Most valuable fitness goals you've beeminded?

davidwachlin · March 15, 2015, 9:26pm

I’m curious about what fitness goals have been most valuable for you to Beemind. Number of trips to the gym? Time spent running? Calories burned?

I’m sure a lot of folks use fitbit and the like. I’m curious about that as well, but more so interested in what goals/data other people have found useful to beemind.

mary · March 15, 2015, 9:44pm

BEEMIND ALL THE THINGS!

I have 19 fitness goals. I beemind the amount of cardio, and strength training (and eventually yoga) separately, and then I also beemind 16 different strength training exercises, to keep me from skipping the ones I don’t love and to keep me doing a minimum of each. (Though, as you’ll see, I sometimes take long breaks from the goals, which is really unfortunate.)

I find that doing this helps me more effortlessly balance my fitness goals efforts (i.e., cardio, strength, and flexibility/balance) without having to think about it except when I’m dialling the roads initially.

Cardio: https://www.beeminder.com/chipmanaged/goals/cardio
Strength: https://www.beeminder.com/chipmanaged/strength
Yoga: https://www.beeminder.com/chipmanaged/goals/yoga

Now if only I’d stop taking breaks on these goals…

mary · March 15, 2015, 9:51pm

(Oh, to actually answer your question about the most useful: I would say that if I could only beemind two or three goals, I would obviously beemind the cardio, strength, and yoga goals… but I really find the individual strength training goals to be useful if you can keep them form cluttering up your goal page (which I do by keeping them below the dividing line), and I wouldn’t actually want to have to give them up.)

And if I could only beemind one, I would beemind an overall “calories burned through exercise” goal, and then I’d use the datapoint comments to track whether it was a cardio workout, a weights workout, etc.

I think anything that gets us moving is good, so I think the best approach is probably: pick anything and go for it, ramp it up every couple of weeks… and try not to take as many breaks as MCM does…

apolyton · March 16, 2015, 2:19am

I have weight, fat and steps right now. So I guess steps is the most valuable one.
I’ll be looking into a “Total calories burned” one as soon as the MFP integration is added.

katrielalex · March 17, 2015, 10:15am

“Do some cardio”, five times a week.

malcolm · March 21, 2015, 12:32am

I have a goal I really like called “exhaust”. I have to do tabata sprints or a “7 minute scientific workout” twice weekly (probably soon to be more when the weather is nicer and my schedule is flexier). I’ve also taken to fulfilling it by putting on Propane Nightmares, and doing high knees during the verses and burpees during the break.

I made the goal after discovering that I really really liked being out of breath. Acute workouts are much more fun to me than long drawn-out ones.