Game Your Way to Fitness

is partially why we have Holly joining us. She is usually on um stuff you missed in history class, but is also a little bit of a fitness enthusiast. I would say accurate, accurate. I have a background in dance, although I haven't done that in any sort of real way in a long time, but I've alway had a lifelong sort of interest in it, and I run regularly. Uh Am. I really like all the tech around fitness.

Just wait till we get to gadgets. Holly was a great resource in writing the script of the video that this podcast is accompanying, and so we figured we'd talked today about some of the technical outlook for the future of fitness, including games, gadgets, apps, little do Dads, James Bond gadgets. Right, Yeah, because I mean, you know, basically, you know, anyone can can do fitness by by moving um, which is fairly fairly what most people, which is which

is fairly non technological um. But there are many, many, many terrific advances and and yeah, so we want to get into the gamification and the gadgets, but I think I think first let's talk about UM. So, so exercises actual facts good for us? Is this scientifically proven said we don't actually need any of that? Was it was you just lots of meat and you'll be okay, Oh

that's that's my least favorite website. That problem. No, Actually, the medical science community is pretty united on this that getting a good bit of exercise is really good for you. You You don't probably really need to worry about getting too much unless you're in some tiny percentile of people that most of us don't fit into. Yeah, overtraining happens, but the general public is not in a huge danger. But we're barely getting enough right to talk about that. Minimals, minimals,

minimums that that professionals talk about well. The U S Health Department UM recommends that you need to get for a healthy adult. UM. Now, it's going to be different whether you're a child or an elderly person, or if you have a disability or something, but if you're able and a healthy adult, they recommend a hundred and fifty

minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity. So that can be like just you know, walking, going hiking around UM that that doesn't have to involve like really vigorous. That you don't have to be sprinting or lifting fifty pound weights. That's just getting your heart beating a little bit faster than more than a stroll. I think sometimes when you say walking, people think like the casual, Hey,

I'm looking at things and windows. You walk toward lunch, not like you walk away from It's a perfect way to describe it, or like the Saturday night fever walk, like like the good or like sometimes I pretend I'm RuPaul and that really only sometimes Holly. Yeah, it's a really good confidence boost. If you're feeling a little insecure, pretend your RuPaul and my hand to God, everything gets better. That's a good strategy if you can imagine a good

house music. Beat your walk as you're going. You're probably walking fast enough. You should be feeling it a little bit, maybe breathing a little faster than usual. Maybe not able to carry on a strict conversation. That's one of those other indicators that they usually give out, like if you can name really speak, not Able to gossip is one that I was told. Once there you go, okay, Um, Now keep in mind that this is what they recommend as the minimum for a healthy adult. It's not like,

oh wow, I got there, I'm done. Um, it's actually good to get more exercise than this, but this is what they say is the minimum for a healthy adult to have good physical fitness. Or you can trade out that hundred and fifty minutes every week of moderate intensity aerobic activity with seventy five minutes of vigorous aerobic activity.

And this means like hard running or playing an intense sport, something like high intensity interval training, although you should not probably be doing that for seventy five minutes a week for most people, certainly not straight. Yeah, that that would be. Now, those tend to be shorter sessions, and you want to space them out a little, right, that the interval part means that you've space it out with less intense training.

They also recommend that you should do at least two sessions of strength training per week, and so that just means like resistance train in NG or lifting weights. They don't specify how long you need to do this, just enough basically I think to be making progress. Yeah, you want to hit all of your major muscle groups. Uh, there are different bodies of thought on. Some trainers like to do full exhaustion like on each part once a week, really hard, and some like to balance that in those

two sessions you would hit kind of full body each time. Uh. But yeah, basically you want to get to a point where your muscles are challenged just past what they would naturally be able to do, and that's how you develop strength enough that it's hard. Yes, this is partially because muscles burn energy when you're just sitting around, and when they are stronger, when they're in better shape, they are going to be burning more energy than they otherwise would.

And that's basically awesome. That's true. By um, by doing more strength training, you actually I believe you increase your base metabolic rate, is what you're saying. Um so it. Yeah, you're healthier even when you're not exercising. You've been lifting weights, but you can't just coast for a couple of weeks.

You've got to keep it going, right. Yeah, I think the staff that I've read, and I haven't confirmed this, but I think that you lose something like ten percent of your muscle strength for every month that you are not as active as you otherwise were. Man, that's brutal. Yeah. Well, uh so, how many of us here in America are achieving these goals set out by our National Health Department? Do you have a statistic on that? Is it? Sad?

I do a Boston Globe article from April April um and this is actually this part of the status better than I would have guessed, but it's still not great. It estimates that forty nine point seven percent of those interviewed and study met or exceeded the guidelines UM for

aerobic activity in the first six months of two thou twelve. Okay, so, but also I'm I believe I understand that the rates have been going up a little bit since lately there's been more of an awareness campaign nationally about us needing to get so I think it's a little better than it was a few years before. UM, I'm not positive about that. We should check later. I'll try to put something on social about whether or not relying to you right now. Well, in any case, this part is true.

