helped.

As I write this, I’ve got a heat­ing pad on my back and expect it to be fine for tomor­row morn­ing and Shoul­ders and Arms. I’ll do Ply­o­met­rics later this week.

Posted in P90X, Routine, Workout | Tagged P90X, Plyometrics, Shoulders and Arms, X Stretch | 4 Comments