Be Fit With Biray

Hi, everyone! Kix here (most of you know me as Biray’s alter-ego or Second Life avatar) . Well, I’m just as real as you ‘real-lifers’ (or as I like to call you RLers or ‘reallers’). I’m definitely more uninhibited and free-spirited than my RL-counterpart. I mean, c’mon – after all, I can fly!!

Biray has invited me to be a guest blogger on all things health & fitness-related in Second Life. So, if I come across things I think you ‘reallers’ might be interested in, I’ll post it.

I’ve been on SL for over a year and I’m still amazed at the places I discover and events I participate in (you can follow my SL adventures on my personal blog.) You’d be surprised at how positively the health, fitness, and wellness communities have responded to SL.

This morning I discovered the SL Wellness Center! Powered by TechnoGym, StreamZilla, Fitness.com – the SL fitness center is equipped with everything you would want in a gym – group exercise schedule, a stretching area, cardio equipment and weight training machines. They even offer indoor cycling classes via streaming video three times a week. I’m definitely planning on going back for a ‘real’ cycling experience.

I took a quick tour of the studio and found the design to be very spacious and user-friendly. There were posters on the walls around the gym to educate members on body mechanics, as well as, give them options for different exercises.

With the stair machines, ellipticals, and treadmills around, I couldn’t resist getting on one for some cardio. (You know what that Surgeon General says about getting those 30-minutes of physical activity in your day! It’s no different for us ‘avies’ here in SL. We have a heart, too). Though, I’ll have to remember to avoid wearing jeans and boots next time…

The strength training equipment were more limited in their function – meaning, when I sat on the machine, the animation that controlled my moves were not exactly physiologically correct. But there were plenty of different kinds of equipment to get a comprehensive upper and lower body workout.

Now I know what you ‘reallers’ might be thinking. This is crazy! It’s virtual – it’s not real. Yeah, yeah, yeah… shut up. Let’s see you come here and break a sweat…

But in all seriousness, let’s address some of possible advantages that RL health and fitness professionals might have by utilizing these Second Life resources. An immediate response of a real lifer might be, “How can watching an avatar run on the treadmill translate in one’s performance in their physical world?” A valid point (even I can see that). But let’s back up one step – whose to say that the benefits of SL have to be physiological?

Think about connecting with an audience (the video-gamer, computer-savvy, techno-driven individual) who is looking for ways to improve his/her health and fitness, but has no clue how to start a program or what to do inside a gym. Well, by being present in SL, you might have the opportunity to communicate with a different type of client who might benefit from your expertise. Here are some ideas:

* Educate SLers on health-related topics – create an event and invite SLers to your lecture and communicate in their environment. I often see health and fitness professionals encourage people to come to them (their gyms, their offices, their websites, etc.) If you want to target this new net-generation of individuals, you have to be present on their turf.
* Demonstrate and Discuss Equipment Use – these SL-gyms are great for showing SLers how to use weight training equipment and cardio machines in real life! Discuss machine advantages, give tips to consider in strength conditioning, and answer any questions in real-time. These virtual gyms are great visual references for SLers to then translate into their real gym facilities. After a few sessions with you, they may not be as hesitant in entering a gym with their new-found knowledge.
* Design exercise prescriptions for a SL-clients – Now, take it to the next level – train clients through SL! You’re not training the avatar – you’re training the person behind the avatar. Just like online personal training interacts with ‘real people’ via websites and emails, you can interact with real clients via their avatars. Service the next generation!

Also, don’t think this is all done for free – YOU CAN MAKE MONEY DOING THIS. Yes… this is real… You can charge SLers for your services and expertise. Already there are health facilities, nutritional advisers, and organizations in Second Life exploring these options. There are over 9 million residents in SL – so get in there and be innovative!

Unfortunately, I didn’t spend as much time at the gym as I would have liked. However, I did complete my workout with a cool-down and stretch sequence. It would be nice to have training buddies to challenge and accompany me during my workouts. But because SL is still an experimental platform for health and fitness professionals, most of these virtual gyms and wellness communities are still light in traffic.

Anyway, if you are a SL’er yourself and have a few moments, the Wellness Center is definitely a landmark worth checking out. (In SL, search for ‘gym on chase island’ or type in these coordinates: 62, 197, 21).

Logging Off…

(A little company plug…)
FITTmaxx Institute is offering a series of BLOGGING workshop for health, fitness, and wellness professionals across the nation in 2008! Take your health & fitness business up to speed in today’s internet-savvy culture!

FMI’s first stop will be Phoenix, Arizona.
Location: Arizona Small Business Association (Phx office) – Computer Lab
Date: Friday January 25th, 2008 – 9am to 1pm
Cost: $129, CEC’s provided

Learn how a BLOG can help you:
* Design cost-effective marketing
* Increase your revenue stream
* Strengthen client/member relationships
* Enhance your online presence

Workshop Objectives:
1. Participants will learn the fundamental structures of a blog, its applications within the health, fitness, and wellness arena, and it’s professional implications.

2. Participants will develop their own sample blog through a simple 4-phase process and discuss the advantages and limitations of creating a blog.