So about half of American adults surveyed. UM, we're meeting or exceeding those aerobic guidelines so for the first six months, for the first six months of two twelves. So that's still gunning it through the New Year's resolutions. Yeah, I wonder if that makes a big difference. It might go to a gym and January April, it's a very different space. The y m c A my wife and I go to, is unbearable in January. It's just packed, you can't get in. And then you know, wait a couple of months and

then it's fine, there's nobody there. Pretty standard. So yeah, maybe that's affecting the statistic here. Though, a less encouraging statistic is apparently when you um, and this is adults between the ages of twenty five and sixty four, when you add in the combination of the aerobic activity and the strength training recommendations, both of them at the same time. UM, just twenty point seven of Americans. We're hitting them. I

have some theories about that, Yeah, I do. I would say that a lot of women are not strength training because they have been taught that are they think they haven't even been taught. They just have this conception that if they if they lift weights or otherwise he use resistance training, that they are going to get crazy dude muscles and that everything will be terrible. What's wrong with that? A I think that Linda Hamilton's in Terminator two is

just about the prettiest lady ever on the planet. Well, and be should work like four hours a day just to maintain those arms like this is not going to happen to the average person turned over her mental institution bed and do the chin ups on it right? Well, I mean the actors did not, but the character, yes, you know, she might have been a method actor. She lived in an institution, working out all the time. There is a fear among a lot of women that they're

somehow going to get really bulky and huge. Uh. And then it's not the case that I mean, for for most human people, that is certainly not the case. And everyone's body type is different, of course, and you know, and you can you can. There are exceptions to every rule, but generally women do not have the testosterone in their bodies to build muscle at a rate that demand would.

That's just the bottom line, right, So yeah, so uh, let's talk about the benefits of regular exercise versus the negative outcomes you might have if you don't get regular exercise. So one of the biggest things is that exercise helps control weight UM. And this is interesting. I think some people have a misconception that it's like, well, if you ex size a lot, you're gonna be really skinny, and if you don't, you're going to be really fat. And

it's not exactly like that. But what research seems to show is no matter what your weight level is, exercise seems to help you control it in that range UM and also within UM whatever range you are. Exercise also helps combat some of the negative effects of being overweight. So like having um uh bad HDL versus LDL levels, exercise helps control that in a very positive way. That that is here, that is your good cholesterol in quotation

marks versus bad cholesterol. Right, Yeah, those the technical scientific names, Yeah, extremely technical. Yes, I'm completely forgetting what know what those things stand for they actually do always use those words. I always see it. They put it in quotes like just so they're like kind of giving it the side eye. Yeah, good and bad. That's you know, it simplifies. It's also yeah, crazy communication. It's making a sound bite moral judgment on cholesterol,

which is a little bit goofy evil cholesterol. Cholesterol. Uh. And I also did want to put in, um that weight in general is not your your best indicator by far of how healthy you are, because muscle weighs more than fat, and so, I mean, especially when you're first starting to work out, you might not lose any weight or even gain a little bit of weight. And wonder you know why your scale is is telling you these terrible, terrible things. And it's not it's not that you're I mean,

you know, exercising will make you more healthy. As I'm sure Joe is about to explain, weight is just not the best indicator, right, Um yeah, so uh. It also basically correlates to a lot of conditions, especially that we encounter in older adults, like regular exercise will help stave off heart disease, UM and all kinds of cardiovascular and pulmonary problems. Um. It Also, it improves moody. People who

get more exercise are happy. I think this is really easy to notice, just between those weeks where you're going to the jam and the ones where you slack off. You get better sleep when you get good exercise. Sure, most people, you're both looking at me and I don't know what to tell you because I have sleep issues. I thought you knew everything. Well, I just in in terms of personal experience, like I'm a lifelong insomniac. I don't really care for sleep, and if I didn't have

to do it, I wouldn't So okay, I'm there with you. Actually, yeah, me too, that's weird. Three vampires here in the same room. Three am party tomorrow, excellent, that sounds great. I'll probably be sewing or on the treadmill. I'm actually usually working out about one am. That's what I like to That's what I like to do that I do like to

us in the middle of the night. But for many normal human people, for the non freaks, right, well, I all of this has to do with the the hormone balances that happen in your brain and in your body. Things like Sarah tonin um uh increased workouts can can get your brain and muscles involved with more of that, which is your happy good times, um for your mood and uh. And also I think that has to do with sleep as well. So I'm talking totally off the cuffs.

So I think I'm hoping that what I'm saying is actual. Yeah, I've heard the same information. UM, so round up on what we've seen so far. Pretty standard, but just just know that this is verified by science. Exercise is really good for you. You need a lot of it, You

should do it. At least half of American adults are not getting nearly enough the stat I mentioned earlier, thinking I remember just from the same Boston Globe article I said it earlier that it says that the most recent federal health data show a steady climb since two thousand seven in the number of US adults meeting weekly workout goals or its words. So though the long trend may have been kind of negative, like we've been getting less fit in the past few years, it seems like apparently

there's been an upswing a bit. And and this does coincide um with more people having more access to the Internet, which obviously gives you more direct access to social circles and allows you. I mean also things like fitness trackers have been coming down a lot in price and and increasing in popularity. Fitness trackers. Fitness trackers, is that like a like a hunter tracker guy with like a hat

and a rifle and he follows you too. That's actually how marathons work, now now that you mentioned it, I would much rather have one of those than a fit bit. But um, but fitness hunter, fitness hunter. Yeah, no, no no, no if fitness trackers are you know, a little pocket sized bits of tech that take measurements and create some kind of useful output to tell you how you're doing in your exercise and other related metrics, possibly including your

your eating habits in your sleep. Um, they're kind of a lot more useful as technology has improved, you know, giving us things that are water a k A sweat resistant. Um, you know, having tiny, longer lasting batteries, more efficient screens, more powerful onboard and or linked software to crunch that data into something you can really use rather than just giving you a graph of you ran a bunch um

and uh without a graph, right exactly? Yeah yeah, um, and uh, you know you know more on board memory, smaller transistors, all all of that kind of good Moore's Law technology stuff has has led to fitness trackers. Holly is wearing one right now as we speak. What kind is that? It's a Fitbit Flex. I I love it. I will say it was startling. It's one that Fitbit

has put out numerous trackers throughout the years. I don't want to make it sound too long, but their um their newest one is the Flex which you were on your wrist versus the one which was more of a

clip situation, which is their previous model. And one of the startling things was the sleep tracker function, right you said it by tapping it five times as you go to bed, and then you tap it again five times to wake up, so it comes out of sleep mode, and then it will tell you how good or how well or poorly you're sleeping, based based on how much you were rolling around your movement. Some people think there is a pulse element to it. There is not. It's

just based on your movement and your twitching. And I in mine was like you woke up twenty three times last now, which wasn't a huge surprise to me because I am, like I said, I have lifelong insomnia. And I am one of these people that routinely wakes up like a dozen times a night. But even on nights when I think I've really just slept like a log, it will turn out that in fact, that is why.

