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fitness
April 2008 
A new toy
Posted on Mar 1st, 2006
by 
Duff
Duff
I bought myself a rediculous, expensive, high-tech-looking-but-actually-ultra-low-tech personal development toy recently.
It's called The MotivAider. In the words of Casey, it looks like a vibrating garage door opener. But it doesn't open anything. All it does is vibrate at scheduled intervals. But it actually has helped me quite a bit so far (2 days).
I've been using it to schedule 10 to 20 sets of pushups during the day. Lots of sets of sub-maximal reps of an exercise is a great way to build up numbers (the technique even has a name: Greasing the Groove). But I have a hard time remembering to do my pushups during the day, and setting my cell phone to vibrate required getting it out and messing with the menus 10 to 20 times a day. Yuck!
One benefit of the MotivAider is that I can use it as an excuse. I act as if I have no choice but to drop and do a set of pushups immediately when I feel it vibrate! I'm a stimulus-response pushup robot!
My goal is to give myself Sudden Pushup Syndrome (SPS), where all of a sudden you see me drop in the middle of a conversation and crank out 20 flawless-form, chest-to-the-ground-pushups! Within a few months I'll be easily crankin' out 100 in a row, one of my major goals for 2006.
"But what will people think of me?" Sometimes this thought goes through my head. Especially when I'm sitting in a coffee shop and the MotivAider kicks in. "Can I really do pushups now?" No excuses. Ok, I will step outside, but into the alley and drop and give me 20. Once you've defined your goal (100 continuous pushups) and your plan (Grease the Groove), achieving your goal is just a matter of following through (doing a set of pushups whenever the vibrating garage-door-opener strapped to my belt starts vibrating).
The best thing that can happen is to have people laugh at me. That way I can entertain them and simultaneously become healthier and stronger. Everybody wins!
In a few months when I'm doing sets of 100, the laughter will likely die down and hopefully I will have the opportunity to empower and educate as well as entertain.
It's called The MotivAider. In the words of Casey, it looks like a vibrating garage door opener. But it doesn't open anything. All it does is vibrate at scheduled intervals. But it actually has helped me quite a bit so far (2 days).
I've been using it to schedule 10 to 20 sets of pushups during the day. Lots of sets of sub-maximal reps of an exercise is a great way to build up numbers (the technique even has a name: Greasing the Groove). But I have a hard time remembering to do my pushups during the day, and setting my cell phone to vibrate required getting it out and messing with the menus 10 to 20 times a day. Yuck!
One benefit of the MotivAider is that I can use it as an excuse. I act as if I have no choice but to drop and do a set of pushups immediately when I feel it vibrate! I'm a stimulus-response pushup robot!
My goal is to give myself Sudden Pushup Syndrome (SPS), where all of a sudden you see me drop in the middle of a conversation and crank out 20 flawless-form, chest-to-the-ground-pushups! Within a few months I'll be easily crankin' out 100 in a row, one of my major goals for 2006.
"But what will people think of me?" Sometimes this thought goes through my head. Especially when I'm sitting in a coffee shop and the MotivAider kicks in. "Can I really do pushups now?" No excuses. Ok, I will step outside, but into the alley and drop and give me 20. Once you've defined your goal (100 continuous pushups) and your plan (Grease the Groove), achieving your goal is just a matter of following through (doing a set of pushups whenever the vibrating garage-door-opener strapped to my belt starts vibrating).
The best thing that can happen is to have people laugh at me. That way I can entertain them and simultaneously become healthier and stronger. Everybody wins!
In a few months when I'm doing sets of 100, the laughter will likely die down and hopefully I will have the opportunity to empower and educate as well as entertain.
Access: Public
Cool. Everybody wins with laughter. I agree.
Duff…you are kickass….people still step outside and light up a smoke….I’m thinking you’ve got your hands on something big here….what about a quit smoking Motivaider with two different pulses…you’ll never know if it’s time to light up or get down until you feel the pulse! Eventually you’ll only be getting down and getting healthy.
Keep on rocking it dawg!
That is a very creative way to get in shape. I wonder if it's as fun as the Ball…
Rock on!! :-)
That is gret i need to try that