NordicTrack A.C.T. Features

I am feeling quite sore today after yesterday’s 6:35 minute workout. My legs feel OK, but the muscles in between my shoulder blades are very sore. I haven’t made up my mind as to whether I’ll take today off or not. I might get on and just hold onto the side railings. I think it was the wider arm poles that did my arms in. We’ll see. I’m itching to get back on it though.

As promised, here are a few pictures of some of the features I love about my new elliptical.

Nice looking machine all set up and ready to go. Note the piece of paper hanging on the wall. It’s got mileage information on it so I know how many revolutions is equal to a certain distance. I wrote it in 1/10 mile increments. Good thing too, as I only did .2 of a mile yesterday.

Big logo on the side. Not too “in your face”.

Love the console on the machine. The display color is blue (was very happy about that), and it displays how long you’ve been on (upper left), revolutions (upper right), calories burned (lower left), wattage output (low middle, not sure what it means), and RPMs (revolutions per minute).

On the lower portion of the console is a speaker. You see that black cord hanging down on the left side?

That’s a power cord you plug into your mp3 player or cd player. Pretty nice! I tried it out with my iPod, and the sound quality is excellent. I’ll be using that for sure whenever I’m on it. No more ear buds falling out midway through my workout.

At the very top of the console is the fan. I totally forgot to turn it on during my workout, but I’ll remember next time. I got so used to getting on the elliptical and not turning on the fan, I just spaced it. The fan has two speeds, high and low. There’s a third fan option called “auto fan”, where the fan increases or decreases depending on how fast you’re pedaling. I don’t think I’ll fool around with that, I plan to have it on high the entire time.

In the middle of the console there’s an ifit thing. I’ve never played around with ifit (it was on my old elliptical also), so I’m not sure how it works. I think you need an ifit card of some sort, and you plug that card into the slot and pick a workout that you can download from their website. Not positive, so I may be completely wrong.

Also in the middle of the console, you’ll see the start button (it turns on the screen if it’s been idle for 5 minutes, or you can move the pedals to turn it on), the display button (you can pick and choose what you want to see. I plan on showing everything all the time. Time, calories, RPMs, etc.), workouts button (the machine comes with some pre-set workouts), and the enter button with arrows (not sure what they do yet, but I think the left and right arrows are for scrolling through the pre-set programs and the enter button selects a workout).

On either side of the console, there are numbers. On the left you’ll see 1-10 and on the right you’ll see 11-20. Those are the resistance levels. Push a numbered button and after a few seconds, it will change the resistance. Twenty levels of resistance! My old machine only had 10 levels, and I only got up to level 4 when I used the resistance.

I didn’t get a good picture of them, but on the very bottom of the console are the hand grips you hold onto to get your heart rate.

Think that pretty much covers the console.

These are the foot pedals. Nice and narrow stance. No more awkward wide legged stance. I’m hoping that the narrower stance will make it easier to use my Vibram Five Fingers. I think the wide stance of the old machine caused my ankle issue a year ago. We’ll have to see. I might get less blisters too. I need to pay attention when I get on next time to see if I’m pushing with my whole foot now or if I’m still pushing with the insides on my feet.

This is the water bottle holder. I don’t think I’ll use it, because I need to stop and get off entirely to get a drink. I don’t have the balance to take one hand off the pole and grab a bottle and drink. My husband will probably use it though.

The bottle holder is one thing I was sort of worried about. On my other machine my knees kept hitting the water bottle holder, so we had to take it off. I do not hit this one at all, don’t even come close to it.

    

This is the stride adjuster thing-a-ma-bob. You pull out the knob and move it up or down to the stride you want. You can pick 18’’, 20’’ or 22’’. I like the 20’’ the best. I haven’t tried using the knob myself, but my husband says he needs to grease it because it feels “gummy” when he moves it.

    

This was a complete surprise to me. What is this you ask? It’s a wall adapter! No more batteries for me! The console runs off of electricity. I was not expecting this at all. I don’t remember the specifications on the Sears site saying anything about this. I am very happy. One of my major complaints with my old machine was the fact that the display screen flickered on and off no matter if it had new batteries or not. The coils in the battery compartment got squished and I basically just gave up on it.

So this was a very unexpected and nice surprise. When it first came, I actually skimmed through the owner’s manual to see what kind of batteries I needed. Didn’t see anything in the book. There was a small box included with all the parts, and it was the wall adapter. Cool beans man (that was for you Monique)!