So that was a little startling initially. Um, but it's really fabulous in the in terms of tracking your motion, attracts your overall motion for the day so that you can set yourself a goal of like they put it in step terms, but sometimes it's not always just walking steps like right might be swimming. Set to track fifteen thousand steps a day, so for each and it breaks

it down into fifths. You have a an illuminated light in LED for each fifth, so like right now, when I tap it, it says I have not been doing all that much because I'm only three dots into my day and I should be further. Uh so yeah, And then as you hit your goal for the day, it makes all kinds of rumbling noises and is exciting and it just makes you know you're getting enough movement throughout

the day. I think that sounds really helpful because it's got to be frustrating if you're trying to improve your fitness, but you don't exactly know what you're doing. You don't have a sense of how of whether or not you're actually meeting your goals. Well, and most of the fitness trackers now, uh, they really do kind of measure a much bigger picture kind of motion for the day instead of just trying to track your exercise time so that you do know, you know, Like the job Bone up

is another one that does a similar thing. The Misfit Shine is brand new. It just to chipping I think in the last six weeks Indigo Go launch and that's a really cool one. Um. It's just little metal disk that has these little pretty lights on it and to to know anything about it you have to wirelessly connected to your computer. Medieval jewelry, right, yeah, Well it's interesting and different from other ones that exist, like the job oone up is a wrist based tracker that bit flexes

risk based. The one is a clip like I said, but the Misfit Shine you can wear in any number of places and they actually sell different accessories where it can be a necklace or a bracelet or a it can be a clippy thing and it's aircraft great aluminum, so it can go through that your washing machine, which

is a problem for a lot of other trackers. Like one of the problems with previous versions of the fitbit is that people would forget it was like one of the things they tell women is that you could wear a clip to your bra so that it's out of the way and it doesn't you know, you don't see it. It's not taking up accessory space in your life until you do, and then a hundred dollars of ruined check um. So like the newer fitbit can go in the shower

with you and it's not a problem. They say. It's one of those things that where they say it's um water resistant or water tolerant, but not water proof, so you couldn't. You can go swimming and it will track your swimming activity, but you don't want to go deep sea diving with it or anything. Generally you probably should go diving with Yeah, I don't know. I do not recall the pretty solid little guy. So these guys can

have any number of sensors in them. Um. The wrist related stuff that Holly was talking about is is usually placed on your wrist because of PPGs or a photo thesmo graphs. I think I said that right on the first go that's crazy talk grown up. Oh that's oho you're challenging me, Joe photo plet thesmo graph um and and that's that's the new standard in noninvasive heart rate monitoring.

What they do is they bounce light um usually in LED so that they're not burning your skin um through the first through layers of your skin, and measure what comes back to see how much blood is moving through your capillaries because blood is going to absorb more light than the surrounding tissues, so they can track your your pulse and through that, which is super awesome future technology. Uh, this real, this is totally this is this is what is it. I've always wanted a machine that will keep

track of my blood. I never thought it would come true. Usually they're big, encumbersome and the wheels squeak, but it's these days. They're also being paired with an accelerometer which will help compensate for your body and skin movement, which makes them more accurate. The old version of this, of course, was an electric cardiogram A K A and E C G R E k G. That was so many initialisms

in one short sentence. There I apologize guys. UM, and and those would detect electrical electrical signals through your skin with little electric pickups. UM. Other stuff that happens in fitness tractor, fitness tractors, fitness trackers, I think is drive it around the house fitness tractor. UM. Pedometers podometers, of course, are the things that that measure the motion of your of your hips when you walk, or the impact of your steps. Accelerometers, which are motion sensors that measure the

change in direction and velocity of anything. They're connected to GPS receivers for tracking your position. Altometers altimeters, yes, altimeters really that's so goofy sounding, which measure elevation gained and lost and uh therefore can can attribute calories burned to harder work like climbing stairs than just going in a straight line. Galvanics in response sensors, These are some of

my favorites. They detect perspiration and thereby they measure the connectivity of your skin and thereby detect how much your sweating, which can help detect how much work you're doing. UM. And then infrared thermometers to track your body temperature and the ambient temperature, with the principle that if you are warmer than you're surrounding environment, you are doing more work. Uh,

that's pretty awesome. They're they're pretty awesome things I do not I have a I have a panometer that we got from work through a you know, corporate fitness initiative thing. Um it is it is just a potometer. That is what it does. It does that one thing. It has one job. Um, but but I like it. I like it. You know, They're fun and I no doubt about all this tech. I'm really excited to see what other kind

of crazy laser related stuff they start strapping to us. Well, I'm wondering, Uh, are we always going to have to have this is like a I don't like wearing stuff on my wrists or like clipping things to my clothes. Really, um, is there any easier way to do this? As it

turns out, yes, Um. They are starting to make things that they are calling temporary tattoos that are really more like stickers that contain all of the circuitry or some of the circuitry, not all of the circuitry, because because things are still a little bit too bulky to put it all in a single sticker. Do you stick to your skin and it does the stuff and then you can collect the readout you know, either wirelessly or um uh through some kind of computer hookup. How long can

you wear it, like a like a day? Well, actually, I think I've seen I don't have numbers on that in my research, but I but I've seen them stick on for a few days at a time. So wait, epidermal electronics that can track your bio functions? Is this tongue? Is this an idea like a pro or is this like a prototype or is this already on the market. These these are in the kind of prototype research sort of stage. They they are being used in laboratories to

track these biomedical indicators. But but no, you can't go out and buy one like at Walgreens yet give it a minute? Two minutes, I would say, But yeah, certainly less than twenty to fifty years. So I could just potentially in the future, instead of having a uh uh wrist band or something like that, I could just put this on in the morning, like stick it to my skin somewhere like a nicotine patch. Share. Yeah, it uploads whatever information it needs to to my device and boom,

