Happy New Year!

It's been a very nice Christmas and now I'm looking forward to a nice New Year's eve.

Anyway, charts are updated. Since I noticed I've been running less and doing more of gym exercise I have also included a chart showing this trend.

The charts are now updated

I've finally found some time to create a systemized way of creating the weekly charts. Just click Weekly metrics charts to the right to see the progress of the experiment!

New page with weekly metrics charts

I have added a new page with three charts showing data I update once a week:

• Weight - Includes both total weight and fat weight
• Body - Includes waist, chest and upper arm measures
• Blood Pressure - Systolic and Disatolic blood pressure

You will find the charts here:

Week 3 - measurements

Week 3 metrics was measured 2011-09-23 (on a Friday). Normally I measure on Saturdays but since we went on vacation I decided to make the measurements one day early.

Weight: 89.6 kg
Fat mass: 24.4%

Stomach: 104 cm
Chest: 105 cm
Upper arm: 34 cm

Next measurement will be on Sunday October 2.

Week 2 - measurements

Weight: 89.5 kg
Fat mass: 24.4%

Stomach: 104 cm
Chest: 107 cm
Upper arm: 33 cm

Equipment

Running is nothing without the equipment. Well, maybe that's not true for you but it's true for me ;) And on top of that I like statistics. So here's my list of equipment (shoes and clothes are not in focus here):

* iPhone 3Gs - For measurement, music, social network and possible calls. I use iSmootRun app (see below).
* iSmoothRun - This app measures time, distance and also make use of accelerometer in the iPhone or a foot pod if available if GPS has trouble finding positioning. Heart rate is also measured. Heart rate and foot pod is measured together with Wahoo Key (see below).
* Wahoo Key - Measures heart rate with ANT+ accessories like my Garmin Hear Rate Belt and the Wahoo Stride foot pod.
* Wahoo Stride - Foot pod for measuring when running on treadmill or when it's to cloudily for the GPS to work.
* Garmin heart rate sensor - I go this together with the Forerunner 305 (see below) and it works fine with Wahoo Key for connection to the iPhone.
* Garmin Forerunner 305 - I bought it 2006 and it still works fine. It measures distance more precisely than my iPhone so I use it as backup.

Of course all these items are absolutely vital to have in order to be able to run... ;)

Week 1 - measurements

I completed my first 20 minutes today. It felt ok but I felt some pain in my knees from yesterday's run.

Anyway, I weighted and measured myself first thing in the morning. I will do this once a week during the course of the experiment. I must say I was very disappointed. A few weeks ago I weighted 92 kg. Today I weighted only 89 kg. 3 kg in two weeks just disappeared!? I wanted them to disappear during the experiment, not before ;)

Anyway, here are the measured data from Day 1:

Weight: 89.1 kg
Fat mass: 24.7%

Stomach: 106 cm
Chest: 106 cm
Upper arm: 33 cm

Whenever I have accumulated enough data (around Christmas) I will upload some charts.

10 km Benchmark run finished

I just completed the 10 km benchmark run I wanted to do prior to the experiment. When the experiment is over on March 10, 2012 I will make the same run (same track) to see if there is any significant difference. Unfortunately after only a few km the heart rate belt had some problems probably due to moisture getting into the battery compartment. I'll have to fix that. Also, the battery of my iPhone ran out after about 6-7 km. Fortunately I had my Garmin Forerunner 305 with me. All data comes from the Forerunner rather than the iPhone.

Time: 1:06:22
Distance: 9.87 km (the run was in fact a full 10 km run but the GPS measured only 9,87 km)
Track: 10 km in Skatås

Exercise log

Right after each exercise I will upload the exercise to the following places:

http://tribesports.com/users/softiq

http://runkeeper.com/user/SoftIQ

http://www.dailymile.com/people/SoftIQ

Feel free to follow the day-to-day progress of the experiment from these places! I will also upload weekly data to this blog.

If you have any ideas or comments please write the comment below!

Will 20 minutes of exercise everyday for half a year make any difference?

On September 10, 2011 I will start an experiment exercising only 20 minutes a day for half a year. The 20 minutes will include warm up (if necessary) and stretching.

Details
I will exercise the 20 minutes anytime during the day, when it fits me. Sometimes it will be in the morning and sometimes in the evening. The type of exercise will vary but mostly I will run at moderate pace. Push ups, sit ups and other type of strengthening activities will also be part of my exercise. In other words I won't have any specific rules on what I should train within the 20 minutes. In order to make it as pleasant as possible I don't want to be too rigid on how I train.

Food
I will not intentionally change the way I eat, however the food intake might change as a result of the exercise. Basically I will eat whatever I feel for, as I'm doing today.

Current fitness
I'm pretty unfit at this moment. I'm weighing around 92 kg and I should probably by weighing around 77-80 kg.

Measuring results
* start - I will run 10 km on September 9, 2011 in order to have a benchmark. I will measure time and heart rate as well as the trail.
* everyday - I will measure time, distance, trail, heart rate
* once a week - weight, muscle mass, fat mass, measure abdomen, chest and upper arms
* The experiment ends on March 10, 2012. On March 11 I will run 10 km. Once again I will measure time and heart rate in order to compare to the run from September 9, 2011.

Purpose of the experiment
To find out what difference a 20 minutes exercise will do. Many people says it won't make any significant difference while other says that exercising only a small period of time will make difference. We will see if it makes any difference for me!