Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
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Let’s Talk about Apps
Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog about physical fitness. If you haven’t been here before, please check out my first, second, third, and fourth blog posts. These blog posts talk about problems that physical inactivity can cause, how good and bad sources of information available to you can impact your learning, how the Internet has affected our creativity and an outcome that comes from your search history, and debunking certain myths about physical activity. In this blog post, we will talk about apps that you can use to help you on your fitness journey. The 3 apps that I will recommend for you guys today will be Nike Run Club, MyFitnessPal, and Shopwell.
Application #1: Nike Run Club
This free app that is available for iOS and Android is called the Nike Run Club app. This app by Nike helps users track their runs, provides guided runs with a voice that gives motivation, and lets you compare and compete against your friends. Having used this app in the past, I would highly recommend this app due to its simplicity and ease of use. The interface has 5 different tabs. These tabs are the “feed” which provides different running tips and posts, “activity” which tracks your runs, “run” which is the main feature that you will be using while you run, “club” which lets you take part in different challenges and shows leaderboards, and the “running shop” which gives personalized recommendations for shoes and apparel to suit your running needs. This app is super useful because of these features. By being able to track your progress in real time and having the ability to look back on your progress, users are able to track their runs and hopefully see improvement. Despite the functionality of the app, looking at the icon, it does not give you the most extensive information about what the app does. Attached below is an image of the icon.
This app currently has 298,557 ratings with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5. This app is definitely high on my recommendation list and if you are ever interested in running, you should definitely download this app!
Application #2: MyFitnessPal
This free app by Under Armour lets users track their personal diet and exercise. Users can track their diet using different methods like using a manual search to find the different types of food you are eating, or even just taking a picture of the barcode of the food item. After finding the food, users can put it into a log that tracks what they have been eating. After using this app in the past, it gave me many different uses like providing information about the food I’m eating, teaching me about healthier ways to eat, and giving me an opportunity to make my own meals within the app. The last great thing about this app that will help users who are tracking their caloric intake is that after finding the food in their database, the application will give you the calories and macronutrients of the food which saves you time and gives very in-depth information about what you are eating. For some users however, these features may not be enough. Luckily for them, this app also has a premium version that gives more features like specific macro and micronutrient tracking. Looking at the icon, it gives you an idea of what the app does. For me, when I look at it, I get the sense that it is some sort of health application, but it does not provide me with anything specific about what it does. Attached below is an image of the icon so you guys can see what I am talking about.
Additionally, an added bonus of the app is it’s availability for iOS and Android with a high rating of 4.7 out of 5 and over 935,000 ratings. For an average user who just wants to know more about their diet and how to plan it, this app does a great job of being user friendly while also providing good information about what they are eating. As a result, if you want to learn more about your diet, this app would be my recommendation!
App #3: Shopwell
The last app that I want you guys to check out is called Shopwell. This free app made by Innit is available on both iOS and Android that helps users of all levels of fitness and health maintain a healthy diet. Shopwell helps users learn more about nutrition labels and helps them find new foods that are a potentially better fit for their goals. In the app, users are given personalized nutrition scores where they can create a food profile with their health goals, issues, and food dislikes. After making this profile, the next time the user goes out to buy groceries, they can scan an item’s barcode and they will be given simplified nutrition facts and also alternative options to help them reach the goals listed in their profile. Below is a picture of the icon.
Lastly, this app has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 with over 1.1 thousand reviews. If you are trying to promote a healthier lifestyle, I think this app is for you. By being able to take control over your nutrition, it will tremendously boost you on your fitness journey and this is one of the apps that I would recommend for you to do that with.
With technology becoming such an integral part of our society’s advancement, we should take advantage of all that it has to offer us and use it to help us along our fitness journey. Although people may be overwhelmed just by the sheer number of available apps, in today’s blog post I gave you guys three applications that I think will be helpful to starting and advancing your fitness journeys. Hopefully, after reading these blogs, you will become more motivated and have a better idea of how to start and maintain your fitness grind.
Let’s Play some Mythbusters!