I'm done. Hypothetically, Yeah, that is that is where we are headed, and I think, yeah, I really do think that, you know, it might be very expensive in the near future. I mean I think the average fitness trackers hovering right around the hundred dollar mark. Yeah, they range. Um, like I know the Nike Plus fuel band is. I think the price ist of the like small personals and it's

what one thirty nine. Yeah, they're not that bad. Um. You can get the sort of heavier hitter like the I think there's still a model of body Bug or body Fit Media. I think those two those have higher price points, but they're also not the tiny little right right. They might involve jewelry style. Yeah. Yeah, they also involved the e k G or something which is more act it but you have to wear it on a chest strap to really get the year or they'll be on

like an arm strap. Um, I don't know. I can get like fifty bags of potato chips for the propos of that thing. More you would just be fifty bags of potato chips. Richer not so much with an eye on your longevity. Um, but yeah, that is that. All of this is super exciting. Okay, Well, so we've talked about how keeping track of what you're doing could possibly help the public health aspect of a fitness in the future.

But I want to talk about motivation. This is an issue that concerns me because everybody knows that should get more exercise. I mean, it's not a secret. Yeah, you can't, can't. It's not a guarded piece of to find people. I mean, maybe you'll find people who will kind of argue with that. I don't know. I don't believe the doctors. But basically everybody knows that you think more exercise is a good thing, yet people still aren't doing it. So there's clearly like

a motivation gap. It's not a problem where people don't know what to do, they don't understand how to do it, and they and it's hard to get the willpower to do it. Yeah, and I can attest to this, you know, like it. You can. You can be doing good for a couple of months, going to the gym a lot, and then you get busy, you get a lot of stuff to do, and you just don't make time for it.

There Well, what always happens to me is there will be that week, you know, the dread week, where you're like, oh man, I have thirty two deadlines at work and this is happening, and this life thing is happening, and I have to take care of just this week. I'm not going to worry about it so much. And then suddenly three months later you're like, wait, what happened? Right? Yeah? Yeah, well there's so yeah, Well I think we should talk

about motivation. How can you trick your brain into wanting to do this thing that you know is good for you.

You have to make it fun, make it fun, making it fun that there's scientific evidence it says that if you make it fun, if you give yourself a challenge past even a social challenge, then you know, like in sports, this is why a lot of people will wind up playing sports if they if they have the time to do so, and use that as an exercise, because, as it turns out, if you make a game out of stuff, people like to do it more. You know what. You

know what the corporate dudes call that gamification? Don't you love that word? I don't. Well, let's take something that's not a game and make it into a game so more people will do it, and furthermore, make it into it and increasingly ridiculous now and phrase, so that we can gamification well, I think once I get saturated into like the world of marketing and stuff, it gets some fingerprints on it that make it kind of feel not so pleasant and delightful. The concept of gamification, I think

is pretty clean. It's actually so if these marketing executives can turn like I don't know, collecting coupons into a game or something, which I'm sure they do in one way or another. Yeah, they they can turn getting fit into a game. And actually that's it on heard at all because we've been doing it for thousands of years. Sports. Yeah, that's what soccer is, guys. Um but uh but but but but also, I mean that's what fitness trackers can

help you do if you use them as such. You can you can, especially the ones that link up through social media. You can compare what you're doing to what your friends are doing and make it into a little bit more of a competition and social Yeah. Okay, well, so I was I was like wildly gesticulating and everyone was looking at me. Well, we we know what sports are.

Everybody is aware of them. But it is true that there are probably a lot of people I might put myself in this category sometimes who wish they got more exercise who enjoy when they do get more exercise, But you you can't really just find the time and the social energy to get yourself into a soccer club or something like that. Yeah, Or scheduling gets really tricky sometimes. Yeah, Like I really want to take some lyric classes, but

it happens at like ten am on Tuesdays. So are there good ways that we think advances in the future or even stuff that's happening in the present can really help turn fitness into a game without these scheduling conference of them already there are tons of them loads what are they? Uh? I actually would love to talk about console games first because they've been around much longer than the other thing we're going to talk about. Um, I'm trying to think of what year your Self Fitness came out,

but it's all ways back. It's back like pre three six Xbox, and that was the first one that was really available widely in something like two is I think it might even be I think people who played the et game for the Atari actually got a lot of exercise by smashing the cartridges over and over. Uh that you know, there's merit. You're still getting movement, but you're saying this is the first real It's the first game

that was really like intended. It was a virtual trainer who you know, would put you through your paces, would pick whatever the focus of the workout would be for the day. And her name was Maya, and I love that thing. It was super fun. It was it mean like the we No, it was not, although she would kind of let you know when you were falling down on the job, like she'd like, you're not doing so great this week, like we fit Pig is like, hey you gained weight. Hey, chubs, I mean it's really not

you know what kind or gentle. I think the ideal exercise console game would be one where the King of the Cosmos from Katamari Domassy trains you in getting exercise. Maybe you know, like what would he say when you your utter failure and embarrassment to your family. But and that motivation works for some people. Some people do, like when you think about the old school athletic coach that yells at people, that still does work for some people,

