Saturday, December 13, 2008
iStretch 16 take 4
Who: Radagast and SO
Exercise type: iStretch 16 (a downloaded, mp3-based yoga workout)
Portions of mp3: Entire 45-minute workout
Duration: ~45 minutes
Notes: Our first yoga workout in more than four months (Radagast has been avoiding both yoga and weightlifting due to problems with his wrists); amazing how much flexibility you lose in a short amount of time. This was much more challenging than we remember it being.
Blog note: After being behind in posting for nearly 8 months, the exercise blog is finally up to date for Radagast (excluding a few walking posts for December). Radagast's SO has decided not to try to get 2008's posts up to date (Radagast's SO is missing many exercise bouts for the year), and will wait until the new year to start serious tracking again.
Radagast's totals: 175/225; 58/75; $267.50
Radagast's SO's totals: 105/225; 37/75; $240.00
Exercise type: iStretch 16 (a downloaded, mp3-based yoga workout)
Portions of mp3: Entire 45-minute workout
Duration: ~45 minutes
Notes: Our first yoga workout in more than four months (Radagast has been avoiding both yoga and weightlifting due to problems with his wrists); amazing how much flexibility you lose in a short amount of time. This was much more challenging than we remember it being.
Blog note: After being behind in posting for nearly 8 months, the exercise blog is finally up to date for Radagast (excluding a few walking posts for December). Radagast's SO has decided not to try to get 2008's posts up to date (Radagast's SO is missing many exercise bouts for the year), and will wait until the new year to start serious tracking again.
Radagast's totals: 175/225; 58/75; $267.50
Radagast's SO's totals: 105/225; 37/75; $240.00
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Radagast and SO's 2007 exercise goals
[Note: Both Radagast and SO have been sick for about half of January, and thus this post has been delayed.]
2006 was the first year for our new exercise motivation scheme, which we have both found to be extremely motivating. Our original goal had been to exercise 150 times in the year, but by mid-year we realized our motivational scheme was working so well that we upped our exercise goal to 200 annual bouts. By the end of the year we had both exceeded our revised goals: Radagast exercised a total of 213 times in 2006 and earned a total of $802.50, while Radagast's SO exercised a total of 207 times and earned $802.50.
While we think the current system is working well, the one downside of our current scheme is that it doesn't push us to do moderate to intense exercise very often (e.g., weightlifting, Yoga for Strength). Since we both feel that we'd be better off doing more heavy exercise (to build strength and cardiovascular fitness), we're going to divide our annual exercise goal into two segments: an annual total exercise goal, and an annual intense exercise goal.
2007 goals for Radagast and SO:
$5 exercise:
2006 was the first year for our new exercise motivation scheme, which we have both found to be extremely motivating. Our original goal had been to exercise 150 times in the year, but by mid-year we realized our motivational scheme was working so well that we upped our exercise goal to 200 annual bouts. By the end of the year we had both exceeded our revised goals: Radagast exercised a total of 213 times in 2006 and earned a total of $802.50, while Radagast's SO exercised a total of 207 times and earned $802.50.
While we think the current system is working well, the one downside of our current scheme is that it doesn't push us to do moderate to intense exercise very often (e.g., weightlifting, Yoga for Strength). Since we both feel that we'd be better off doing more heavy exercise (to build strength and cardiovascular fitness), we're going to divide our annual exercise goal into two segments: an annual total exercise goal, and an annual intense exercise goal.
2007 goals for Radagast and SO:
- Total exercise goal: 225 bouts (a 12.5% increase over 2006)
- Intense exercise goal: 75 bouts
- Weightlifting for 30+ minutes
- Body Basics
- Fat Burning Workout
- Yoga for Strength
- Gardening for 60+ minutes, but only if it entails significant muscular exertion (e.g., digging)
$5 exercise:
- Walking for 60+ minutes
- Gardening for 60+ minutes
- Weightlifting for 30+ minutes
- Body Basics
- Fat Burning Workout
- Yoga for Strength
- Yoga for Beginners
- Walking to the grocery store (and lugging back groceries)
- Walking for 30-59 minutes
- Gardening for 30-59 minutes
- A.M. Yoga
- P.M. Yoga
- Pure and Simple Stretch
Labels: goals
Sunday, July 09, 2006
RGYM performing better than expected – earnings forecast increased by 33%!
