An Hour on the Elliptical

OK, relax, I’m not talking about that. Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking sixty minutes on the elliptical machine.

UPDATE: I found a really neat plugin, Nike+ iPod Stats, and with a little bit of modification I got it to display my stats on the side, exactly like I wanted. It’s pretty sweet. Now I have all my stats in one spot.

As some of you know, I’m doing a three month body transformation contest with a bunch of guys. This started in January and will end this coming week. But thats a story for another post, probably after the contest is over. But when I started, I couldn’t last a measly ten minutes on the bike, treadmill, or elliptical. But for the past 2-3 weeks, I’ve been able to go at it hard for a full hour on the elliptical. My energy level is so much higher than before and I have much more stamina, whether on the basketball court or at the office. I’m not falling asleep in my chair at 3PM anymore.

Being the ‘tech geek’ that I am, I had to figure out a way to track all this. Luckily my iPod Nano has Nike+ built in. Plus I found out that I can just plug it into the equipment (bike/treadmill/elliptical) at my local 24 Hour Fitness and it will save the workout and sync it to Nikeplus.com. Sweet!! So I’ve been keeping track of that since the beginning of March. You can actually check out the run history at Nikeplus.com. But here’s a basic shot of what it captures.

NikePlus Screenshot

Pretty cool right? So now the geek inside me is happy too, along with the rest of my body. But I have to say, none of this would be possible without the tutelage of my man Rehan Jalali. Dude is a godsend of a fitness expert. Anyone serious about getting and staying in shape should check out his book “The Six-Pack Diet Plan.” I’m So lucky to have him in my community. But more on him when I finish the competition.