joining the Fitocracy

I’ve just started logging on Fitocracy. It looks like a useful tool, in that I can log all my exercise in a single place. I’ve been logging rowing / erging on the Concept II website, weight-lifting on a spreadsheet, and anything else nowhere. I do also kind of like the way they award points for everything, though I’m not so convinced about how they do it. What I like best, though, is that after only 2 days there, I’ve actually learned stuff.

I will keep logging rowing and erging on Concept II, for several reasons. For one thing, I have data on that site going back to 2000 (when I was only logging race-pace pieces and the Holiday Challenge; I began logging all my rowing in 2002). In fact, I started logging there even before 2001, but they weren’t saving historical information before that. I want to be able to compare current and past times. Second, I log as part of a team, and if I log less the team standings decline. Third, I want to participate in challenges there, most notably the Holiday Challenge that runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. And fourth, assuming I get crazy and decide to attempt a PR (or even a record-for-this-year) I can go to the rankings and see how I stack up against others. So I’ll be duplicate-logging my rowing there and at Fitocracy.

I will probably use Fitocracy in place of my weight-lifting spreadsheet. It has most lifts I do, and for those it misses I can log something similar and add an explanatory comment. My spreadsheet doesn’t go back enough for me to care about past data, and I don’t care anyway since I change up the workout a lot. Also, I lift in support of rowing, not as an end in itself, and depending on what else I’m doing I am always stopping and starting so I don’t progess much. I prefer having something online, anyway; typically we both work out at once. The computer in our exercise room is Ted’s, and if he’s on the erg, he’s using it to watch a movie, so I can’t log on it. With this I can log on my iPad. Of course, I suppose I could log on a spreadsheet on there too, but somehow I never think of it. Anyway, I like the idea of being able to access my data anywhere, and I don’t really care if other people can see it, though I think the site does let you control privacy. I also like being able to log extra activities that I haven’t been capturing, like cycling to work (or to rowing!) or hiking around a city or kayaking.

The premise of Fitocracy is that it awards points and lets you “level” up, thus adding a computer-game dimension and minor goals to exercising. Don’t know if it helps, can’t hurt. But the point system is strange. Wednesday night, we had a conference call with someone in the US. Ted was roasting a (tiny) chicken for dinner (seriously, the ones they have here are tasty but they make me feel like I’m eating Tweety Bird) and by the time our call was done the chicken was ready, so I never got a chance to work out. So I erged just one km after dinner, just to have done something. This being after dinner on a full-ish stomach and me being slow anyway, that took five and a half minutes. Yesterday I biked to and from work, 7.7 km each way, at a good pace – not trying to race, but enough to be sweating at the end. It took half an hour each way. Fitocracy gave me more points for the tiny row than for each leg of the bike ride, which seems a bit odd.

The best thing, though, is that I’ve actually learned a fair bit, poking around the site. I think I’m reasonably knowledgeable abuit the basics of lifting, but there’s lots of good info in the forums and elsewhere on the site. For instance, there’s a challenge to learn to do a Pendlay Row – of course the name made it sound like something useful to me, so I checked it out and tried a set last night. It definitely does work the back more than a standard bent-over row, which I feel mostly in my arms. For another example, the FAQ contains a list of bodyweight exercise progressions – how to work out harder without adding weights. I found the one for situps especially useful:

   Pushups -> Close Grip / Triangle Pushups -> One Armed Pushups
   Bodyweight Squats -> High Step Ups -> Pistols -> Jumping Pistols
   Pullups -> Uneven Pullups -> One Armed Pullups
   Situps -> Lying Straight Leg Raises -> Hanging Straight Leg Raises
   Pushups -> Pike Pushups -> Handstand Pushups

Also, did you know there is such a thing as exercise-induced itching? (A histamine reaction, basically.)

So I will probably keep on using the site, at least for a while, and see how it works out for me. So far I like it; it does what I need and seems to be intuitive to use. (And I’ve just done something I haven’t done, possibly, since my last English class: A properly structured essay, with introduction complete with topic sentences, a paragraph or two on each one, and a closing paragraph. Ms. Martyska would be proud.)