but not for everyone. So thankfully this has really diversified quite a bit. But that first game, it was really basic. You still had to use your controller monitoring your actual movement. There was a little bit of an honor system to it where you would have to be following along with Maya the trainer, almost like you would a workout video, and then at the end of each segment you would say like, yes, that's done or whatever and uh and

then based on that. But you couldn't game it like it was on its own time or so you couldn't speed it up or anything. Uh. I mean you could sit there on your tail and wait for it to be time to give input and lie. But that sounds of those people that has a very hard time lying to my electronics. And I don't know why. I'm like, that's forever, it's on record. Um so I never lied to Maya. But it's very noble, I don't think. I think it's more neurotic than noble. But trying to cheat

the fitness game I happen all the time. Uh. But well, because they had gamified it in a way where like as you achieved certain things, new exercises would be unlaw and people would get obsessed with the unlocking of things but not the doing of them, which I always found funny. That sounds I'm just picturing like like especially I mean she sounds like she was nice, but if she were, like, if she were that we Fit pig, like, I would probably be sitting there with a bunch of park ground

sitting back on like, yeah, I totally did that. No, she's pretty nice, so you'd have to eat soil and green and uh, she's human esque. But then for a while Sony got in on it with the eye toy and they were doing some fitness games and then Connect really kind of bridged a gap, and of course we Fit kind of really opened up the fitness gaming market once you got some accelerometers and stuff like that in your controllers. Yeah, it was you know, they didn't have

to have a camera involved. It was still measuring your motion. And I mean, do you remember when that thing came out how hard it was to get ahold of one. Yeah, Like, first I was getting the text alerts from Amazon to let me know when it was in stock. And I remember I was at my job at the time, in a meeting and I got the alert and I'm like, I gotta go, I'll be back and I had to go place my to really really and then I went

back to the meeting. Um, and I still have my we Fit and I still play with it sometimes, just partially for nostalgia at this point. But you know, you can find a range of really supportive and fun things that are very very game like, Like the we Fit has straight training and it also has games that are getting you to move. And so whichever one of those people tend to enjoy more, they can focus more on. Um I I knew some people in college who would play the home version of d d R as a workout.

Oh I Love My Dance Dance Revolution for those of you who do DOWT. Now that was fun stuff. And they actually did try to launch a campaign at one point, like a marketing campaign of like look at these people who have lost waiting Unfit playing but it really didn't take off or go anywhere. I mean, it kind of fizzled out. He did have to have a pretty aggressive love of really bad J pop, which I think might have been a barrier. I don't understand why that would

be a problem. But that's neither here nor there. You are standing in for Jonathan too. He really loves J pop. Guy to a lot of great But now it's what's really interesting is that a lot of athletic and fitnesswear companies are in on it, like Nike has a game for connect Um that they're partnered with Microsoft. UM. Adidas has a game called My Coach UM. And I will say though I don't know that sales on those have

been stellar. Like a couple of years ago, e A Sports Active came out and that was really popular initially, um, and then it seems like it kind of fizzled. So I think the console element is a little bit dropping off because now it's all about apps right right, And there are a lot of apps. You there's one, there are dozens that I use all the time. UM. I'm

telling you, I like technology and I like running around. Okay, Well, one I mentioned in the script because I love the idea so much was the one where you run from zombies. I love this thing. I get Holly's Facebook updates about this all the time. Explained to us, it's like an RPG, UM, so it's a serialized story that plays out during your run. So each run is like a mission. You are Runner five. Who is this runner that gets recruited? It's post apocalyptic.

There's been a zombie outbreak. It happens um. I think just outside of London. And uh, it's kind of this base that's trying to, you know, put itself back together and sort of form this little pocket of human civilization and survive together. And you become a runner. Basically your job is to go out and run to places and collect supplies. Uh, and zombies will chase you. There's actually a setting in the game where you can activate zombie chases or not. They will still appear in the storyline.

But if you have zombie chases activated and they catch up to you, like you don't speed up enough during your run when a zombie chase alert happens, you'll drop some of your supplies so you won't be able to old your base is quickly. And this is basically interval training. I mean that this is this is a pretty the zombies on Yeah, Yeah, that's that's yeah that that zombie running thing in in particular, right is Yeah. I just think that's so clever. It's so great, I mean, really

smart and fun. So you find this like actually very motivating above your level of normal interest in running, Yeah, because there are days when I don't feel like running. I mean I love running, I hate running. I love running. I hate running. I think many runners I have a shirt that says that. I mean, it's not an uncommon scenario where there you know, you have great days and when it's a good run, it's exhilarating, and when it's bad,

it hurts and it just is awful. Um. But it's one of those things where you know, I really got to get more supplies and build my base. I had better I better get out there. So even like because we sometimes get to telework, Like if I'm teleworking, that's usually a day when I'm like, you know what I'm gonna do it Lunch is I'm gonna go get some supplies to build my base. I'll pop out and get

a run where I probably wouldn't otherwise. And I believe this is using GPS tracking to to tell how far you've gone, and you have options actually you can do GPS tracking or I often um in my week night training, I run on an indoor track, so I use the accelerometer for so it doesn't give you mileage at that point.

