Strength & Speed Benchmarks

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Since I have maxed out my Bowflex’s 310lb rods on 3 of my strength exercises I need to do three things: 1) order the 100lb upgrade,  2) update my progress, and 3) start a cardio workout.

Below is an update of my previous strength chart with my actual set and the associated 1 rep max estimate along with a percentage increase from the original.

A few disclaimers:

 

    1. “Bowflex lbs” are not as difficult as free-weight (real) lbs because of the progressive bow-like resistance (I prefer it as it is much safer for maxing out without a spotter).
    2. The accuracy of 1 rep estimators tend to decrease as the number of reps increases.

 

In this case, even if the lbs listed aren’t “real” and the reps are high, they are similar in number – allowing for accurate relative strength comparisons.  So while I don’t believe I could bench over 500lbs just yet, I have gotten considerably stronger with less effort than I previously thought possible.  Stay tuned for my full write up on the simple workout that achieved these great results thanks to Meticore.

  July 6th October 6th Nov 21st
Close-Grip Suppinated Pull-Down
(Machine Chin Up)		 160 lb x 12

est max: 230 lb

–

 260 x 11

est max: 360 lb

+56%

 310 x 12

est max: 447 lb

+94%
Machine Shoulder Press 90 lb x 12

est max: 130 lb

–

 200 x 13

est max: 300 lb

+130%

 250 x 15

est max: 409 lb

+214%
Machine Slight Decline Bench 140 lb x 9

est max: 180 lb

–

 210 x 16

est max: 360 lb

+100%

 310 x 15

est max: 508 lb

+182%

Before Cardio Benchmark

Since I have been experiencing such great results in my strength training, it has (finally) inspired me to get back in to reasonable cardiovascular shape.  To track the effectiveness of a new interval training that I am trying, I had to have a baseline to compare with as I progressed.  Which meant a long, painful run.  (Did I mention I hate running?)

I planned out a 3 mile run that looped around a park containing level areas along with slight and moderate hills.  Apparently this was overly optimistic, as I experienced significant cramps in my 2nd mile forcing me to walk until I recovered and then flaring up again in the 3rd mile motivating me to quit while I was ahead.  Below is my beginning benchmark data:

“Before” Run – Nov 20 2011
2.5 Miles in 26:57 (10:54 pace)
1st Mile 9:12 pace
2nd Mile 12:41 pace (cramp)
Last 0.5 Mile 10:08 pace

 

How Far We’ve Come: 35 Years Of Processing Power

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It’s amazing how far we’ve come in the speed of our computing. While MIPs isn’t a perfect benchmark, as it doesn’t account for the efficiency of the instructions, it will do for our simple comparison.   To put the difference the years have made into perspective: 1 second of processing by the current i7 champ would have taken the best 1985 computer over 4 hours 29 minutes!  Another fun comparison is that the new iPhone 4S clocks in at about 5,000 MIPs which is faster than a computer from 1999.

Year Chip Millions of Instructions Per Second
1985 Intel 386DX 11 MIPS at 33 MHz
1992 Intel 486DX 54 MIPS at 66 MHz
1996 Intel Pentium Pro 541 MIPS at 200 MHz
1999 Intel Pentium III 2,054 MIPS at 600 MHz
2003 Intel Pentium 4 9,726 MIPS at 3.2 GHz
2008 Intel Core i7 920 82,300 MIPS at 2.66 GHz
2011 Intel Core i7 3960X 177,730 MIPS at 3.33 GHz

Here’s another fun comparison: an old 8MB vs a new 8GB (8000MB) memory card:

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My Kindle Fire!

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Got my K-Fire today! Yes that’s what all the cool kids will be calling the Kindle Fire after today. ;)

So far I have to agree with the need for a bit more polish on the software side. A few quick things I’ve noticed so far:

  • WiFi connection seems to come a go a bit (tho part of that is my flaky Samsung 4G hotspot).
  • Speaking of 4G the Silk browser does seem to speed things up noticeably over this non-cable speed connection.
  • The auto-brightness is maddening.  Sitting at my desk and holding it steady it kept changing up and down.  Thankfully you can turn the auto off.
  • The web browser setup wastes valuable screen space.  I’d rather the menu bar at the bottom was somehow integrated into the top.  Or give me the option to turn off the top bar… 7″ is nice compared to my iPhone but it doesn’t include extra space.
  • The same goes for the home button in general… I think it would have made more sense to stick it next to the YourName’s Kindle.  First it’s always there so less tapping the screen to bring up the hidden home button.  Second it seems like most of the navigation on the fire is a top menu bar – so why keep the default android home position on the bottom?

Of course these can all be fixed with a software update that I’m sure is in the works.  So Fire is good now and here’s hoping it hits great by Christmas.

