iFit

We have this absolutely amazing gym downstairs in the basement which Desney rebuilt and designed. She fixed the walls, sealed the leaks in the cement floors, repainted everything and set everything up.

We have rubber gym flooring we laid down; she has a step she uses for exercising.

I, of course, put in a computer and a big 19" screen on an arm out of the wall. Desney uses it for watching exercise DVDs for her workout. I also put in some speakers so we can listen to sound coming from the computer and, more importantly for me, music coming out of our iPods.

We've got a big weight bench we've had for almost as long as we've been married (it used to be in our bedroom) and a reasonable collection of free weights.

And we've got a treadmill which I run on every now and then. More then than now. I used it relatively often when I first bought it and I used it for a bit when I was getting better after treatments and such. I now rarely have the time and I get bored after a while... even with some great tunes blaring away.

Desney on the other hand is practically obsessive in how she treats her workout routines. She's already up early in the morning and now she's up even earlier enough in order to work out almost every morning of the week!

I thought I had a really simple idea: find a some stock footage type videos to watch while running so as to give me the feeling I'm moving. It seemed so simple and logical I figured there would be tons out there.

I couldn't find any.

The closest I found was iTrain which has these MP3 audio workouts you can buy and download and listen to while you work out. I bought one for a treadmill workout. I found the voice incredibly annoying, the music rather bland and elevator-like and the workout just plain boring. I gave up on that one after just one workout.

I then found something which I had actually looked at when I first bought the treadmill: iFit. This site is actually normally linked to the equipment itself. With iFit-compatible equipment the site workout literally controls the exercise machine and runs the workout for you. However you can also use their workouts without actually connecting something to your equipment. This is useful because my treadmill is not iFit-compatible.

I tried my first "video workout" today and did a half-hour run through the coast of Hawaii. It was certainly a lot more fun than any other treadmill workout I had done before and I was pushed more than I would normally have run. That's saying something because I tend to push myself too far in general. But their use of the term "video" was a bit exagerated. It's more like still shots with the camera moving around the shot (sort of like a slideshow) and the workout training talking over the shots. It's quite interesting in that I can choose between a male or a female voice and I can choose the style of music I want to exercise to. I chose Rock by accident as I wanted to choose Dance which is what I normally workout to. But it came out fine and I enjoyed it all the same. Looking at the choice of styles however I can't possibly imagine doing a half-hour (or longer) workout to Country! Talk aobut torture!!

At the end of the workout the workout "history" is recorded on the web site and I can keep track of my exercising online.

So far so good... we'll see how long this lasts!