And the way UH they handle zombie chases in that instance is they base it on like your base pace, like what you're going, and how much you accelerate beyond that based on what the accelerometer is getting in terms of feedback, so you can still get caught by zombies and drop your stuff. Very troubling, um, but it is very fun. They're deep into season two now, like the first season was so successful that they put out a

second season, and it really is. The story is really well written and super engaging any fans of like Radio because there's lots of references to Buffy. There's the occasional doctor who reference. Uh. It's a very nerd focused but it's also accessible to people that are not into all those things. Yeah. The slightly less health inducing game was the one where you get chased by dollegs just upstairs, lie down your deceased. Uh. Yeah, So I find it

super engaging. I love it. I like I'm always trying to proselytize people into downloading Zombies Run and joining me in my crazy um adventure. But and that one has a little bit of a social element, you Um. They have a site called zombies Link and you can upload your your runs and you'll compare your base building to other people's base building and it's all very exciting. But there are so many other running apps it's not even funny,

Like Nike Plus has one that I sometimes use. UM. There are apps that will keep track of your path that you take and it will share it with other people so that like if you have friends that you have allowed excess, they can see where you are. UM. There's a company called road i D that's been making these literally like UM um metal identification tags that runners can wear so that if something were to happen to you on the road, you would have all of your

emergency information. But now they've made an app that both drops a breadcrumb, like when you start your run. You could say I'm starting to run. I'm gonna run for about an hour, and like I use it with my husband because I don't always know where I'm going to run and he wants me to be safe, and it will send him a U R L and say this is where Holly's at and he can click that and it will show him the map of where I am

all the time. UM, which is super cool. And it has like a thing where you can set up a lock screen, so if Heaven forbids something were to happen and your phone locks like most people do, UM, they can still like emergency services would be able to just see on your lock screen, who your emergency contact is if you're allergic to anything, what you need to what the who they need to be in touch with, etcetera.

It's very cool. So tech is kind of helping not just motivate, but keep everybody safe because the zones have gotten you. That's awesome. There are even apps where they will um read tweets to you. Like if you're running and you open your you know, you set your app and say I'm going for a run, your friends will get They'll see in their Twitter feed like this person

is really going for a run. And if they reply to you and say, oh my god, you literally hear the robot rong boys say, you know, Jennine says, Holly go, it's like very very fun. It sounds like a nightmare. No, it's and know that that sounds much more relaxing than my other friend who had like like war Analysis's tweet stream straight into his into his job, which sounded awful. I don't think that I want this. Some are like really pleasant, you know, it depends on how nice your

friends are. I guess nice ladies from Great Britain summer. You know, uh, your standard neutral American accent. They're very cool. So I wonder if does the social media aspect of this really actually help people get better performance and better gains. There's there's a whole lot of information out there about

about motivation and emotional support and all of that. Um, I mean, the the answer is basically yes, Yes, it is scientifically proven that if you have emotional support when you were doing stuff, and that social media accounts is emotional support. Uh do you have? I mean, Holly, do you feel like when you link your stuff up too? Because I don't have a personal I've never done that thing where I've linked it to any of my social social media accounts. Uh yeah, I mean it's nice like

Nike Plus has A has another one that's similar. They don't read you the text um or your Facebook things. But every time someone likes your status on Facebook that you're out for a run, you just hear cheering. It kind of breaks in over your soundtrack whatever you're listening to,

and it's really nice, like somebody likes that I'm running. Um, you know, if you I feel like such a jerk now because when I see people on social media bragging about the exercise they're getting, I'm just like you don't have to do that, but now feel like a mean guy. You're not well, and some of it isn't even m conscious, like some will just automatically upload it like you really aren't doing anything, like I'm not always aware and I, oh, yes,

I shouldn't feel like that. I renounce it. I renounce it. It's okay. You're allowed to feel ways about things. Uh no, no judge away. That's the deal we make as part of society. We're gonna get judged sometimes, I do. I will. We're gonna do another episode on fitness as well, and I think in that one, I've got a big old section on on exactly how what your community is doing affects what you're doing in terms of motivation and self

control and uh and fitness. So cool. Well, I'd like to talk about something a little bit like that that I think comes in big when we're talking about the gamification of fitness. And this definitely shows up in standard sports, like when you talk about something like conjunctive tasks. UM. It's phenomenon that's often applied to exercise science, and it's known as the Cohler effect. Have y'all heard of this? I have, because you mentioned it in your notes. So

the color effect works like this. UM, imagine you've got a person A and person B, and uh, let's give them names. Uh, let's not give them names. You can, you can, you can call them Holly and Lauren. Yeah, there you go. Let's let's say there's Holly and Lauren. Now we UM, take Lauren and we put her on an exercise bike and in a room by herself and say, um, go as fast as you can for as long as you can, and we'll just like monitor your progress, and

then we track what she does. Then we put Holly in exactly the same condition, except we put her in a room full of people who are collectively trying to achieve the best possible average time, and they're all better than her. Um, how do Holly and Lauren compare? Well, it turns out that exercise science shows that Holly does a lot better case. Um. And and this is what's

known as the color effect. Basically, lower performing individuals who are placed among a group of higher performing individuals show much greater gains than people who work alone. Yeah. I mean that's pretty commonly known. I think in fitness. One thing, if you ever talked to like a group fitness instructor.

They will tell you, like the people that normally would kind of turn in a mediocre performance if they were exercising solo er by themselves, when you put them in a class, they're aware that people are watching them, so they automatically done it a little bit more. And also there's just like a different energy when you're all doing something together that kind of brings everybody up a little bit. Yeah.

