Tag Archives: fitness

One Year of 30-Day Lifestyle Experiments

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In the heat of a narrow but exciting Kickstarter success followed by all the things that come with starting a small business, I neglected to do a proper recap of my year-long series of 30 day lifestyle experiments.  Now that life has returned to a manageable pace, I’ve decided to return to the blogosphere and continue the project that I started over a year ago.

Back in July 2011 I had been talking with some friends about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as well as This Guy in New York City who went an entire year without producing any trash at all.  Both topics are at the extremes of environmental sustainability so it got me to thinking, “How reasonable would it be for a yuppie in Boston to go just 30 days without producing any trash?”   It was certainly a challenging experiment and I ended up with a small amount of trash at the end (filled a 1 quart ziplock bag) but it taught me to live with minimal impact to the landfill.  Many of the behaviors I picked up during this lifestyle experiment I still continue with more than a year later (French press coffee instead of drip or D&D styrofoam cups, worm composting food scraps, stainless steel travel mug, and others).

Throughout the course of my first experiment, my family and friends suggested other “lifestyle experiments” that I thought would be interesting to try out.   So I decided that I’d keep going until I didn’t feel like doing it anymore.  As a result, I’ve spent the past 12 months trying new things, meeting new people, and learning a lot about myself in the process.  I can definitively say that each experiment has resulted in new behaviors that have crept their way into my daily life and I’m a better person a year later because of it.  I’m not sure if 30 days is the magic number or not, but from my experience it seems to be just long enough to make an impact.

Courtesy of Google Analytics, I spent some time going through my most popular blog posts from each 30 day lifestyle experiment.  I was shocked to see that my most popular month of blogging (by several hundred views) was my short story reviews on my train commute to work.  I attribute this to all of those high school students looking to get away with not having to actually read the story.  I would say shame on you but I did the same thing in high school so there you have it.  A close runner-up was my new exercise each day, it was also the most fun so I’m glad that people enjoyed reading about it.

I had a great time going through my old blog posts so I’ve included a summary of the most popular posts from each month here, check them out:

I found that these experiments have improved my lifestyle in many ways so I plan to continue.  However, for 2013 I’ll be focusing my lifestyle experiments on a new-ish topic that I’ve become very interested in: The Sharing Economy (i.e. cohousing, carsharing, community supported agriculture, bartering, and more).  I’ve been carsharing with Zipcar since the company started 5 years ago and it has been great, but the sharing topic has exploded since then and there is so much to learn, do, and write about.

As for the writing of the blog, I plan to deemphasize the “daily” aspect as compared to last year.  Writing each and every day about my exercises, meditations, dreams, meals, readings etc got to be a little overwhelming at times so I’ll plan to write at least once/week to keep track of my experiences.  I do have a full time job and I just started a company on the side so scaling back the rate of blog posting will help to improve the quality of the posts as well as keep my sanity in check.  I’ll also be tweeting about my experiences as often as possible.  So Like My Facebook Page for the weekly-ish blog updates and Follow Me on Twitter if you want to keep up with my experiments in real-time.

Resistance Bands on the Charles River Fitness Park

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Having just come back from Hawaii, the last thing I wanted to do today was to workout inside.  So I went for a short 10 mile bike ride.  However, having already done a bike ride this month I decided to stop at the Fitness Park located along the Charles River to get in some alternative exercise.  I brought my roommate’s resistance bands and did a shoulders/biceps/triceps workout.  For those of you who think resistance bands are for sissies, guess again.  You can make them as easy or as tough as you want depending on the strength of your band and/or the tension you create for yourself.  I got a good burn going on my muscles and my muscles were shaking by the end of each set.  We used to use them all the time when I played high school and during my brief stint in college as well.  They are great for strengthening things like rotator-cuffs for example.  You can also get a good burn doing just about anything as long as you’re doing it right (i.e. consistent tension in the band throughout the range of the exercise, if the bands go slack you’re doing it wrong).

