May 17th, 2008

4 month of nothing or how not to run a blog

When I started GeekySports.com I was very enthusiastic about sports. I still am. But in January I had a major injury so that I couldn’t do any sports.

Obviously this affected my writing habits. I wrote stuff about non sport related topics like tech and mobile communication.

The big return? A new start?

However I would like to start through again, for that reason I changed the design, deleted almost all private training sessions and removed some advertisement that sucked.

# of feed readers dropped dramatically

This is obvious. No new content here and everyone leaves. I would do the same. But perhaps you want to give me a second chance.

This is my feed address

I would be more than happy!

Is there any topic you’d like to see here?

Tell me about your interests. I’d love to cover new sport related topics. Just send me a mail or leave a comment!

Thank you!

Markus

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January 14th, 2008

Weird fitness machine - Is there hope for full time bloggers?

Fitness Computer

You’re afraid to get too bold from blogging? With Springflex you can now do your workout directly in front of your PC. Attach the machine like a vise on your desk and start pumping. The SkyMall page says you can do over 120 exercises with it. Wow! My first guess was no more than 5 :)

Schedule for lazy bloggers

Action Task
writing comments push 3x
receiving comments push 3x
publish new blogost push 25x
incomming link push 50 x
(because this is so motivating)
traffic increases more than 100% push 100 x
incomming link from this blog push 250 x
features on google.com frontpage push 1500 x
wordpress installation hacked screw off - throw out of the window

Please take this blogpost with a grain of salt

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January 14th, 2008

How to avoid headache after your workout

A lot of people people complain about headache after jogging or rowing. Especially if you do an anaerobic workout chances for a headache are increasing. Here is some advice to prevent headache in the first place.

  1. Drink!

    You should drink before, during and after your workout. If it’s somehow impossible for you to drink during sports, you should think twice before you exercise exceeds an hour. Dehydration is one of the main factors that you’ll lose energy and your headache after your workout.

    Water is good! You don’t need those l-carnitine drinks! Your body will produce enough of it.
    Add apple juice for long distances if you like.

  2. Eat!

    Even if your goal is to lose weight you should consider eating a small portion before your workout. Usually a fitness bar or a yogurt is enough.
    But: You should also avoid too much food. That isn’t necessarily connected to headache, but you’ll avoid that your stomach hurts during sports.

  3. Vitamins!

    It can’t be too bad to eat some fruit or vegetables sometimes. Don’t forget that vitamins are important for your body and your endurance.

  4. Don’t go over the top!

    Try to increase the intensity of your workout progressively.

I hope this advice will help you to prevent headache after an intensive workout.

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November 24th, 2007

Probably the only geeky sport gadget which doesn’t improve your fitness

I know, this video has been around the net for at least 3 days now and you may have seen it already ;)

I’m talking about the video “Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators”!

It’s about a robotic exoskeleton, developed by Sarcos, which mimics every move the person inside does! My only concern is, that it’s used for military purposes only. With some modification and weight improvements it could be used for people with osteoporosis or other diseases.

But as we know, technology subsidized by military sometimes has a good impact on the whole population, like the world wide web. Let’s see what lies ahead.

But now, the video:

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November 23rd, 2007

Defined muscles? Not necessarily by lifting more weights!

You are going to your local gym almost every day but parts of your body, even those you train hard for, don’t look like they should be: Defined?!

But how to achieve this goal? Eat more and lift more weights to gain more muscle mass?
If you ask me: No! Try it the other way round: Eat less but more healthy for a fixed period of time!

Bear in mind that you should already have a basis of muscles to do this! I would not advice this for someone who just signed the gym contract.

Endurance

Running, exercise bikes and rope jumping is good for your endurance and your body! Try to run more than 20 minutes and you can, if you like, do anaerobic training intervals.
But you shouldn’t push too hard: Too much training will result in shrinking muscles, because muscle mass is used to supply energy for your body during really intense workouts.

Lifting weights - Faster

Usually no personal trainer would advice to lift your weights very fast. Because,

  • the swing makes it easier for you to lift the weights, which is not really good and even looks ridiculous on some occasions
  • fast movements could result in joint pain! So be careful!

Try to lift weights with a reasonable fast speed during this training interval. Take less weight but speed up your workout. At this day you should not lift heavy weights at all.

Lifting weights - Heavy

Without lifting massive weights you won’t be able to sustain your current muscle mass. Try to do only 5 - max. 10 repetitions in one set.