[Cross-posted on Rhosgobel; for more background see these three posts.]
In June of 2005, Radagast and SO started Rhosgobel's Gym (RGYM), a website dedicated to tracking their production of exercise units. In January of 2006 RGYM implemented a new manufacturing process, with initial predicted production of 300 units of exercise in the fiscal year (split evenly between Radagast and Radagast's SO). Based on January pricing of the units, RGYM anticipated earnings between $750 and $1,500 for the fiscal year (earnings, unfortunately, not in thousands).
Analysts were mixed as to whether RGYM could meet these aggressive goals, but through an aggressive marketing campaign, active marketplace analysis, and synergistic employee motivation plans, RGYM is proud to announce that in the first six months of 2006 it produced 213 units of exercise, for a total mid-year earnings of more than $900. RGYM exceeded its mid-year expectations by more than 40%.
As a result of this outstanding performance, RGYM is adjusting its annual production goal to 400 units of exercise (split evenly between Radagast and SO); earnings estimates have been proportionally raised as well.
The highest income-producing exercise class for RGYM in the first two quarters of 2006 was walking, with a total of more than 125 units produced. Unfortunately, due to the market saturation of walking-type exercises (and relatively low heart-rate increase per unit of walking produced), RGYM is revising the predicted earnings-per-unit for walking-type exercises. Specifically, walking for more than 40 minutes will be rebranded to walking for more than 30 minutes, and will be priced at $2.50 instead of $5. While this change will reduce our per-unit income, we anticipate that the reduction in per-unit walking amount should increase our exposure in the coveted low-duration walking market while concurrently reducing our manufacturing cost. Our signature walking to the store (and lugging back groceries) product will still retain its $2.50 price.
Additionally, RGYM is actively responding to current marketplace demand for walking by introducing a new product: walking for more than 60 minutes. This product will maintain the $5 price point of the (now discontinued) 40 minute walking product, and is excepted to attract the walking addict niche market.
While RGYM has historically produced products in the video and light aerobic fitness market, RGYM is now expanding its product line to enter the lucrative weightlifting market. Late in the second quarter RGYM introduced their initial weightlifting product: weightlifting for more than 30 minutes, at an introductory price of $5. The ratio of health gains to manufacturing cost make this product an exciting new addition to the RGYM line, and RGYM expects to see solid gains as a result of this product in the second half of the fiscal year.
RGYM's expenses to date have been well within predictions for the fiscal year. Radagast's SO incurred an initial employee compensation expense of $505 in the first quarter; while this expenditure required deficit spending, it was expected to reduce overall compensation expenses by taking advantage of temporary market fluctuations. As a result, Radagast's SO's cash balance was negative for much of the first two quarters. However, Radagast's SO is forecast to have a positive cash balance early in the third quarter of 2006. Radagast has not had any employee compensation expenses, and thus had a large positive cash balance at the end of the second quarter.
RGYM:
RGYM is a world-class provider of exercise unit production tracking for Radagast and SO. RGYM was founded by Radagast and SO, and currently “employs” two people. More information on RGYM's innovative product line, including daily updates on production, can be found at http://rhosgobelgym.blogspot.com.
Translation from business-speak:
My SO and I thought that it would be a blast to write our mid-year exercise report as a mock business press release; we hope you've enjoyed it. Now, to summarize the above in human-readable terms:
1) We are upping our annual exercise goal to 200 bouts of exercise per person per year (up from 150 originally). Considering that we both exceeded 100 bouts in the first six months of the year, this should be attainable.