Using a heart rate monitor for the first time during a resistance band workout I found that I should probably mix in some type of cardiovascular component next time.  My min/max/average heart rates were 67/96/125, so pretty low intensity as far as heart rate goes.  I was feeling a serious burn in my muscles but I wasn’t exactly working my lungs at all.  It would have been great to do one set of shoulders/biceps/triceps and then jump rope or do abs as a way to get my heart rate average up overall.  I felt ok with not doing this today because I had already biked 10 miles so I figured that was good enough cardio for the day.

I meant to bring the bands with me on my trip to Hawaii so I could get a workout done in the airport but I totally forgot and left them at home.  I would definitely bring these on travel with me as a way to get a quick and effective workout in my hotel room instead of using the bogus equipment usually found in hotel workout facilities.  I’d also use them for rehab as well if I were injured.  For example, my roommate had shoulder surgery a while back and he’s been using them pretty consistently to regain strength.  I used them last summer when I aggravated my shoulder 2 months into the P90X+ workout program.  A mixture of rest (i.e. no shoulder exercises) and resistance band workouts helped me to move past the shoulder issue.  I’m even thinking of getting a set of bands to keep at my desk at work for those times when I’m sleepy at the end of the day, getting the blood flowing is a great way to wake back up.

I like resistance bands because they are light-weight, low-maintenance, and can be used inside or outside to give you a serious workout so I definitely approve of using them as a way to stay fit and augment your normal workout routine.

Rollerblading on the Charles River Bike Path

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Hockey has been a big part of my life ever since I was a munchkin.  I got my first pair of ice hockey skates shortly after I could walk and then spent the next 18 years of my life eating, sleeping, and breathing ice hockey.  So naturally I’ve been conditioned to have a negative attitude toward people who play roller hockey.  It’s even worse for people who rollerblade and aren’t even playing hockey.  I had to swallow my pride my sophomore year of college when me and some of my buddies joined a local roller hockey league, I had to get a pair of blades.  It took a while for me to warm up to it but it became a decent alternative because my school didn’t have club or intramural ice hockey, roller hockey was the next best thing.   We spent two seasons beating up on the local adult league teams before I transferred schools and headed to Tufts.  Since then my rollerblades have been in storage at my parents house.

I realized part-way through this month that my rollerblades still existed so I had my parents bring them down on their next trip to Boston so I could use them for a day of fitness.  They managed to escape my 100 Item Challenge last November because they were already stowed away up in Maine.  In the spirit of this month’s fitness experiment, I decided I would give rollerblading a try, just to see if it was a legitimate form of exercise.  Every time I run or bike along the Charles River, I see people rollerblading.  I die a little bit inside each time I see people use that heel-stopper to slow down, ugh, maybe you’d only understand if you were a hockey player, it drives me crazy.  I had memorial day off from work and it was a beautiful day so I decided it would be a great idea to do some rollerblading.

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Me on the Mass Ave bridge overlooking the Charles River. If I have a shred of dignity left it's that my rollerblades are made for roller hockey not inline skating (i.e. hockey boot not some weak plastic thing with a heel-stopper).

Believe it or not I actually had a decent workout.  I rollerbladed for 10 miles and really tried to push myself pretty hard on the straightaways.  I got my heart rate up, got my lungs going, and pumped my quads until they wouldn’t stop burning.  I even passed several people riding their bicycles (wah wah wah, sad trombone for the bikers).  I saw half a dozen other rollerbladers out cruising the Charles River bike path as well.  I felt pretty weird now that I was one of them but the heart rate, tired legs, and sweat drenched clothing helped to redeem the value of this kind of workout for me.  It was extremely low impact but still gave me a great workout.  My min/max/average heart rate was 91/155/137.

