I’ve been thrashing around the past years for a workout routine. Before that, I had developed a solid lap swim routine. But the regular lap swim fell apart at some point, for reasons I don’t fully recall but probably had something to do with family and work. (One good thing about this stupid pandemic is not having to drive the kids to school and activities.)
With the start of the pandemic and the growth of my waistline, I bought an exercise bike (the Bowflex C6, based on the Wirecutter’s recommendation). I also asked around and found some old dumbbells from a neighbor. I have experimented with the Peloton app and some other apps, and recently I hired a virtual personal trainer.
So here are my thoughts on working out at home. I love not having to drive to the YMCA to workout, as that commute added 30 minutes to the entire situation. Plus there was always the issue of taking work clothes and showering, or showering a second time that day, that added more time and mental effort to the event. At home I can workout, then shower and dress, when I want that day. That is easier and more empowering. But of course, it’s also strangely easy to avoid as well.
One great thing with the YMCA is having a workout buddy to keep you honest. Meeting someone at the gym means I am 99% likely to show up on time. A personal trainer, virtual or otherwise, can mimic this because you have someone checking in – when are you working out today? How was your workout yesterday? That gives you that precious accountability.
The Peloton app, and Apple Fitness+ app, are both really interesting. They give you great choices and variety – bike, yoga, stretch, rowing (if you have a rower), and weights. It’s fun to dial up what you want and do it; it’s like flipping channels on the TV to find something you are in the mood for. Both apps record what you do for easy comparison. Both apps have great trainers and great music.
A personal trainer is great because that person gets to know you and what works for you, and can measure your progress and regress. Are you a morning workout person, or an afternoon? Do you like riding the bike, or variety? Do you need to work on upper body strength, core, or endurance? This is where a personal coach really shines in helping you achieve your goals.
Peloton was a lot of fun at first, but I could never complete the bike workouts as they instructed. I am still not sure if my resistance knob is the same as Peloton’s, and only Peloton has a cadence number (speed and rotation). I got better with Peloton, but always felt like a loser because I couldn’t complete a beginner workout. The coaches on Peloton were great, but sometimes weirdly chatty. Working out with a screen is weird, and so is being filmed working out in front of a camera. We are social creatures, and the coaches are trying to connect with you by talking a bit about themselves. Peloton also adds a social aspect where you can see the online handles (not bike handles, ha ha) of others doing the same workout, and you could work out with a friend. Peloton wants to sell you their bike, but they will also let you have the app if you want to adapt it to your circumstance. I used it for 3 weeks or so but eventually got tired of it and dropped it.
I’m guessing that Apple Fitness+ has noted these problems. Their platform is bike and equipment agnostic. The cycle instructors tell you to “find a medium speed that is challenging,” but they never give you a number. They tell you to “find the recovery you need” by turning down the resistance, but leave it up to you. This is genius, because it takes the guilt and competition out of the workout. The weight workouts also don’t specify weight amounts, because there is no standard “normal” here, just what you find works for you. The focus is on completing the workout, the quality of the exercise, closing your rings, and your heart rate. The latter two elements are displayed on the screen of your device, which is so so great. I know that, given my age, a heart rate in the 140s-150s is optimal. If my heart rate gets higher than that and I feel like I’m dying, I might be right, so I should back off. If my heart rate is in the 120s I should push harder. It’s an external measurement that mirrors how your workout feels. If memory serves, the Apple Watch was called Apple’s most intimate product by Jony Ive, and this feels like that concept to the extreme: your heartbeat is displayed on screen to a workout you are doing right then. (I’m reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, which is about a tuberculosis sanatorium in Switzerland in the 1920s. The protagonist gets obsessed with the x-ray machine and its printed photographs. For him they are windows of the hidden inner body, and they are magical mementos, especially the one of his love interest. The Apple Watch displaying during Apple Fitness+ is kind of like that.)
To help with the social aspect, Apple has their various trainers exercise in each other’s workouts, so you see Greg off to the side on the bike while Kym leads the workout. This is very effective because the instructor has someone to interact with – they call out to each other, and respond and smile. There are also multiple cameras and angles at work to film the workout. All of this gives a real sense of comraderie and community, because the instructors seem to like each other and invite you in. It has a fun aspect that helps with working out. Like most people I don’t especially like exercising so it needs to be fun and welcoming, which Apple Fitness+ does well. The music is great and varied, and the playlists are available in Apple Music if you want to find a good song later. You also see the participants modifying the workout as needed, so someone may be seated instead of standing during the bike workout. This is encouraging because it reminds you that you’re not doing it wrong if you modify the workout in some way, especially if you are not as fit as Greg.
So far I’ve worked out out 5 days in a row with Apple Fitness+, and I plan to do one today as well. How much of this is the shininess of the new, and how much is real? It’s hard to know right now, but the good bit is I’m building a habit so perhaps it will stick. Or, like with Peloton, will it wear off eventually as I slide back into the old Adam? We’ll see.
The hardest bit about health is how delayed it is. Working out doesn’t produce benefits for weeks, even months – you don’t workout and then the next day you’ve lost 5 pounds. (In fact, your weight often goes up as you build muscle and your appetite increases.) It’s a massive act of faith, hope, and love to exercise because you don’t see the results anytime soon. This is also why bad eating and laziness are so pernicious. You won’t see the results of bad habits for some time, so it’s easy to eat pizza and Cheetos for a week and see the scales not change much. The delayed results naturally encourage bad habits, and discourage good habits.
One life-hack I’ve tried is clipping an index card to my bathroom mirror, and every day that I exercise I mark that day off. This is the famous Jerry Seinfeld trick for writing because it incentivizes maintaining that streak of success. My system is nothing fancy, and it doesn’t always work – if I’m in a funk I don’t care about a streak at all. But those X’s filling up the month does gently remind me to have faith and hope that what I am doing will produce benefits if I just keep finding ways to move it forward. Right now Apple Fitness+ is doing that for me.