 

And finally, this is my mileage chart. I have revolutions from .1 mile all the way to 2 miles (in .1 increments) for all three stride lengths. And the black thing in front of it is one of the arm poles. I couldn’t get a clear shot without getting it in there.

There you have it. The features of my new elliptical. So far, I love it. I can’t think of anything I don’t like about it. I’ve only been on it once, but I am very happy with it.

We’ll see how long it will take me to get up to a mile again. Hopefully it won’t take me too long.

Have a good day and a great weekend!

Bah…More Time Off

Well, I hate to say it, but it looks like I'll be taking this week off from the elliptical. Last week, I was feeling a weird muscle ache in my left foot. I thought it was because of the folded hand towel getting scrunched up beneath my foot, but I think it's more than that. I felt the same sort of muscle ache in my right foot back in July when I hurt my ankle. So rather than be stupid (which I have been in the past), I'm taking this week off. I think it will only be one week, as the pain isn't too bad. Not nearly as bad as my right ankle a few months ago.

Unfortunately, that means I'll the switching back to my tennis shoes when I exercise. That's unfortunate because I feel much more stable in my Vibram shoes. I will still wear my Vibram shoes the rest of the day. I am glad that I went slow as a test to my feet and shoes. I did do something earlier when I realized I wasn't going to exercise on the elliptical today. I got off the elliptical, took off my Vibram shoes, put on my tennis shoes, and got back on the elliptical. The ache in my left foot was a lot less, but it was still there. So that gives me a little bit of hope that it will be only one week until I can get back on. Here I was worried about my right ankle, and my left foot is the problem. My injuries seem to switch sides every time I get one.

I think I would rather deal with muscle knots in my lower legs (caused by my tennis shoes), than this weird foot thing. The foot thing could possibly turn into something worse, like plantar faciitis or something (which I think I had a few years ago).

I have thought more than once about changing cardio equipment. I always decide to stick with my elliptical because I want to be upright when I exercise. The only other piece of cardio equipment that I would feel comfortable using on my own (without anyone around) would be a stationary bike. Don't get me wrong, bicycling is great exercise, but I would really like to stay on my feet when I exercise. I keep thinking about it though. I want to stay away from treadmills since I have accidents on those. I've fallen more than a few times, and I do not want to use one when no one else is around in case I have a really nasty fall. I've never fallen off the elliptical before. I've had mine for two and half years (I think) and I've had no problems.

So I'm a bit bummed, but what can you do? You just have to keep rolling with punches. Hey that reminds me of a song that keeps me moving too. Here are the two stanzas that work for me (and yes, it’s a Bon Jovi song):

“I've been pushed around
Been knocked down
Lost a round or three
Life took a couple of things I loved
When I was too blind to see

But I’ll survive
I gave up on luck but I’m still getting by
Yeah I’m going to be alright
You can test my faith
But you can't take my pride
Thorn in my side, thorn in my side.”

I will continue my strength training the rest of the week, on Wednesday and Friday. And we'll see where I am at them. Obviously there's no mileage update or picture of the day, and I will not reach the 200 mile mark this week. I was so close too. Oh well. I'll get there eventually.

Have a great day, and I will see what I can come up with in terms of posts for this week.

Bah…More Time Off

Well, I hate to say it, but it looks like I'll be taking this week off from the elliptical. Last week, I was feeling a weird muscle ache in my left foot. I thought it was because of the folded hand towel getting scrunched up beneath my foot, but I think it's more than that. I felt the same sort of muscle ache in my right foot back in July when I hurt my ankle. So rather than be stupid (which I have been in the past), I'm taking this week off. I think it will only be one week, as the pain isn't too bad. Not nearly as bad as my right ankle a few months ago.

Unfortunately, that means I'll the switching back to my tennis shoes when I exercise. That's unfortunate because I feel much more stable in my Vibram shoes. I will still wear my Vibram shoes the rest of the day. I am glad that I went slow as a test to my feet and shoes. I did do something earlier when I realized I wasn't going to exercise on the elliptical today. I got off the elliptical, took off my Vibram shoes, put on my tennis shoes, and got back on the elliptical. The ache in my left foot was a lot less, but it was still there. So that gives me a little bit of hope that it will be only one week until I can get back on. Here I was worried about my right ankle, and my left foot is the problem. My injuries seem to switch sides every time I get one.

I think I would rather deal with muscle knots in my lower legs (caused by my tennis shoes), than this weird foot thing. The foot thing could possibly turn into something worse, like plantar faciitis or something (which I think I had a few years ago).