Hello and welcome to my blog about physical fitness. In previous blogs, I talked about problems that physical inactivity can cause, how good and bad sources of information available to you can impact your learning, and how the Internet has affected our creativity and an outcome that comes from your search history. In this blog post, I will debunk some common myths about fitness and exercise so please join me as we learn more about the truth! These myths are a few of the ones covered and debunked by WebMD and in this post, we will look at some of the more important ones.
Myth 1: Running on a treadmill puts less stress on your knees than running on pavement
False: Although you are running on a different surface when running on a treadmill, your body weight is still the source of stress on your knees when you propel yourself into space while running. As a result, the stress is the same. Instead, variety can be used to decrease stress. Other cardio activities like a stationary bike and elliptical will reduce the impact on your knees helping you to stay active for a longer time.
Myth 2: Doing crunches or using an ab machine will get rid of belly fat
False: Even though doing crunches or using these machines can help strengthen your abdominal muscles, being able to see your abs has to do with your body fat. If you have a high body fat percentage, the amount of crunches you do won’t really change or target that so instead, you should incorporate exercises that include cardio and strength training that will help you lose overall body fat.
Myth 3: An aerobic workout will boost your metabolism for hours after you stop working out
True/False: This statement is true, but the amount of calories burned is not as much as most people would think. Even though you may be burning calories at a higher rate after exercise, the amount is only about 20 extra calories per day. As a result, the amount of calories burned is not statistically significant.
Myth 4: Swimming is a great weight loss activity
False: Although swimming is a great form of exercise for people with joint pain and can help people increase lung capacity or tone muscles, it is not the best form of exercise if you want to lose weight. Because the buoyancy of water helps to support you as you move, you won’t be working as hard compared to an activity like running where your muscles are working the whole time for movement and support.
Myth 5: If you’re not working up a sweat, you’re not working hard enough
False: Contrary to popular belief, sweating is just the body’s way of cooling off and it is not indicative of how hard you are working. As a result, it is possible to lose significant calories without sweating a lot.
Myth 6: As long as you feel OK when you’re working out, you’re probably not overdoing it
False: A big mistake that people can make when they start or return to working out is doing too much. Using how you feel at the moment is not the best indicator of how hard you are working. People tend to feel the effects of a hard workout a day or two later. This can be seen in effects like delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). As a result, you should always take it easier once you start or return to training in order to minimize the potential effects that the workout can have in the next few days in order to prevent significant setbacks.
Myth 7: Machines are a safer way to exercise because you’re doing it right every time
False: Most people may think that because machines are calibrated to only allow certain motions, it will help you do the exercise correctly every time. That is only true when the machine is properly set to accommodate your body. There are certain settings such as height that you have to adjust for in order to have a safe and effective workout, and if these things aren’t met, there is still a chance of hurting yourself.
Myth 8: When it comes to working out, you’ve got to feel some pain if you’re going to gain any benefits
False: This idea has tied in to the slogan “No pain no gain.” Although it is very normal to experience some soreness and stiffness in the days after a hard workout, it is different than feeling pain when you workout. Fitness activities are not meant to cause pain while they are being done and if it does, chances are that you are doing it wrong, or that you have an injury somewhere that is being aggravated by that exercise. If this is occurring, it is best to take a break from the activity and heal before you try again or the injury could be made worse.
And there it is! 8 fitness myths debunked. Because these myths are all debunked by one source, if you want to look into it more, a great source to look at is ACE fitness. It is an exercise organization dedicated to personal training, group exercise, and provides certifications for many types of fitness and exercise training. They also have a twitter @acefitness! As always, thank you for checking out the blog and we hope to see you on the next one!
How to be Safe in the Gym and on the Web
Hello and welcome to my blog about physical fitness and how to achieve that goal. If this is your first time visiting, please take a look at my past posts. Get fit don’t quit provides an introduction to the problems that physical inactivity causes and provides tips that you can follow to start your fitness journey, while is bad information stopping you from reaching your goals informs you about how good and bad sources of information available to you online can impact what you are learning.