3. Participants will acquire effective techniques that will help with successful blog maintenance and blog marketing.

After taking this workshop, you will wonder why you weren’t blogging sooner!

LIMITED SEATING TO 12 Participants!
Register early at www.FittmaxxInstitute.com – click on STORE.

Stay tuned for announcements for upcoming workshops in February (Los Angeles and San Diego) and in March (Dallas, Ft Worth, and Austin).

I enjoy evolving my personal yoga practice by gaining additional insights from other yoga instructors, thoughtful readings, and other intimate experiences. Usually on Sundays, I challenge my practice with a heated or yin/relax yoga class at local InnerVision Yoga studio. This morning was different. My energy was distracted and I couldn’t make it out of the house in time for class. So, being the techno-driven fitness geek that I am, I defaulted to my resources on the web – podcasts.

This morning I downloaded a free yoga podcast from aliveyoga.com – a site delivering recordings from actual yoga classes by world-renowned instructors. The yoga-cast was guided by Beryl Bender Birch, the founder and director of The Hard & the Soft Yoga Institute in East Hampton and Vermont and best-selling author Power Yoga. It was an hour and thirty-four minute intermediate class, primarily focused on flow.

Being that I’m a visual learner, it is difficult for me to grasp cues solely by listening. This was both challenging and frustrating during my practice. (Ironically, working through this challenge became the focus of my experience this morning.) Around 53 minutes, I strayed a bit from the format. I reconnected again at the end, during savasana or final relaxation/meditation.

Initially, I found the experience to be disorienting – I’m so reliant on having a visual guide. It is also a bit distracting to hear Birch talking to other participants – although it does give the feeling of a real-time class. I was hoping she’d bring more attention to her ‘podcast’ audience. But Birch definitely delivers a well-designed class. Now that I’m familiar with her cues and poses, I wouldn’t mind listening to this podcast a second or third time. However, I would not recommend this yoga-cast for those who are unfamiliar with yoga terminology – especially in Sanskrit form.

I will continue to explore various health-related podcasts and post my thoughts on the blog. I want to gain a better understanding of the value and limitations that come with delivering fitness and wellness classes through audio formats.

Namaste

I woke up this morning (a favorite part of my day) and realized I had to write a blog post immediately! For the past few days I’ve been haunted by my thoughts about how internet technologies (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, etc) are being utilized in the health and fitness arena. I hadn’t been able to construct my thoughts until now. This morning something clicked.

Is anyone even using these tools to measure health behaviors? Or are we simply using various platforms to promote health messages and market our health and fitness businesses?

Is a Facebook group on cancer or an exercise tip on YouTube any more effective than our previous forms of communication – such as through live groups, fitness DVDs, health education classes, and public health campaigns? Okay, so we reach more people through the internet (in a cost-effective way) – I get that. And sometimes the anonymity we gain when hiding behind a ‘screen name’ is comforting when dealing with certain health issues – I get that, too (although Facebook now has several alcoholics anonymous groups that are, well – not so anonymous.)

In studying health behavior change theories, most models suggest that bringing awareness to an issue or behavior is only one of many steps in the process of change. If a person doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, then how can he begin to implement change, right? Therefore, I can see value in utilizing social media in raising consciousness to a variety of health-related topics. Constructed well, the messages can reach broad audiences, and perhaps even motivate the beginnings of behavior change. You might even go so far as noting that the sheer volume of messages on the same topic, regardless of the source (be it expert or enthusiast), can create a momentum towards change. Case and point: the green movement.

But raising awareness is only one aspect of motivating change. Can these tools be used for more than mainstream messaging? Do they have any influence in sustaining a healthy lifestyle? Here are some of my initial (raw) thoughts…

Can Twitter be used as a teaching tool to introduce the art of mindfulness for the net-generation? One could argue that Twitter demonstrates the practice of recognizing what you are doing and feeling, when you are doing and feeling them. (Check out my thoughts on Twitter here.)

Can maintaining a blog between two people (i.e. a client and a trainer) increase adherence levels to a fitness program? If so, why and how can you measure its effects?

Can the process of creating your avatar for Second Life disclose a person’s self-image or self-esteem? If so, how can these be measured and translated to treating patients with eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorders? (Sabrina Doolittle wrote a fascinating post “Does Size Really Matter” earlier this year, in which she asked questions assessing the thoughts one considers when creating the body of their avatar.)

What can we extrapolate from watching hundreds of YouTube videos documenting people’s weekly weight loss updates? Does this really impact rate of behavior change and the quality of this change? Or are we simply being narcissistic? (Check out YouTube Can Be Fit to watch a montage of the health/fitness-related content posted.)

I think we owe it to ourselves to explore these tools further, especially in their application in the health and fitness fields. In researching these tools, we may find that we can gain different insights to our culture’s sport and health psychology.

Once again, exergaming and games for health research continues onward with more momentum (and now more grant money). Open call for proposals has been announced on the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation website. If you know of anyone who is seeking funding for research on health-relate games, this might be a great opportunity. This is an $8.25-Million Research Program to Investigate Design Strategies and Benefits of Interactive Games to Improve Health and Health Care. Good luck!!