I have thought more than once about changing cardio equipment. I always decide to stick with my elliptical because I want to be upright when I exercise. The only other piece of cardio equipment that I would feel comfortable using on my own (without anyone around) would be a stationary bike. Don't get me wrong, bicycling is great exercise, but I would really like to stay on my feet when I exercise. I keep thinking about it though. I want to stay away from treadmills since I have accidents on those. I've fallen more than a few times, and I do not want to use one when no one else is around in case I have a really nasty fall. I've never fallen off the elliptical before. I've had mine for two and half years (I think) and I've had no problems.

So I'm a bit bummed, but what can you do? You just have to keep rolling with punches. Hey that reminds me of a song that keeps me moving too. Here are the two stanzas that work for me (and yes, it’s a Bon Jovi song):

“I've been pushed around
Been knocked down
Lost a round or three
Life took a couple of things I loved
When I was too blind to see

But I’ll survive
I gave up on luck but I’m still getting by
Yeah I’m going to be alright
You can test my faith
But you can't take my pride
Thorn in my side, thorn in my side.”

I will continue my strength training the rest of the week, on Wednesday and Friday. And we'll see where I am at them. Obviously there's no mileage update or picture of the day, and I will not reach the 200 mile mark this week. I was so close too. Oh well. I'll get there eventually.

Have a great day, and I will see what I can come up with in terms of posts for this week.

Tired, Tired, Tired

It's Friday! It does not feel like Friday to me. I'm not sure what day it feels like. My husband hasn't had a day off in almost a month. Good news a is, I think he has this Sunday off. It's not for certain, but he's trying. The days are starting to bleed together. I plan on taking Sunday off from the elliptical. My feet and calves feel achy and tired today, and I feel a little worn out. Got to keep moving though.

I'm still amazed at how my walker is improving my balance and stability. I think I might be ready to try to walk with it with no shoes. Maybe. My Five Fingers shoes had to be washed today, so I am barefoot right now. I could put them on when they're still wet, but I don't feel like sloshing around when I walk. They take about 12 hours to dry completely when they're inside. I'm sure they only take an hour or two if I put them outside in the sun. But I don't feel like doing that right now. All I feel like doing at the moment is relaxing on the couch, and reading my book. It's 1:00 PM right now, but it feels like 7:00 PM. Maybe I'll make a cup of green tea to wake myself up.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance- .7 mile
Revolutions-1322
Resistance level-1
Endurance- Great. Got a bit tired the last two and a half minutes.
Injury- None. Feet feel tired and achy, but that's all.
Time-25:10

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.7 miles today
198.4 miles since April 28, 2008
2.89 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here is the picture of the day.

Tired, Tired, Tired

It's Friday! It does not feel like Friday to me. I'm not sure what day it feels like. My husband hasn't had a day off in almost a month. Good news a is, I think he has this Sunday off. It's not for certain, but he's trying. The days are starting to bleed together. I plan on taking Sunday off from the elliptical. My feet and calves feel achy and tired today, and I feel a little worn out. Got to keep moving though.

I'm still amazed at how my walker is improving my balance and stability. I think I might be ready to try to walk with it with no shoes. Maybe. My Five Fingers shoes had to be washed today, so I am barefoot right now. I could put them on when they're still wet, but I don't feel like sloshing around when I walk. They take about 12 hours to dry completely when they're inside. I'm sure they only take an hour or two if I put them outside in the sun. But I don't feel like doing that right now. All I feel like doing at the moment is relaxing on the couch, and reading my book. It's 1:00 PM right now, but it feels like 7:00 PM. Maybe I'll make a cup of green tea to wake myself up.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance- .7 mile
Revolutions-1322
Resistance level-1
Endurance- Great. Got a bit tired the last two and a half minutes.
Injury- None. Feet feel tired and achy, but that's all.
Time-25:10

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.7 miles today
198.4 miles since April 28, 2008
2.89 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here is the picture of the day.

Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab

Writing Sites And Mileage

I took yesterday off because I had a lot of writing that I want to get done. I now have no writing assignments at the moment, and I need to go look for more. I still have my one client over at Text Broker (well two, but they're on the same account), but I am mainly writing for a site called Demand Media Studios. I have a love/hate relationship with this site. I have been a member of the site since March or April of this year I believe. They have various formats of writing such as the "how to" format, the "list" format, the "short answer" format, and a few others I think. I do the "how to" format.

