Thursday, January 14, 2010

a little help from Shape


For Christmas my mom gave me a subscription to Shape Magazine because I picked it up during our last weekend away as a family and found it very inspiring.  Today I decided to browse the website a little and found they have something called a virtual trainer.  You enter in your stats and answer some questions on what workouts you like, what you're willing to do, and they give you some suggestions of workouts to try.  I signed up this afternoon.  This is what the web interface looks like:

I haven't added to it yet, so my log looks preeeetty empty.  I want to get more into pilates, but I want to do them at home to get the hang of it first and then take my pilate moves on the town... or at least to a class.  Shape has really good reference pictures to illustrate how to do the moves, so I'm optimistic.

Another interesting tool I found on Shape.com was a more thorough way to estimate the % body fat.  The livestrong tool just asks for three measurements:  your waist, your neck, and your hips.  Shape doesn't factor in your hips, but in addition to the waist and neck, you also measure your forearm, bicep, and thigh.   I feel like this is a more accurate way to determine body shape and fat percentage.  livestrong has me at 33.8% with their measuring method, while Shape has me at 27.6%.  I'm more inclined to believe Shape's assessment, just because it's a little more thorough.  Here's the target areas:


Apparently I'm ok, but I'd like to get down into the 24-ish range.  So back to pilates.  Anyone have any favorite moves?  I'm open to tips!

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