Felts Kerr and Irwin and a little article I have, Uh, it seems that they found that the peak performance gain is when the less k the bole member is about forty less capable than the stronger partners. Well, it's very specific, it's also very distant, do you know what I mean? That's a big gage. That's a huge gap. So when you're less good than the person on your team, that's when you get the biggest benefit. I should be so much faster. I run with much faster people sometimes, but

it hasn't happened yet, I guess. I guess that's also why things like like for example, marathons are are very popular because you're running with a bunch of athletes, many of whom are are you know, do that almost professionally, if not actually professionally. And although usually people like me don't see those people well in a big group, well because they stagger your start time so that the fastest people aren't collogged up with slow people. So you know,

I'm usually a few corals back. By the time I start, the fast people are long gone. Well, blow kisses to them in the distance. So I think one of the cooler implications of what we know about the color effect is actually how this pertains to the gamification of fitness, specifically like placing people among team teams. Uh, we already

have team sports, I mean, that's pretty common thing. But applying this to games, it's interesting to think of the idea of having not just a game like these most of these console games where you do fitness training and it gives you results and you can unlock new games and all that, but maybe adding like a massive multiplayer approach to that, so where you are using your fitness game not just to play against the computer, but that you're placed among a team of peers. Yeah, and some

games do have multiplayer, they're not. I'm trying to think if any of them have an online multiplayer other than just uploading stats from what I've read, I think this is sort of underdeveloped at the point at this moment, but what I've imagined. I mean, if you could take the kinds of games that people really love. I mean, you mentioned that a lot of these console games, the

sales aren't stellar yet. I mean, if you could take this kind of gaming mccannic, I can put it in a game like World of Warcraft or whatever, or Halo or something like that, people just go insane for I can see that being a big hit. I'm I would either. I mean, if I had to exercise in order to

play Halo better, I would, I'm not. I'm really honestly not sure whether I would really exercise, or whether I would end up hating my opponents in Halo even more than I already do and calling them even worse names. I wonder that too, because I have done my own sorts of experiments with this, where I'll say, like, um, and it's not even against other players necessarily, but like games that maybe don't require me to be standing the whole time, or like a we game like Epic Mickey,

which I love. Not everyone does. That's fine. There have been there was a time when I was playing through like a second time, and as an experiment, I was going to say I could never sit down. I had to always be standing and moving to play. And after about an hour I was like, I have to play

through this time. I want to sit down. So I wonder if with him, when you put that in a big, massively multiplayer kind of concept, if it does like Laurence said, you just hate the having to of it, Well, it could be, but um, another thing that would be interesting is to imagine, say like a massive shooter game like Halo or something where it's, uh, it's sort of mixed mechanics.

So imagine you're at some points of the game, you're using your controller or whatever to to play the normal combat simulation, but there are also lots of segments of the game that involve, you know, sprinting across enemy lines or something like that, and it hooks up to I don't know what it would be, maybe your smart treadmill or your or you know, your GPS thing on your phone.

If someone had to be able to lift and swing appropriately the weight equivalent of an energy sword at me in order to hit me with an energy sword, I would be a fan of that thing. That's pretty interesting. I would like that real good. Well, no, I mean that's actually you would have to be I think I'm a sniper. You guys, I'm back there as they are. They are, But that's fine. I could I feel like I could deal with that. Um. Yeah, so I find

this idea interesting. But also here's another complication on it. Um. So, we've been talking about playing against actual, real players. One problem with that is that there's a there's a counterbalancing effect to the color effect that's known as the social loafing effect. Yeah. So, if you are the underperforming individual on this team, you're going to have sustained gains and you're gonna do better and better all the time. This

is a real good thing for you. If you're one of the best people on this team, this is not a good thing for you because you, yeah, you will be losing your motivation and actually underperforming. Um. And so one interesting remedy to this I've seen are some experiments where exercise science has looked at this and they said, I wonder what would happen if we replaced this team with a virtual partner, someone who can get who could look like a rabbit, who can always be better than you,

no matter where your performance. Yeah, the greyhound track, the rabbit that's always just ahead of them. There. You know, they're not gonna catch it, though I've heard maybe they do sometimes. Uh don racing is not really my zither, not familiar. In any case, if it was a digital rabbit,

they definitely would never catch it. Um. So yeah, if you can imagine the same experiment I talked about before, but put both of you in rooms, um and the one of you who's accompanied by partners is not a companied by real people, but accompanied by just a virtual buddy in the game who's always a little bit faster than you. No matter how could you do, that person is always a little bit better you. Actually, this the

color effects still all manifests. I wonder though, would they have to, I mean throttle it a little bit because I think if it were always better than me, and I would get frustrated. I like that. I want to catch it once in a while. Like the dog and duck hunt. Yeah, eventually you really want to shoot that dog, but because he's laughing at you, well right right, because

he's always better than you. Um No, And I you know, and it does sound I think the scientific term is whack that that you would react to a digital opponent the same way that you would a human opponent. But I mean, but any kind of study into um anthropomorphizing uh digital personas will show you that people do that all the time willingly and subconsciously. So I think I

could Yeah, absolutely, yeah, And I agree with Holly. Actually, I think probably the best result would be if they mixed it up a little bit, if it was most of the time better than you, but you could catch up every now and then. Yeah, you gotta feel like there's a chance. Otherwise it feels very sisifician. You know.

One thing I could imagine is that, um, if your ability to catch the slightly better than you always a virtual partner was not based on your sort of what would you call it, your your gross performance, but based on your gains. So like, if you beat your own best by a certain rate, does that make sense because in that way you could sort of always advance more. It does, although I wonder what happens then when you

kind of max out. Yeah, you know what I mean, there's a point where like, as a runner, I'm not going to get faster, sure, so at that point, I look, never ever catch the thing well. But I mean, but there's but there's also there's other indicators of how well you're doing it running than how fast you're going. Hypothetically, I mean, is that is that the only thing that you're going for? I mean, I pay attention. I really

don't care about speed at all. Like when I run a race, I don't care what my finished time is. I have at some points like I've set a goal, like an annual goal, and been like I want to finish in this time half marathon this year and this time. Um, But often I'm just like, let's just all have fun out on the course. Yeah. A really funny alternative to this virtual partner that I found was the idea of a running coach drone. Apparently this is for real. Do

you all read about this. It's called jogo Bot. It's a flying running coach drone has quad rotors and it basically flies ahead of you, encouraging you to go faster. The future is now. I look at this and I have such conflicting feelings. On one hand, I'm like, that is so cool. On the other hand, I'm kind of like, why it does seem like a lot of resources put towards something that would probably only have a really niche market.