2) We are slightly revising our earnings per exercise type; here is the updated list (see the original list here):
$5 exercise:
[Disclaimer: Neither of us is in business, so please forgive anything that doesn't sound right.]
In June of 2005, Radagast and SO started Rhosgobel's Gym (RGYM), a website dedicated to tracking their production of exercise units. In January of 2006 RGYM implemented a new manufacturing process, with initial predicted production of 300 units of exercise in the fiscal year (split evenly between Radagast and Radagast's SO). Based on January pricing of the units, RGYM anticipated earnings between $750 and $1,500 for the fiscal year (earnings, unfortunately, not in thousands).
Analysts were mixed as to whether RGYM could meet these aggressive goals, but through an aggressive marketing campaign, active marketplace analysis, and synergistic employee motivation plans, RGYM is proud to announce that in the first six months of 2006 it produced 213 units of exercise, for a total mid-year earnings of more than $900. RGYM exceeded its mid-year expectations by more than 40%.
As a result of this outstanding performance, RGYM is adjusting its annual production goal to 400 units of exercise (split evenly between Radagast and SO); earnings estimates have been proportionally raised as well.
The highest income-producing exercise class for RGYM in the first two quarters of 2006 was walking, with a total of more than 125 units produced. Unfortunately, due to the market saturation of walking-type exercises (and relatively low heart-rate increase per unit of walking produced), RGYM is revising the predicted earnings-per-unit for walking-type exercises. Specifically, walking for more than 40 minutes will be rebranded to walking for more than 30 minutes, and will be priced at $2.50 instead of $5. While this change will reduce our per-unit income, we anticipate that the reduction in per-unit walking amount should increase our exposure in the coveted low-duration walking market while concurrently reducing our manufacturing cost. Our signature walking to the store (and lugging back groceries) product will still retain its $2.50 price.
Additionally, RGYM is actively responding to current marketplace demand for walking by introducing a new product: walking for more than 60 minutes. This product will maintain the $5 price point of the (now discontinued) 40 minute walking product, and is excepted to attract the walking addict niche market.
While RGYM has historically produced products in the video and light aerobic fitness market, RGYM is now expanding its product line to enter the lucrative weightlifting market. Late in the second quarter RGYM introduced their initial weightlifting product: weightlifting for more than 30 minutes, at an introductory price of $5. The ratio of health gains to manufacturing cost make this product an exciting new addition to the RGYM line, and RGYM expects to see solid gains as a result of this product in the second half of the fiscal year.
RGYM's expenses to date have been well within predictions for the fiscal year. Radagast's SO incurred an initial employee compensation expense of $505 in the first quarter; while this expenditure required deficit spending, it was expected to reduce overall compensation expenses by taking advantage of temporary market fluctuations. As a result, Radagast's SO's cash balance was negative for much of the first two quarters. However, Radagast's SO is forecast to have a positive cash balance early in the third quarter of 2006. Radagast has not had any employee compensation expenses, and thus had a large positive cash balance at the end of the second quarter.
RGYM:
RGYM is a world-class provider of exercise unit production tracking for Radagast and SO. RGYM was founded by Radagast and SO, and currently “employs” two people. More information on RGYM's innovative product line, including daily updates on production, can be found at http://rhosgobelgym.blogspot.com.
Translation from business-speak:
My SO and I thought that it would be a blast to write our mid-year exercise report as a mock business press release; we hope you've enjoyed it. Now, to summarize the above in human-readable terms:
1) We are upping our annual exercise goal to 200 bouts of exercise per person per year (up from 150 originally). Considering that we both exceeded 100 bouts in the first six months of the year, this should be attainable.
2) We are slightly revising our earnings per exercise type; here is the updated list (see the original list here):
$5 exercise:
- Walking for 60+ minutes
- Gardening for 60+ minutes
- Weightlifting for 30+ minutes
- Body Basics
- Fat Burning Workout
- Yoga for Strength
- Yoga for Beginners
- Walking to the grocery store (and lugging back groceries)
- Walking for 30-59 minutes
- Gardening for 30-59 minutes
- A.M. Yoga
- P.M. Yoga
- Pure and Simple Stretch
[Disclaimer: Neither of us is in business, so please forgive anything that doesn't sound right.]
