Repeat the above twice more (3 sets of these exercises).

Cardio: 30 minutes of something brisk. Try jumping jacks. They are GREAT for feeling your heart rate jack itself up.

Give me your thoughts. Fran pointed out that I’m basically just doing a variation on CrossFit’s workout of the day. Good point. I agree, and if you’re looking for something a step harder than what I’m doing (okay, three steps harder), go to that site. You won’t be let down. Hell, read Fran’s site. She is the undisputed person to follow, in regards to being astounded at what people do to obtain great fitness.

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Open Source Fitness- Day 1

(background info)

Let’s take this outside, if your weather permits. Today is a full body strength and stretching day, with 10 minutes of cardiovascular work, too.

Warmup- walk briskly to a nice outdoor place to do this. It’d be good if your place will have stairs, or something you can step up onto and off. Picnic table or park bench, etc. (If you’re too far away, drive or bicycle there, and *then* walk briskly).

Stretching (Google whatever doesn’t make sense. I swear, you’ll find examples).
Neck stretch / arm circles / press press fling / toe touch stretch / quad stretch

Strength
Pushups (shoot for 10 good ones). If you’re starting fresh, try pushups against a wall, where you stand a few feet away from the wall, lean towards the wall, and press off against that. If you’re a pro, try putting your feet up on something and doing decline pushups.

Step ups. Step up 2 stairs worth of distance (or onto the picnic bench, or the park bench, etc). Do 10 step ups per leg, alternating each leg. Try to keep your upper body relatively straight, and/or not entirely tense.

Mountain climbers. Get down into a pushup position with your arms fully extended. Launch one leg forward and bend your knee, as if you’re getting ready to rush off a starter’s block for sprinting. Alternate legs. Do 10 for each leg.

Body squat. Stand up nice and straight, legs just barely shoulder width apart. Bend slowly at the knees, staying vertical, as if you’re going to be sitting backwards into a chair. Stop when your thighs are parallel to the ground. Do the descent very slowly. Do the ascent a little faster. Try for 10.

Pushups- 10 more.
Stepups- 10 more each leg.
Mountain Climbers- 10 more each leg.
Body squat- 10 more.

Cardio
Pressed for time? Do this later. Just promise you’ll do it. Pick based on your fitness level:

30 minutes of:

Try this interval run:
5 minutes jog.
30 second sprint + 1 minute recovery jog (x5 times).
5 minutes run at your pace.
30 second sprint + 1 minute recovery jog (x5 times).
5 minutes cooldown jog.

Report back if you did the above, what changes you made to suit your needs, and any suggestions you thought up. Nutrition post coming later today.

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New Project- Open Source Fitness

Have you felt in a rut with your exercise program? Have you recently fallen off the habit of fitness? Want to try something new just to mix it up? I’m going to publish my personal fitness regimen for a 4 day a week program. I want this to be “open source.” This means that I want others to help tweak and add to the idea, and that the idea is “free”. The details are fairly easy to follow. Full Post (In case you can’t see my new expander thingy)The goal of the program is to get back some muscle tone, get my running back into gear, and to lose the almost-20 pounds I’ve thrown on over the last several months. I’m in mediocre shape right now. I’m not couchy, but I’m definitely not last year’s Chris Brogan. So, if you’re in a similar state, you’re probably qualified to follow along. (*blah blah, check with your doctor, etc…not legally libel, etc, blah blah).

The layout of the program will be over four days. I’m going to shoot for M-W-F-SU for my calendar. You can do whatever fits your needs. Because I like full-body programs, I tend to do things where you can work everything nearly daily. If you’re mixing this with some other program, you might have to tinker. Please post any adjustments you come up with, or make suggestions. I want the project to be open source.

Oh, and on these three days, I might want to split some of this into the morning and some into the evening. That’s because fitness should FIT your schedule. Right?

Three of the four days will have calisthenics, stretching, and strength training. I’m going to try like heck to use little or no equipment for this, by the way. I get excited about trying to make do with what you have around. Well, I might suggest things like a stability ball, and I plan to use my bicycle for some of my cardio work, but you could run. But no, you don’t need to buy a Bowflex to do this. : )

The fourth day will be dedicated for a long run. I don’t *really* mean only running. I mean star-dot-cardio thing. It could be your long fastwalk. Your long hike. Your long swim. Whatever gets the heart moving and kicks caloric burn into full gear.

No sign-up necessary. It’s neat to know if you’re “in” or not, or if you want, you can see what I’m doing, and see if you want to jump in. The program will run until Christmas, whether or not anyone jumps in on it.

Monday morning, early, I’ll share the first installment of “Open Source Fitness.” I could use your help. Are you in? Who do you know that might want to check this out? Send them my way. Watch for Monday morning’s post (GMT-5 for you worldwide folks).

Let’s get this thing started.

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Digital Community– Or A Network of Networks

I’m fascinated with the idea of the blur between our information feed and our day-to-day touchpoints. If you’re reading this, you’re connected to the feed. You might even be a little obsessed with checking in with various online communities, at least when you compare yourself to your face-to-face friends and relations. But how can it all interact? One thing brewing out there is the push for free or near-free wifi all over the place. Another is WiMax, which is broadcast-range wireless connectivity. There’s the push for 100 dollar laptops by Nicolas Negroponte, and the push for 100 dollar computers in India by Om Malik. There are pushes for ubiquitous computing, where our “identity” slides off our mobile handset and onto our desktop easily, without any heavy lifting (think Crackberry or Palm). There’s just this weird thing converging.

I browsed through a bunch of websites that are trying to help in this regard in my soon-to-be-defunct design/use/tech blog, but I still haven’t really hit that *pow* that I’m thinking about. And maybe I’m not going to. Maybe it’s just something to keep noodling about.

But listen: are you using the web’s tools in ways that look like you’re building little threads of digital connectivity? Still too complex.

How do YOU use the web to blend a feed of what interests you and the world around you locally?

[email]

Fake Movie Critic

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: If you’re a fan of not-top-shelf movies, especially actiony/effecty/fun! movies, and you’re not reading Fake Movie Critic, you’re missing some fun. Never mind that this is a friend. Never mind that I really love the reviews because I share spot-on movie tastes with her. This is just really the “fun” in movies. At least insofar as she hasn’t reviewed anything that’s won Cannes to date. We’re probably safe on that note.

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Words

Here’s a short list of words I never thought I’d use in my daily life, but have used today:

Here they are in sentences:

“That Intel solution is nice, because the form factor is so self-contained.”

“I didn’t understand our role until I took a more holistic look.”

“We’ll report basic usability flaws, in support of a better customer experience.”

“We’ll manage the interfaces between departments.” (No, not the dreaded VERB format.)

“It’s the synergy of our ideas that gets this kind of thing done.”

But, lest you suspect I’m slipping or something, I also used the following phrases today, as well:

Perhaps there’s still hope.

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