In this blog post, we will talk about a coincidence that you may not have noticed before, but may start to see after reading this, provide you with some fitness and related internet safety tips, and then discuss how copyright and technology has impacted our generation. Now please think about this question: have you ever been on a social media site like Facebook and noticed that there were ads about physical activity programs after you were looking for ways to get more fit on Google? This is not a weird coincidence. According to a Ted talk from Jennifer Golbeck, sites like Facebook are able to store information about things you have liked or searched for on their site and then send that information out to companies that can send targeted ads. This means the things you look at online can leave behind information that companies can use to learn more about your behavior or to send ads targeting the things you are interested in so they can potentially make more money. Although these targeted ads may not be the worst case scenario, please keep in mind in the future that what you look at online is available for others to see, so practicing caution would be best in order to actually avoid the worst case scenario. Now that you are more aware of this issue, let’s talk about some ways that you can protect yourself in terms of your body and the internet.
Fitness tip: when you are learning a new exercise, you should always make sure that you are doing the exercise correctly so you don’t hurt yourself and you should have an idea of what you are working out to guide you along.
Internet tip: similarly to the fitness tip, when you are looking at information, you should always check the original source and the legitimacy of the site you are looking at to make sure that you are getting accurate information.
Fitness tip: with exercising, everyone has different opinions on which exercise works best. As long as you believe the exercise is safe and effective for you, don’t feel the need to conform and follow what other people are doing.
Internet tip: like the last fitness tip, try to find sources that you believe are accurate and reliable. The sites you use may not always be the same as others, but as long as you have done your due diligence in checking the original source, who’s to say that your source is worse than someone else’s?
Copyright notice: this blog post is meant to provide general information about ways to become more physically active and not meant to make a profit. Within this post, I have lots of information that I did not research and find out on my own, but I do provide links to the original source. In this blog, I will never plagiarize anybody else’s work without providing credit and I believe that you can also share this blog to provide information to others as long as you do the same. This blog post is meant to spread knowledge and teach others about a topic that may be intimidating and daunting in a friendly and safe way.
The last major topic that I wanted to address in this post relates to Lawrence Lessig’s Tedtalk. In his talk, a major point that he emphasized was how technology today has taken away our ability to figure things out. This is important because if this continues, our problem solving skills will eventually decline and we will have to rely on the internet to provide all our answers instead of being able to work through it ourselves. Now you may be wondering how this could possibly relate to physical activity. Say for example you hear about a new exercise from your friend and you want to go to the gym to try it out. These days, because information is so readily available, you won’t be able to work through potential issues, and build your way up to performing the exercise. Instead, you should try to practice the exercise yourself and use the information online as a guide to help you learn and master it.
Also, if reading is not the way you learn, I have other sources of information that you can always use. If you prefer a visual source, watch some of my videos at vimeo. I will also link my Instagram and Facebook. These platforms provide similar information to the blog with a focus on getting you to become more physically fit.
And as always, remember to:
Is Bad Information Stopping You From Reaching Your Goals?
In my last blog post, I talked about how physical inactivity can contribute to chronic health problems later in your life and provided some tips that you can follow to begin your fitness journey. Like all other health topics that are covered today, the topic of physical activity and how to best achieve that has an overwhelming amount of information providing things from the best workout to the benefits of exercising. While it is great that this information is accessible, and many resources for learning are available, not all resources are made equal. To get a better understanding of what websites to trust for information, this blog post will provide you with a list of sites that you should and should not trust.
Sites to trust:
This website is part of the American Heart Association and it provides helpful and accurate information on fighting heart disease and stroke. Exploring this site will show many different articles that provide a variety of information about ways to stay physically active for any type of person. Example topics that are covered by the articles include recommendations for physical activity for children and adults, how to know if your workout is working, and preventing injury while working out. Using this site is good for anybody who is trying to be more physically active at any skill and fitness level.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a website that works to provide information about how people can protect themselves from health threats. Their site on physical activity provides tons of information about the statistics behind physical activity, as well as, providing example exercise plans. This site however, gears more towards people who are just starting to work out and need either extra motivation to start, or a gateway to learn how to train. If you are an avid exerciser who has been doing it for awhile and knows what they are doing, this site would not be the best for you.