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Accounting so far
Since my SO and I have done a few bouts of exercise this year already, here are our year-to-date totals for our latest motivation strategy:
Radagast's totals: 2/150, $10
Radagast's SO's totals: 2/150, $10
Radagast's totals: 2/150, $10
Radagast's SO's totals: 2/150, $10
Labels: goals
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
A new motivation scheme
If there were any regular readers of this blog, they would have noticed that my SO and I have not been exercising regularly (and have been failing to meet our goals). Neither of us is terribly happy about this, but the inertia of not exercising has proven to be great.
So, we've decided that setting a new long-term goal and developing a new motivation system might help. Here's our new plan:
1) We now have only one long-term goal: to exercise at least 150 times this year.
2) To help motivate us to reach this goal (and encourage us to go beyond it), we're going to give ourselves monetary rewards for exercising.
Here are the details of our plan (yes, we've made rules ... we're geeks; what do you expect?)
1) Exercise at least 150 times this year
This goal is intended to encourage us to be more active, and thus any style of exercise that lasts for a decent duration will count towards the total. Our initial thoughts are that any of our exercise videos, or any other physical activity that lasts a decent while, will count towards the total. The idea here is to encourage us to be physically active, not to get us to look like gym bunnies (we're trying to be realistic here).
2) Rewards for exercising
For every time that one of us does serious exercise (>30 minutes in a day, at least moderate intensity), we will allocate $5 to an account that the exerciser can use to purchase a reward. Short or light-intensity exercise bouts (e.g., A.M. Yoga, Pure and Simple Stretch) will add $2.50 to the account. Here are some examples:
$5 exercise:
Additionally, one of the contributing factors to us getting off track was that we stopped posting some of our exercise to the blog, primarily because the exercise (walking 40+ minutes) wasn't especially intense (see this post for more). This ended up causing us to lose track of whether we were meeting our goals. So, from now on we'll post all of our goal-related exercise to the blog, regardless of how puny it may seem.
And, once again, we invite all of our (nonexistent) readers to help us out by bugging us whenever we fall off the wagon. We heard from only one person when we stopped exercising last fall, and they didn't even bug us much ... we know you can do better!
So, we've decided that setting a new long-term goal and developing a new motivation system might help. Here's our new plan:
1) We now have only one long-term goal: to exercise at least 150 times this year.
2) To help motivate us to reach this goal (and encourage us to go beyond it), we're going to give ourselves monetary rewards for exercising.
Here are the details of our plan (yes, we've made rules ... we're geeks; what do you expect?)
1) Exercise at least 150 times this year
This goal is intended to encourage us to be more active, and thus any style of exercise that lasts for a decent duration will count towards the total. Our initial thoughts are that any of our exercise videos, or any other physical activity that lasts a decent while, will count towards the total. The idea here is to encourage us to be physically active, not to get us to look like gym bunnies (we're trying to be realistic here).
2) Rewards for exercising
For every time that one of us does serious exercise (>30 minutes in a day, at least moderate intensity), we will allocate $5 to an account that the exerciser can use to purchase a reward. Short or light-intensity exercise bouts (e.g., A.M. Yoga, Pure and Simple Stretch) will add $2.50 to the account. Here are some examples:
$5 exercise:
- Walking for 40+ minutes
- Gardening for 60+ minutes
- Body Basics
- Fat Burning Workout
- Yoga for Strength
- Yoga for Beginners
- Walking to the grocery store (and lugging back groceries)
- Gardening for 30-59 minutes
- A.M. Yoga
- P.M. Yoga
- Pure and Simple Stretch
Additionally, one of the contributing factors to us getting off track was that we stopped posting some of our exercise to the blog, primarily because the exercise (walking 40+ minutes) wasn't especially intense (see this post for more). This ended up causing us to lose track of whether we were meeting our goals. So, from now on we'll post all of our goal-related exercise to the blog, regardless of how puny it may seem.