Demand Media Studios was a site that I had always wanted to be a part of. I was always frustrated to see that they required a resume and writing samples. I didn't have either one of those (I am working on those slowly), so I always gave up. I got brought into this site through another site called eHow. Demand Media Studios is the parent company of eHow, and eHow was changing the way they did their site. They were switching to the Demand Media Studios platform for writing. Due to this merge, I was brought into Demand Media Studios. I was very excited when I got the e-mail earlier this year.

My problem came about when I started to look for titles to write on. They have over 100,000 titles, but most of them make no sense whatsoever. For example, the title "How to Clean a Sharp SF 2052 Copier". Luckily there are some easier titles that come around every now and then. I find most of the tiles I write under the health section or the culture section. Sometimes those sections are empty, or filled with random titles about cars. I'm glad they came up with a way to hide titles that you don't want to see any more. That's made everything a lot easier.

I've written about eight how to articles in the last two days. It takes me about an hour to write one (and that's slow compared to most people). My process is like this. I look up titles, and claim the ones I think are going to be the easiest to write. Once I've got 10 (the claim limit), I look up research links. Demand Media Studios is very specific in the research links you use. They have certain web sites that are banned for use, and they like web sites that end in .edu, .gov, and sometimes .net. I never use sites that end in .com. Thank goodness for SearchEdu.com. Once I have all my research links, I get to work. The great thing about this site is that the articles have a minimum word limit of 400 words. And every article is worth $15.00 (no matter what the word count is). So if you can find 10 articles every time you search, you can make a good deal of money. My problem is always finding titles. Oh and the other good thing about the site is that they pay twice a week.

On to the fitness portion of my day. Things are still going well with my elliptical. I'm looking forward to Saturday or Sunday when I increase my time to 30 minutes. I'm trying my best to be patient. I know it's in my best interest to take it slow using my "new" shoes. I figure I can go about .8 or .9 mile in 30 minutes. That's really close to 1 mile, and I'll be tempted to go further, but I will try my best not to.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance- .7 mile
Revolutions-1324
Resistance level-1
Endurance-Excellent
Injury- None.
Time-25:10

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.7 miles today
197.6 miles since April 28, 2008
3.61 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here is the picture of the day.

Writing Sites And Mileage

I took yesterday off because I had a lot of writing that I want to get done. I now have no writing assignments at the moment, and I need to go look for more. I still have my one client over at Text Broker (well two, but they're on the same account), but I am mainly writing for a site called Demand Media Studios. I have a love/hate relationship with this site. I have been a member of the site since March or April of this year I believe. They have various formats of writing such as the "how to" format, the "list" format, the "short answer" format, and a few others I think. I do the "how to" format.

Demand Media Studios was a site that I had always wanted to be a part of. I was always frustrated to see that they required a resume and writing samples. I didn't have either one of those (I am working on those slowly), so I always gave up. I got brought into this site through another site called eHow. Demand Media Studios is the parent company of eHow, and eHow was changing the way they did their site. They were switching to the Demand Media Studios platform for writing. Due to this merge, I was brought into Demand Media Studios. I was very excited when I got the e-mail earlier this year.

My problem came about when I started to look for titles to write on. They have over 100,000 titles, but most of them make no sense whatsoever. For example, the title "How to Clean a Sharp SF 2052 Copier". Luckily there are some easier titles that come around every now and then. I find most of the tiles I write under the health section or the culture section. Sometimes those sections are empty, or filled with random titles about cars. I'm glad they came up with a way to hide titles that you don't want to see any more. That's made everything a lot easier.

I've written about eight how to articles in the last two days. It takes me about an hour to write one (and that's slow compared to most people). My process is like this. I look up titles, and claim the ones I think are going to be the easiest to write. Once I've got 10 (the claim limit), I look up research links. Demand Media Studios is very specific in the research links you use. They have certain web sites that are banned for use, and they like web sites that end in .edu, .gov, and sometimes .net. I never use sites that end in .com. Thank goodness for SearchEdu.com. Once I have all my research links, I get to work. The great thing about this site is that the articles have a minimum word limit of 400 words. And every article is worth $15.00 (no matter what the word count is). So if you can find 10 articles every time you search, you can make a good deal of money. My problem is always finding titles. Oh and the other good thing about the site is that they pay twice a week.

On to the fitness portion of my day. Things are still going well with my elliptical. I'm looking forward to Saturday or Sunday when I increase my time to 30 minutes. I'm trying my best to be patient. I know it's in my best interest to take it slow using my "new" shoes. I figure I can go about .8 or .9 mile in 30 minutes. That's really close to 1 mile, and I'll be tempted to go further, but I will try my best not to.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance- .7 mile
Revolutions-1324
Resistance level-1
Endurance-Excellent
Injury- None.
Time-25:10

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.7 miles today
197.6 miles since April 28, 2008
3.61 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here is the picture of the day.

Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab

Too Early To Tell

First day of the elliptical using my Vibram Five Fingers shoes again. I did a half mile in 18 minutes, and I really wanted to go more. I told myself that I would not go more than a half mile or 20 minutes, whichever came first. It was really hard not to go longer, and even harder not to go too fast. I had to keep telling myself to slow down when I noticed I was going faster than I wanted to be.

The good thing is that the muscle knots aren't as aggravated as they were on Thursday. It's still too early to tell whether or not I will have any problems with my ankle. My mind was playing tricks on me, as I thought I felt a twinge in my right ankle. I just think that was the muscle knots that I was feeling. We'll see how it goes the rest of this week. I plan on only going a half mile the rest of the week.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance-0.5 mile
Revolutions-880
Resistance level-1
Endurance-excellent
Injury-some muscle knot issue, not bad though. Not sure about the possibility of an ankle problem yet (switched shoes to Five Fingers)
Time-18:22

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.5 miles today
192.4 miles since April 28, 2008
8.67 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here's the picture of today's mileage point.

Looks like there are a couple of tractors on the side of the road. I wonder what they're doing.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and has a great week ahead.

Too Early To Tell

First day of the elliptical using my Vibram Five Fingers shoes again. I did a half mile in 18 minutes, and I really wanted to go more. I told myself that I would not go more than a half mile or 20 minutes, whichever came first. It was really hard not to go longer, and even harder not to go too fast. I had to keep telling myself to slow down when I noticed I was going faster than I wanted to be.

The good thing is that the muscle knots aren't as aggravated as they were on Thursday. It's still too early to tell whether or not I will have any problems with my ankle. My mind was playing tricks on me, as I thought I felt a twinge in my right ankle. I just think that was the muscle knots that I was feeling. We'll see how it goes the rest of this week. I plan on only going a half mile the rest of the week.

Elliptical stats for the day:
Distance-0.5 mile
Revolutions-880
Resistance level-1
Endurance-excellent
Injury-some muscle knot issue, not bad though. Not sure about the possibility of an ankle problem yet (switched shoes to Five Fingers)
Time-18:22

Virtual walk tour stats for the day:
0.5 miles today
192.4 miles since April 28, 2008
8.67 miles to Mechums River, VA, Charlottesville City County

Here's the picture of today's mileage point.

Copyright 2006 Lawrence Berkeley Lab

Looks like there are a couple of tractors on the side of the road. I wonder what they're doing.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and has a great week ahead.

Workin’ On The Weekend

I took the last two days off from exercise because I wanted to see if the muscle knots in my lower right leg would go away. They have somewhat, but they are still there. I plan on getting onto the elliptical again tomorrow. I also plan on switching back to my Five Fingers shoes. I'm not sure how long I'll go on the elliptical tomorrow morning, but I want to try for at least a half mile. That will probably take me about 20 minutes, which will be enough time to see how my shoes do.

I am enjoying the cooler weather lately. The weather has finally changed from summer to fall out here in the California desert. We are now having highs in the lower to mid eighties, instead of in the nineties or lower hundreds. We also got a ton of rain earlier in the week. I think we ended up getting over an 1½ inch, but I can't be sure.

I did get a lot of writing done today. I wrote five articles plus this blog post. I have two more to write before looking for more. I will do those tomorrow as my eyes are dead.

Hope your weekend is going well. Keep on moving.

Workin’ On The Weekend

I took the last two days off from exercise because I wanted to see if the muscle knots in my lower right leg would go away. They have somewhat, but they are still there. I plan on getting onto the elliptical again tomorrow. I also plan on switching back to my Five Fingers shoes. I'm not sure how long I'll go on the elliptical tomorrow morning, but I want to try for at least a half mile. That will probably take me about 20 minutes, which will be enough time to see how my shoes do.

I am enjoying the cooler weather lately. The weather has finally changed from summer to fall out here in the California desert. We are now having highs in the lower to mid eighties, instead of in the nineties or lower hundreds. We also got a ton of rain earlier in the week. I think we ended up getting over an 1½ inch, but I can't be sure.

I did get a lot of writing done today. I wrote five articles plus this blog post. I have two more to write before looking for more. I will do those tomorrow as my eyes are dead.

Hope your weekend is going well. Keep on moving.