Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

This is awesome. Just yesterday I was doing a 7-minute workout in my room, just because I was waiting for dinner to finish heating up.

The main problem is that the standard timer app on iOS only acts as a stopwatch...so the final ten seconds of each interval, I'm watching the clock so that I can hit "Lap" and move on...this is awkward when I'm also wearing headphones to listen to music.

What would be ideal for me is to have a simple timer that would alert me when the interval was done and automatically move on to the next one....like a repeating event on a calendar. I'm sure there's an app for that but I just didn't feel like downloading a bunch and doing trial and error.

One more twist: I can't do all the exercises in the 7-min workout (as made famous in the NYT)...jumping jacks would annoy the shit out of the people below me. So I make up my own. A timer that would allow me to set up my own sequence would be fabulous.

Anyway, this is just a longwinded way of saying that there's a need for a niche app here, and it would definitely be a fun coding project...I'm glad someone else thought of it first :)

I've read a bit about high intensity training (tabata, hiit, crossfit, etc.) and there seems to be quite a good bit of evidence supporting their utility. The 7-minute workout may well fit in that same category.

However, as an old fogie, I recall a craze back in the 70s and 80s called 5BX, which stood for 5 basic exercises, created by Swedish aircrew iirc. The reason I recalled it is the mention of rapid-style jumping jacks and push ups in the 7-minute workout. 5BX had increasingly quickened routines for jumping jacks (from a crouching position), sit-ups and push-ups (with claps thrown in as you completed each push-up).

All of this worked very well in terms of actually toning your body, getting a good daily cardio workout, and a sense of fitness... until it did irreparable back and other damage to quite a few people. So just be careful, especially if the high intensity and the 7 minute time limit drives you to a regimen that gets anywhere close to a 5BX style work out in terms of quick, jerky movements.

Personally, I've reverted to playing basketball like I did in my college days, with high intensity worked into it with repeated lay up, jump shot routines, etc. It's working great for cardio and overall body toning. I would like to do weights as well, as there is a body of evidence pointing to its value, but basketball is plenty far for me at this stage.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the harm from 5BX was caused by the situp. Replace with crunches and you're good.

Yes, that's a good catch. I think it was only late into the '80s that full sit-ups began to be deprecated. I did notice the 7-minute work out emphasizes abdominal crouches which is good. However, 5BX did also cause knee and elbow problems (thanks to the crouching jumping jacks and clap happy push-ups). I'd say watch out for routines involving jerky movements.

If you have a doorway adjacent to a hall, stand in the middle of the doorway and angle yourself slightly off parallel to the hall and do your jumps there. You make a lot of noise hopping in the middle of a room but (assuming a similar floor plan below you) stacked doorways lead to short beams for support that don't flex or echo near as much.

There are a bunch of interval training apps on the app store.

This is a good free one I use myself:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/interval-timer-seconds-by/id...

I know exactly what you mean- I use this free app called 30/30 on my iPhone (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/30-30/id505863977?mt=8), and it works great for a productivity cycle, e.g. rotating between focusing and doing something relaxing. I imagine it would be pretty good for workouts as well.

check this out, tons of HIIT timers out there. i grew up wrestling and used to use a physical device called a gymboss which was awesome at the time. they have now made Android and iOS apps

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gymboss-2-interval-timer/id5...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halcyoni.g...

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