I wouldn’t say that I’m going to put rollerblading immediately into my weekly workout routine.  I still can’t get over the mentality that I’d rather be playing hockey instead.  With that being said, I would definitely do some rollerblading if I were coming back from an injury.  I typically bike when I’m sore, injured, or recovering because it’s low impact on my joints.  However, when I had a hip flexor problem last year biking was out of the question because of the demands it places on those muscles.  Rollerblading would have been a perfect workout to maintain my cardio and keep my quads in shape.

Trevor Smith’s Fitness in Austere Environments on Kalalau Beach in Kauai, Hawaii

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Trevor and I went to high school together and we met on the cross-country team my freshman year.  He was a fit dude then and he’s surely a fit dude now, the difference is that more than a decade later he’s now helping Army Rangers stay fit while on deployment, EPIC.  He calls his program “Fitness in Austere Environments” or more simply “Man Strength”.  The premise is to stay fit in harsh environments where you don’t have access to a gym.   Imagine you’re a Special Forces dude in peak physical form as you head off for a deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.  How can you continue to stay in great shape if you can’t bring a gym with you to the Afghan mountainside?  His program helps Rangers and other people stay in shape by using their simple tools they can find in their surroundings and easily modifying them for exercise: lifting tires, throwing rocks, doing burpees, lifting sandbags, endless squats/lunges, and other types of exercises.  I’d describe it as if Cross-Fit and the World’s Strongest Man competitions had a baby together, it’d be Trevor Smith’s Austere Athletics Program.  To quote Trevor’s new website, “If you aren’t training to be as strong as a berserk viking, and fast as greased lightning, you are wasting your time.”

I thought it would be great to investigate some of his workout routines for my month-long fitness experiment.  So I emailed him and he sent me some of his YouTube videos where he’s training in his back yard in Norway so I adapted them for my workout on Kalalau Beach in Kauai, Hawaii.  Kalalau is one of the most remote beaches in the world.  It’s only accessible by boat or an 11 mile hike over a series of cliffs.  So with absolutely no access to a gym or formal workout tools I thought this would be a great scenario to do some gymless training.

Based of his YouTube video I grabbed a rock of sufficient weight and did the workout below which lasted about 25 minutes:

  • 5 minute warmup of arm circles, pushups, jumping jacks, and a few other moves to get my heart rate up and my body sweating
  • Pushups x 25 – in his video he wears a backpack filled with sand, I simply did 25 pushups, if I hadn’t already carried 50lbs for two days I probably would have done the pushups with it on.  This time, I decided to pass on the extra weight.
  • Rock Squats x 15

ROCK SQUATS! I need a larger rock next time. I definitely had a few naked hippies walk by and give me weird looks.

  • Lunges x 15 (each leg)

ROCK LUNGES! These were pretty tough to do because it was hard to keep the rock balanced. Trevor uses a sand bag which I think would work better, just sling it over your shoulders and go to town.

  • Bent-Over Rows x 15

ROCK ROWS! Doing some bent over rows with the rock, I was certainly working up a good sweat by this point. Our lovely campsite is featured in the background.

  • Twist Toss x 9

ROCK THROWING! This was easily my favorite exercise of the whole workout, deep down there's just something satisfying about throwing large objects around.

  • Burpees x 20 in ~60s
  • Abs – Russian Twist (with a smaller rock)
  • Abs – Put it on the Shelf (taken from P90X+ but done with a rock instead of weights).

Based off my high number of reps above, I certainly could have chosen a heavier rock, but not wanting to injure myself with a new workout before my 11 mile hike the next day, I decided to focus more on my form than my weight.  Even though I could have done a heavier weight, my heart rate was still cruising with a min/max/average of 75/161/131.  I was drenched in sweat and had a blast.  I don’t quite yet feel like a berserk viking but I certainly felt the workout.

Note to self: when you’re done working out with your huge rock, make sure to put it somewhere safe instead of the middle of your campsite so people don’t trip on it in the middle of the night (sorry Sarah).

Here’s one of Trevor’s YouTube videos, I used most of his exercises except the sandbag ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7f5Prr08AT4