And, once again, we invite all of our (nonexistent) readers to help us out by bugging us whenever we fall off the wagon. We heard from only one person when we stopped exercising last fall, and they didn't even bug us much ... we know you can do better!
Labels: goals
Monday, November 28, 2005
What have Radagast & SO been doing?
Regular readers will notice that neither Radagast nor SO has apparently been doing much exercising in the last month. Part of this has been caused by both Radagast and SO being sick in the past few weeks. However, the larger cause of this is new work arrangements.
Radagast's SO has recently gotten a new job, and has been walking a mile each way to work and back (when not sick). This new job also includes a lot of walking, carrying, and lifting during the day.
Radagast has continued regular walking or bicycling to work (again, when not sick); Radagast has walked at least one day each week this month. Radagast has also done some post-worthy exercising this month, and just today back-posted a few items of note.
So, even though we haven't been doing strenuous video exercising every week, we've been keeping up the exercising in at least a limited fashion. Our primary problem has been time and desire; our schedules now no longer overlap nicely, and by the time we get home we're relatively wiped out. However, that's no long-term excuse, and we hope to get back to doing at least one exercise video each week, even if we're working.
Radagast's SO has recently gotten a new job, and has been walking a mile each way to work and back (when not sick). This new job also includes a lot of walking, carrying, and lifting during the day.
Radagast has continued regular walking or bicycling to work (again, when not sick); Radagast has walked at least one day each week this month. Radagast has also done some post-worthy exercising this month, and just today back-posted a few items of note.
So, even though we haven't been doing strenuous video exercising every week, we've been keeping up the exercising in at least a limited fashion. Our primary problem has been time and desire; our schedules now no longer overlap nicely, and by the time we get home we're relatively wiped out. However, that's no long-term excuse, and we hope to get back to doing at least one exercise video each week, even if we're working.
Labels: goals
Friday, July 01, 2005
First set of goals
Most exercise programs recommend setting some goals; here's our first set:
1) Be able to complete Kathy Smith's Body Basics video in its entirety in one exercise session.
2) Exercise at least two times every calendar week (starting Mondays).
That's it for now. We'll plan to reevaluate our goals in one month.
1) Be able to complete Kathy Smith's Body Basics video in its entirety in one exercise session.
2) Exercise at least two times every calendar week (starting Mondays).
That's it for now. We'll plan to reevaluate our goals in one month.
Labels: goals
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Welcome to the second most boring blog on the web
I'm Radagast, and I normally write at Rhosgobel; if you want to find out more about me, head on over there.
My SO and I have recently started exercising. This blog's primary purpose is to help us keep track of how much we've exercised, and in doing so motivate us to keep exercising; I first wrote about this idea here on Rhosgobel.
I'm going to be honest: the posts on this blog will likely be uninteresting, as they'll focus on describing the type and duration of exercise we do on any given day. If you like reading that kind of stuff, keep on reading; if not, nobody's forcing you. My SO and I may, from time to time, post reviews of exercise tapes or equipment that we're using, but we don't have much planned on that front currently.
[Note: if you're looking for the most boring blog on the web, try here.]
My SO and I have recently started exercising. This blog's primary purpose is to help us keep track of how much we've exercised, and in doing so motivate us to keep exercising; I first wrote about this idea here on Rhosgobel.
I'm going to be honest: the posts on this blog will likely be uninteresting, as they'll focus on describing the type and duration of exercise we do on any given day. If you like reading that kind of stuff, keep on reading; if not, nobody's forcing you. My SO and I may, from time to time, post reviews of exercise tapes or equipment that we're using, but we don't have much planned on that front currently.
[Note: if you're looking for the most boring blog on the web, try here.]