Granted, I may spend way too much time drooling over technology. But at least I can step away from it every blue moon to enjoy an outdoor stroll.

(This was the suburban view of the Arizona sunset captured on my cellphone.)

(Okay, so I may have taken my web-enhanced, GPS-equipped, Twitter-capable geeky cellphone with me on my walk. But I only brought it as a safety measure in case of danger!)Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

It fascinates me when new technology changes the way we engage in physical activities. I still remember the moment in my professional career when I first discovered heart rate monitors. It changed my entire philosophy on cardiovascular training. Now I can’t imagine a workout without one.

It seems that GPS(Global Positioning System) has similarly changed the way people engage in outdoor adventures. We’ve all heard of GPS, particularly in how it’s guided us with street directions. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see GPS utilized in outdoor excursions, as well. Let’s just say, the compass has evolved!

I’ve had my share of outdoor hiking and biking excursions, but I had never given a second thought to venturing away from registered trails and marked campgrounds. (Also, that was back when I lived in LA. Although the Santa Ana Mountains were practically in my backyard, a trip off the beaten path would have led me to a red carpet trail of celebrities and over-priced Malibu homes.)

With GPS, now the whole world is your trail (well, the part to which the maps have been downloaded)! In my search to understanding these gadgets further, I went to the ultimate outdoor store (REI). A thorough lecture was given by an REI professional on the Fundamentals of GPS. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the inner workings of satellite coordination, how locations are tracked and ‘waypoints’ inputted.

I realize GPS has been around (and available mainstream) for several years. And, no doubt, health and fitness professionals have been participating in outdoor activities for ages. But recently (and I’m a little late in the game here) the combination of this technology and adventure has spawned a new extreme sport called geocaching.

In essence, geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a GPS-based treasure hunt anywhere across the world’s geography. One basically hides a cache at an undisclosed location, uploads cache coordinates to a website, and geocachers search for it, come back and post their experiences!! What’s in a cache, you ask (don’t worry, I asked that too)? It can be as simple as a logbook (to prove you were there), as extravagant as thousands of dollars, or as mysterious as coordinates to another secret cache! Geocaching can take place in natural or urban environments.

The guy at REI showed us several GPS products – from training (handheld) to travel (for the car) variations. Some of the high-end GPS devices come with built-in pedometers, accelerometers, barometers, altimeters, and even… (drum roll please) heart rate monitors!!!

I know what’s going on my wish list this year!

Recently I had an interesting discussion with some colleagues about the internet’s role on personal privacy versus public disclosure. Although the web has made it easy for us to share every aspect of our lives with other people (strangers and friends alike), why do we feel the need to do so? Is this the classic case of ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, will it make a sound?’ Does sharing what we do and feel, at the time we do and feel them to the intangible online community our way of making sounds? Perhaps not. But the internet definitely amplifies everything. And Twitter is perhaps the most popular online ‘amplifier’ of these insignificant, incessant ramblings.

Twitter is a site for microblogging (posting short scripts about your thoughts, feelings, and actions in 160 characters or less) – think of it as an IM or text message to the world. You can follow the public timeline of ‘tweets’ or specifically subscribe to follow your friends’ daily rants. Either way, you’re likely to read the most honest, instantaneous reveals of the day, hour, minute, second, present moment, and now. (In fact, if you refresh this page or return to this post at another time, my green Twitter box might likely be updated.)

I’ve been on Twitter for about 8 months and although I understand the concept, I’m not entirely convinced of its application in the health & fitness industry (yet). I suspect there might be advantages to Twittering with clients, fitness clubs, and personal trainers, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it.

Over these next few months I will explore Twitter in hopes to discover how our community is adopting this tool and its affects on their personal and professional relationships. So far, I’ve found and have been following 16 health and fitness professionals on Twitter.

If you’d like to participate in this conversation, Twitter-me a ‘nudge’ and let’s follow each other, too!

Recently I read in Game|Life that an old video game Samba de Amigo (previously on the Sega Dreamcast in 2000) is coming back to life in Wii form (which means more physical activity for the player!)

According to wikipedia: “Samba de Amigo is played with a pair of maracas. As a song plays, the player (guided by on-screen graphics) must shake the maracas at high, middle, or low heights with the beat of the music, or occasionally must strike poses with the maracas held in various positions. The player is represented on-screen by “Amigo”, a grinning monkey with a square head and a sombrero. If the player does well, the scene around the monkey (usually a concert or a dance) will attract more people and become more vividly animated; if the player does poorly, characters leave and eventually all that’s left is the monkey alone, looking sad.”

Not only does this sound extremely entertaining, but I can just see its potential in fitness centers and health clubs around the world! Traditionally, dance-based group exercise classes (like jazzercise, ZUMBA, salsa fitness, hip-hop aerobics, etc.) build on familiar rhythmic beats, repetitive choreography, and fantastic music! They are generally very popular and prove to be successful across a wide demographic – young/old, fit/unfit. So why not add a dance-based exergame class to your group exercise schedule? Create a stir in the club and differentiate your club from the rest!

Samba de Amigo will be available on the Wii this spring 2008.
Start planning your programming for ‘Cinco de Mayo’ festivities!!