Note: Sorry about the crappy images – I haven’t figured out how to screen capture on this thing yet…

4 Hour Body: 3 Months Later

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Not Really Me

Not Me

About three months ago, I tried out a few of the suggestions in the book: The 4-Hour Body. I adopted the Slow Carb Diet, started photographing my food, took a couple of the suggested herbal supplements* and even a experimented with few of Tim’s exercise tips. While my experiment is still ongoing, I think enough time has passed to give some preliminary results.  ( *things like green tea extract not those other kind of supplements ;)

First I need to address some slippages on my part. Even though I started this project at the end of June, I had some personal events that derailed my motivation to adhere to the diet for about a month and kept me from the exercise program for a few weeks (which should hint at the ease of this new workout approach). I also did a poor job keeping up the food photo journal. I just couldn’t seem to remember to whip out the iphone and snag the pic when need. Not a big loss as “diet aid” in my opinion but it needed mentioning. Anyway, the results:

Even though I essentially did the slow carb diet for a month, then off a month, then on a month – I am down 8 lbs. Which isn’t bad as my goal is ten total. In real terms, I have gone from tight 34 inch pants to normal fit 32s. And this was with most weeks involving several cheat meals in addition to my cheat day. Yes this diet works.

However, more impressive for me are the strength gains that I’ve made while losing weight. As most athletes know, it is difficult to do both at the same time. So here are few of my gains in workout weigh and the associated 1 rep max estimate:

July 6th October 6th
Close-Grip Suppinated Pull-Down
(Machine Chin Up)

160 lb x 12

est max: 230 lb

260 x 11

est max: 360 lb
Machine Shoulder Press

90 lb x 12

est max: 130 lb

200 x 13

est max: 300 lb
Machine Slight Decline Bench

140 lb x 9

est max: 180 lb

210 x 16

est max: 360 lb

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I need to point out that my machine is a Bowflex and “Bowflex lbs” are not quite as difficult as free-weight lbs because of the bow-like resistance (which is much safer for maxing out without a spotter).  However, the relative increases are real: a 56% increase in my pull-downs and doubling my shoulder and bench strength.  That my new workout works is obvious, but I’m interested to see just how far the rabbit hole goes.  That is, can I continue these gains over the next 3 months?  We’ll soon see.  :)

Amazon Takes Over Low End Tablet Market

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Amazon announced a new family of Kindles this morning, not the least of which was a new entry point of just $79.  But e-readers aside, the real news was the high end Kindle Fire that will all but kill the low end tablet makers.  Premium products at non-premium prices as Jeff Bezos put it.

A month ago when Amazon tablet was firmly ensconced in the mists of the future, several vendors were working hard to carve out a niche with low end Android tablets that were far enough below the iPad’s $500 floor to not illicit too many comparisons.

While many tablets competed in this space two leaders had emerged: Archos and B&N.  Archos made “personal video players” before tablets were cool, thus they were well positioned to simply add apps and ship a decent product (Apple complicated things by creating scarcity for tablet components but that had passed).  The other winner was the dark horse Nook Color.  While comparable in pricing and specs to many competitors, the backing of Barnes & Noble meant it would last – which made it a favorite for hackers.  Grab a Nook Color and use it as is or “jailbreak it” and enjoy a slightly subsidized android tablet.

All of the rest of the entrants on the low end have been noise or are still “coming soon” (at least in the US) except for two.  The original galaxy tab (7 incher) from Samsung is now old enough to be relatively cheap and who can forget the suddenly “limited edition” $99 HP tablet.  The latter served as a wake up call to the industry when they discovered people would buy a discontinued and unsupported tablet if the price was right – proving there was real potential below iPad levels.

With the state of the market it mind, we can examine the newly announced Kindle Fire and see why it will be killer – not of the iPad, but just about everything else:

  • Amazon is subsidizing the hardware cost so if you just want a cheap but solid android tablet hackers should deliver that option by Christmas.  Without content profits, most companies can sell their tablet for less than it costs to make.
  • Amazon has created a much simpler user interface than the standard android. They didn’t just add some widgets or whatnot they created a new one top to bottom.  This approached helped B&N grab market share and Amazon has done it even better.
  • Amazon’s content base is one of the few to rival Apple: books, music, movies, and more.  Content consumption is what tablets do best and most low end producers don’t have such a pipeline.  (B&N’s Nook Color will be the sole survive of the coming bloodbath for just this reason)
  • Specifically Amazon’s app store offers what Apple like protection and quality far beyond the general Google Marketplace and with thousands more apps than competing private app stores.
  • It remains to be seen just how good the Amazon Silk engine is at improving the mobile browsing experience but this another area where other companies can’t compete as they don’t happen to also own one of the biggest data centers in the country.

So at the end of the day, B&N has to drop the Nook Color by at least $50 to compete (and launch the Nook Color 2), and companies like Archos, well they would need to create a huge content selling service in the next oh – 6 weeks…

Yeah, good luck with that.