kentcowgill.org/blog

July 18:
Whoops. I meant to do week 1 day 3 today. Good thing I didn't, because...

July 19:
Seems like I needed to rest up for the big effort.

Push ups: 15 then 13 then 10 then 10 then maxed out at 16. And a half, but I'm not counting halves. Resting about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 64 push ups within about 10 minutes. These felt pretty good, except for the last few of the last few sets. It seems like I'm well on my way to being able to do 100 in about 6 weeks, at least according to hundredpushups.com. I just hope I can keep this up. For the push ups, anyhow. Because next up were...

Chin ups: 5 then 4 then 3 then 3 then maxed out at 3. At least 3 short of the goal of the program. I rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 18 within about 9 minutes or so. So 5 more than on Wednesday - so at least that's something. But because of my failure to hit the mark, I think I'll repeat this whole week. Which means I'll have a bit easier of a time hitting my number on Monday. I briefly considered just repeating today's program until I got it, but I struggled every day of the week 1 program applying it to chin ups. I'm thinking that for push ups, the schedule is realistic - since push ups seem like they're easier overall than chin ups. But chin ups are a little tougher, so it might take a little longer then the 6 week goal. Like maybe twice as long. But that's OK - 100 consecutive chin ups would be a very impressive feat.

For the geeky update, I've created the graphing code which currently just tracks 3 weights: total body weight, lean body weight, and fat weight. I decided to let the user decide how big a graph they wanted see, which could be problematic. The graph is weight by day, so if a day is missing (i.e. the user only weighs/measures himself once a week) then when asked to show a graph for 10 days, there may be only one data point - and there wouldn't be any outliers to graph against. So I decided to, given a particular cutoff, backtrack until the next most recent data point was located.

July 16th:
Generally, I'm less sore than I was fearing today. Normally when I start exercising - or at least doing things way more than I had been used to - I get a bit sore the day after, and really sore the day after that. That really wasn't so much the case today. I have been exercising a bit for the previous several weeks, but nothing approaching the all out (or the nearly all out) effort I've been putting forward with the chin ups and push ups.

Push ups: 12 then 12 then 10 then 10 then maxed out and 10 and a half. Resting about 90 seconds between sets - total of 54 in about 9 minutes. These seemed pretty rough, especially the last few of the last two sets. I wasn't half as sore as I thought I would be today, but also I was hoping to max out with more than ten on the last set. Friday is looking definitely possible especially with more rest between sets. And honestly, it's only 9 more than I did today. Having pulled off 11 more than I did Monday, a measly 9 more certainly seems doable. But we'll see. Because next up is what I'm really dreading...

Chin ups: 4 then 3 then 2 then 2 then maxed out at 2 and a half. Very nearly three. The last half was half again halfier than the last half I halfed out on Monday. But I still won't count it as a whole. Again, I rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 13 in about 7 minutes. These weren't nearly as bad as I was fearing, but I still ran out of gas for what would've been the 14th. And I was hoping for 15. On the bright side, what I did today was 4 more than I did Monday. On the down side, I'm scheduled for 21 on Friday, which seems fairly unlikely - even with the longer rest period between sets. I'm guessing I'll hit 19, and peter out on the last set trying to go for 5 again. However, I won't condemn myself before I start. At least, not any more than I already have.

On a bright and definitively geeky note, I've now built a web based body composition calculator, which calculates BMI, basal metabolic rate, calories needed for total daily expenditure based on activity level, and body fat percentage. All I need to enter is my height, weight, age, and a few skinfold measurements. On a fairly wide technological departure for myself, this is entirely done in javascript, helped along by my favorite javascript/AJAX toolkit, JQuery. I have yet to build a back-end for it to store data from day to day and draw a graph of the values calculated. For which I will naturally use perl.