After two weeks you should be able to see first results if you train hard enough ;)

Food

First of all: Drink! Water is healthy and cheap! With an increasing age it’s more likely that you don’t feel thirsty although your body needs liquid. Make sure you remind yourself to drink more.

Keep your energy balance (calories) at a low level. That doesn’t mean you have to be hungry all the time. Try to eat healthy food like vegetables, protein and fish.

Finally

You shouldn’t do this training over a very long period of time. One month is more than enough. If you want to build muscle mass your body will obviously need more calories!

You’re really enthusiastic about getting defined muscles? Try to switch between both methods (2-4 weeks): Gaining muscle mass by eating more and lifting heavy weights and defining your muscles again by having a negative energy balance, using the training explained above.

If you enjoyed your read, grab my feed

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November 20th, 2007

Workout With Your Baby or Moms Get Fit

I just found this video and I think it’s worth sharing with you and I guess it has the potential to go viral ;)

It’s about two men sharing their “experise” about losing belly fat after childbirth. Just watch it

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November 18th, 2007

The 5+ minutes “Rowing Mania”

Update: this series has ended. I think there will be no more personal workouts on this blog. Thanks for your support for this project :)

THIS IS A SERIES! I STARTED WITH 10 MINUTES ROWING AND I WILL ADD 5 MINUTES EVERY TIME!
How long will I endure this?

[I'll always update this post as soon as I took a picture of my current workout]

For the newbies :) After a long run in the Netherlands I was injured and I thought of doing another sport instead, to give my feet a break.

Indoor Rowing seemed to be ideal for this. You use almost every muscle, but your feet rest at the same place all the time.

After my first workout I thought it would be cool to increase the total time slowly. Because I was (or am) very unexperienced I chose 5 minutes. Starting with 10 minutes. Back then I was really exhausted after 10 minutes.

Now it has become something like an addiction. Hard to stop if you are posting your workouts on the Internet. Try it :)

Every workout I made and will make in this series will be shown on this page. So if I’m not able to manage my next goal (+5 minutes compared to the last workout) I will stop this series.

Here are my past workouts (shot with my mobile phone)
Beginning with the first one
Keep reading →

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November 17th, 2007

Baseball USB Flash Drive - 1GB

Baseball USB Drive 1GB

When it comes to baseball a lot of people start going crazy. Obviously the Pretec product development team was in a similar state of mind or just watched a good game before creating this product.

Unfortunately it’s no longer listet on the pretec homepage and I was not able to find an online retail store, but here are some specifications:

  • no external power required
  • Max. data transfer > 10MB
  • Dimension: 38 x 35
  • Weight: 35g
  • Supports Windows, Mac and Linux

Somehow my first thought was: That’s a whistle. Let’s hope nobody will actually use it as a baseball. I bet the data would be lost, or what do you think? :)

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November 5th, 2007

Nike+ website - Run more with the community

In my last post you can read how to track your runs with the iPod nano and the Nike+ Sport Kit. Of course this would be a little boring if there wasn’t something like a community functionality. For those of you who might consider buying an iPod nano for running I took a closer look at the website.

When you connect your iPod to your computer after your run, it will automatically sync. But if it’s your first run, you’ll have to create an account first, of course. Then you’ll be redirected to the Nike+ homepage where you see your last run on the front page. Of course there are more options:

Here is the first menu:

Nike Plus - My Runs

Runs

Here you can see all your runs and then take a closer look at one run. Here you can see one of my runs in the Netherlands:

Nike Plus - My Run

I wore my new shoes at this run in the Netherlands. Not a very good idea if you ask me now. Because of the huge blister, which has resulted from this run I wasn’t able to run more miles for my first challenge. What a challenge is and how it increases your motivation, I will tell you later.

Goals

Here you can set your private goals. As you can see in the image blow, you can chose between more often, a distance, to burn calories and faster.

Nike Plus - Goals

For beginners my advice is not to set the goal to an almost unreachable limit. If you’re trying to lose weight try to run more often or burn calories. If you’re preparing for marathon you can toggle between distance and pace.

Map It

Keep reading →

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November 5th, 2007

Nice ping pong table - Not so geeky but cool

Ping Pong Table - Door

This nice ping pong has been around the net for some weeks already but it’s so cool that I have to mention it here. As you can see you can play ping pong between two rooms.

Of course you can flip the table and you’ll have the door closed again. The only downside is that one side of the door will be green if you close it, as yankodesign already mentioned in his blogpost.

The table should be sold early next year. You can visit the designers page here.

If you enjoyed your read, grab my feed

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