This website from the U.S National Library of Medicine provides information related to physical activity. What makes this site different from the ones before are that Medline also provides links to different articles from a variety of trusted sources that give information about different guidelines for fitness and how to achieve fitness goals. Examples of articles that are linked are guides to physical activity from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, physical activity basics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and tips to help you get active from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. This site is a great resource for many different people of different skill and fitness levels.
Sites to avoid:
This website provides users with many different functions and resources. It allows users to keep up with old friends, update a profile about themselves and their lives, and see what is going on in their area or in other places of the world. What this site is not good for however, is providing accurate information. Because this site allows anybody to share information, you can be linked to random articles or sponsored sites that a friend shares. As a result, although this site is great for keeping up with your friends, using this site to find accurate information is very difficult due to the over-saturation of random unreliable information.
This social media site works similarly to Facebook where users are able to look at content from their friends, as well as, explore other types of content related to things that they like. However, the unreliability of information from this site comes from the fact that it is user generated. Although an expert in the field may create an account to share accurate information, it is often lost in a sea of other accounts that share similar information and as a result, most users won’t be able to find that needle of good information in the haystack of bad information. This site is useful to find quick information that is relevant to your topic of interest but it remains difficult to distinguish between good and bad information due to the overwhelming amount of information.
Youtube is a video sharing website that allows for anybody to create and post videos on the platform as long as they have an account. The main reason why this site can share misleading information is similar to the other two sites listed previously. Because the content is user generated and shared, you will find an overwhelming amount of information related to the topic you are looking for, but all of that information may not be as reliable as a government website. As a result, this site provides quick and easy summarized information that relates to what you are looking for, but you should take that information with a grain of salt if you don’t think the content creator is an expert in the field.
The goal of this blog post was to give you a better idea of what types of sources you should look at for information about physical activity and what sources you should avoid when it comes to the same topic. If the information seems to be very unrealistic, in most cases, it is, and if the creator of that content does not seem legitimate, in most cases they are. When looking at sites from now on, be sure to be mindful of what type of site you are on and trust your gut when it comes to the information that is shared on the site.
Get Fit Don’t Quit!
Physical inactivity has become a huge problem in this day and age, affecting people of all ages. According to the CDC, in 2018, only 24% of adults met the guidelines for aerobic physical activity and muscle-strengthening activity. This is a problem because as people exercise less, they can develop conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. The issue is made worse because people are transitioning to a more sedentary lifestyle. Developments such as video games and social media have given people more distractions that can take time away from their days. In doing so, they have less time to spend to exercise. If this trend continues, it is scary to think about what people will have to do to adjust to a potential laundry list of physical and health problems.
Why should we care?
Physical activity is one of the best things that you can do to improve your long term health. From improving your mood, reducing chronic disease, to preventing early death, exercising just a little each day can go a long way in improving your quality of life.
Additional benefits for adults include:
- Lowers risk of high blood pressure
- Lowers risk of stroke
- Improves aerobic fitness
- Improves mental health
- Improves cognitive function
- Reduces arthritis symptoms
- Prevents weight gain
The goal of this blog is to encourage readers to make a behavior change in their lives and become more physically active. The great thing about physical activity is that it can be accomplished using many different methods, whether it is sports, weight-lifting, or running. This allows for personalization of your exercise routine to something that you yourself will enjoy. Doing so allows you to not only do something you enjoy, but to reap the benefits of physical activity and a healthier lifestyle.
For now, simple exercise goals that you can try out yourself are:
- To try one new exercise each month
- Work out at least 30 minutes a day 3 to 5 times a week
- Try to get better at the exercise you are doing whether it is improving your running time or increasing the amount of weight that you lift
Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.
You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.
Why do this?
- Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
- Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.
The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.
To help you get started, here are a few questions:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.
Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.
When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.
Derrick's Fitness Blog 