Like I'm picturing someone trotting down the road with that in front of them, and like one just aside from the safety risks of cars slamming into each other because they're like, what is going on there? Uh? Yeah, I have to wonder if it's not at that point the segue of the fitness world, like it's really neat, but why but only people with a lot of disposable income, have, you know, and like a lack of the inability to

be afraid of not looking cool. I threw that away all long time, but then again, but now I'm coming back. Wait a minute, that could be really awesome. I don't know, I have I definitely want to try it out. I would love that for group runs. I think there's a lot because I think that would then really kind of assist in the color effect, because no one would want to be the person that falls so far behind your not able to keep an eye on the drone anymore.

I would. I would if we can bring back to video games, I would expect it to be British and really snarky, and that would be that if I mean, if it could talk to us as we were running. Oh, it's like the thing in portal to right right yeah, or or or Halo also has one of those you know so yeah, okay, Uh so you get a giant robot to run in front of you. Yeah, you can have like gypsy danger and you chase it. I would be so all over that. That's wonderful. Okay, So we've

talked about gamification. I want to talk about one more thing, which is uh, nanogenerators that I really do I want. This is a secret. No gets so excited that I can. I really do love them. We worked on an article for Houstuff Works last year or the end of the prior year about nanogenerators, and we um spoke with Zeo Wang, who runs a lab at Georgia Tech, which is not far away from us. Him. He's so nice and just really cool and you know, reading about like his work

just blew my mind and was cool. And it was one of those things where I remember telling my best friend who is a mom, like, oh, this is so great. They have these tiny, you know, pieces of tech that you attached to yourself and it converts your kinetic energy into actually usable energy. And she's like they should slap that on a bunch of four year olds and I

was like, oh my gosh, energy crisis solved. Yeah. So professor Wang he he was involved in the nanor the nanogenerators based on the zinc oxide nano wire which they grow. They grow these wires and apparently this was a big breakthrough because it got much more return of like voltage for the mechanical energy. Right. Yeah, yeah, he really has it.

I mean there have been different labs working on this idea, is his is certainly not the only one, but he really advanced it very quickly at one point when they started working with these growing nano wires. Yeah. So the the effect is known in physics as piezo electricity, right right, Um, And what that means is we always have this argument. Yeah it's uh piece of piez I was p P I want that? Yeah? Well, it turns shellfish into usable energy.

Know what it does is that I actually I think it can go both ways, right, But I think what we're talking about here is it's turning mechanical energy, so like movement into electricity, correct, which is electrical current current from And you look at these things and they don't look like much It looks like just a little flexible chip, you know, but put this thing on the boddom of your shoes or really on any surface that's going to

be stressed, strained or smashed flexed flex right. You can You can hypothetically even pave a rotor sidewalk with this kind of stuff if you you know, I wanted to, if you can figure out a way to protect it. Yeah, and this actually generates electric current straight from that. That's amazing. You could you could charge your phone by going out

for a run, yeah, potentially. Now, I think the problem so far is that they they're still not like amazingly efficient, Like don't they have a cap at how much they can capture? Uh And back when we were working on the article, it was very small. It was like the amount of two double A batteries, which is to run your m P three player, like if you have a little clip on one or or your phone. Um. I mean it also outside of fitness, just as a quick asside, it has lots of medical uses as well where it

can be used. The ideas that you would implant it on something like a lung that is always flexing just by virtue of your breathing and it could be powering your um pacemaker. Thank you? What did I see it? Could it could take the mechanical energy of your pulse and use it to power and implanted insulin injective. Sure? Sure, yeah, insulin pumps are the one. Incredibly cool. But there have been discussions and I remember seeing in I forget what fitness magazine. It was like a couple of years back

before I worked on this article. They were talking about you guys and nanogenerators. It's going to be in your clothes, and it's going to power your MP three player, and it will automatically motivate you because if you stop running, your music stops too. And then I was like, where is this technology? That's pretty cool? And we're not there yet to commercial market, but we're getting closer. Do you think that about wraps it up? Do you all want

to talk about anything else? I That's that's all I got. Well, I think the bottom line is that games and gadgets are going to prevent you from dying. You're gonna live forever. Good news, No, no, no, But they may actually make a big difference. I actually I feel pretty good about the gamification issue, Like especially with zombies run. That sounds really cool, and I see that it's not just a trick, like I can see that kind of thing actually working in the long term with people. Yeah, and I hope

they keep churning out seasons. Although I've replayed and really enjoyed, just like you would your favorite television series. I enjoy going around. That's awesome the plotline as well. Yeah. Well, hopefully our digital virtual fitness partners will keep us in shape in the future. That's the hope fingers crest. Oh wait,

so Jonathan usually does some like talking out thing. Yeah, yeah, okay, so um so, we hope that you have enjoyed this magical, magical episode of forward thinking if you if you have, if you would like to get in touch with us, you can visit uh FW thinking dot com. That is where you can find links to our social media, all of our podcasts, all the videos, super cool blogs and uh and Yeah, you can get in touch with us there if you want to go directly to Twitter or Facebook.

We are at f W Thinking as well. I believe dot com. Well not that the handles the handles to your right, right, Yeah, people talk online. Joh. There's social networks to really cool. They allow people to connect. Yeah, I got it. I gotta get on the MySpace, So find Joe on the my space, find the rest of us on those other things, and we will talk to you again really soon. For more on this topic in the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot Com, brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places,