Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey everybody, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says you better run, Run, Run,
Speaker 1: Run Run. I'm Joe McCormick, I'm Lauren Vogelba, and I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Fry. Holly is joining us today because our regular
Speaker 1: host Jonathan Strickland is out on vacation. We're recording without him.
Speaker 1: How dare he? How dare he? Um? So today we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the future of fitness. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is partially why we have Holly joining us. She is
Speaker 1: usually on um stuff you missed in history class, but
Speaker 1: is also a little bit of a fitness enthusiast. I
Speaker 1: would say accurate, accurate. I have a background in dance,
Speaker 1: although I haven't done that in any sort of real
Speaker 1: way in a long time, but I've alway had a
Speaker 1: lifelong sort of interest in it, and I run regularly.
Speaker 1: Uh Am. I really like all the tech around fitness.
Speaker 1: Just wait till we get to gadgets. Holly was a
Speaker 1: great resource in writing the script of the video that
Speaker 1: this podcast is accompanying, and so we figured we'd talked
Speaker 1: today about some of the technical outlook for the future
Speaker 1: of fitness, including games, gadgets, apps, little do Dads, James
Speaker 1: Bond gadgets. Right, Yeah, because I mean, you know, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, anyone can can do fitness by by moving um,
Speaker 1: which is fairly fairly what most people, which is which
Speaker 1: is fairly non technological um. But there are many, many,
Speaker 1: many terrific advances and and yeah, so we want to
Speaker 1: get into the gamification and the gadgets, but I think
Speaker 1: I think first let's talk about UM. So, so exercises
Speaker 1: actual facts good for us? Is this scientifically proven said
Speaker 1: we don't actually need any of that? Was it was
Speaker 1: you just lots of meat and you'll be okay, Oh
Speaker 1: that's that's my least favorite website. That problem. No, Actually,
Speaker 1: the medical science community is pretty united on this that
Speaker 1: getting a good bit of exercise is really good for
Speaker 1: you. You You don't probably really need to worry about getting
Speaker 1: too much unless you're in some tiny percentile of people
Speaker 1: that most of us don't fit into. Yeah, overtraining happens,
Speaker 1: but the general public is not in a huge danger.
Speaker 1: But we're barely getting enough right to talk about that. Minimals, minimals,
Speaker 1: minimums that that professionals talk about well. The U S
Speaker 1: Health Department UM recommends that you need to get for
Speaker 1: a healthy adult. UM. Now, it's going to be different
Speaker 1: whether you're a child or an elderly person, or if
Speaker 1: you have a disability or something, but if you're able
Speaker 1: and a healthy adult, they recommend a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity. So that
Speaker 1: can be like just you know, walking, going hiking around
Speaker 1: UM that that doesn't have to involve like really vigorous.
Speaker 1: That you don't have to be sprinting or lifting fifty
Speaker 1: pound weights. That's just getting your heart beating a little
Speaker 1: bit faster than more than a stroll. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: when you say walking, people think like the casual, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at things and windows. You walk toward lunch,
Speaker 1: not like you walk away from It's a perfect way
Speaker 1: to describe it, or like the Saturday night fever walk,
Speaker 1: like like the good or like sometimes I pretend I'm
Speaker 1: RuPaul and that really only sometimes Holly. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: really good confidence boost. If you're feeling a little insecure,
Speaker 1: pretend your RuPaul and my hand to God, everything gets better.
Speaker 1: That's a good strategy if you can imagine a good
Speaker 1: house music. Beat your walk as you're going. You're probably
Speaker 1: walking fast enough. You should be feeling it a little bit,
Speaker 1: maybe breathing a little faster than usual. Maybe not able
Speaker 1: to carry on a strict conversation. That's one of those
Speaker 1: other indicators that they usually give out, like if you
Speaker 1: can name really speak, not Able to gossip is one
Speaker 1: that I was told. Once there you go, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: Now keep in mind that this is what they recommend
Speaker 1: as the minimum for a healthy adult. It's not like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I got there, I'm done. Um, it's actually
Speaker 1: good to get more exercise than this, but this is
Speaker 1: what they say is the minimum for a healthy adult
Speaker 1: to have good physical fitness. Or you can trade out
Speaker 1: that hundred and fifty minutes every week of moderate intensity
Speaker 1: aerobic activity with seventy five minutes of vigorous aerobic activity.
Speaker 1: And this means like hard running or playing an intense sport,
Speaker 1: something like high intensity interval training, although you should not
Speaker 1: probably be doing that for seventy five minutes a week
Speaker 1: for most people, certainly not straight. Yeah, that that would be. Now,
Speaker 1: those tend to be shorter sessions, and you want to
Speaker 1: space them out a little, right, that the interval part
Speaker 1: means that you've space it out with less intense training.
Speaker 1: They also recommend that you should do at least two
Speaker 1: sessions of strength training per week, and so that just
Speaker 1: means like resistance train in NG or lifting weights. They
Speaker 1: don't specify how long you need to do this, just
Speaker 1: enough basically I think to be making progress. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: want to hit all of your major muscle groups. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are different bodies of thought on. Some trainers like
Speaker 1: to do full exhaustion like on each part once a week,
Speaker 1: really hard, and some like to balance that in those
Speaker 1: two sessions you would hit kind of full body each time. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, basically you want to get to a point
Speaker 1: where your muscles are challenged just past what they would
Speaker 1: naturally be able to do, and that's how you develop
Speaker 1: strength enough that it's hard. Yes, this is partially because
Speaker 1: muscles burn energy when you're just sitting around, and when
Speaker 1: they are stronger, when they're in better shape, they are
Speaker 1: going to be burning more energy than they otherwise would.
Speaker 1: And that's basically awesome. That's true. By um, by doing
Speaker 1: more strength training, you actually I believe you increase your
Speaker 1: base metabolic rate, is what you're saying. Um so it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're healthier even when you're not exercising. You've been lifting weights,
Speaker 1: but you can't just coast for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: You've got to keep it going, right. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the staff that I've read, and I haven't confirmed this,
Speaker 1: but I think that you lose something like ten percent
Speaker 1: of your muscle strength for every month that you are
Speaker 1: not as active as you otherwise were. Man, that's brutal. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: uh so, how many of us here in America are
Speaker 1: achieving these goals set out by our National Health Department?
Speaker 1: Do you have a statistic on that? Is it? Sad?
Speaker 1: I do a Boston Globe article from April April um
Speaker 1: and this is actually this part of the status better
Speaker 1: than I would have guessed, but it's still not great.
Speaker 1: It estimates that forty nine point seven percent of those
Speaker 1: interviewed and study met or exceeded the guidelines UM for
Speaker 1: aerobic activity in the first six months of two thou twelve. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: but also I'm I believe I understand that the rates
Speaker 1: have been going up a little bit since lately there's
Speaker 1: been more of an awareness campaign nationally about us needing
Speaker 1: to get so I think it's a little better than
Speaker 1: it was a few years before. UM, I'm not positive
Speaker 1: about that. We should check later. I'll try to put
Speaker 1: something on social about whether or not relying to you
Speaker 1: right now. Well, in any case, this part is true.
Speaker 1: So about half of American adults surveyed. UM, we're meeting
Speaker 1: or exceeding those aerobic guidelines so for the first six months,
Speaker 1: for the first six months of two twelves. So that's
Speaker 1: still gunning it through the New Year's resolutions. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if that makes a big difference. It might go
Speaker 1: to a gym and January April, it's a very different space.
Speaker 1: The y m c A my wife and I go to,
Speaker 1: is unbearable in January. It's just packed, you can't get in.
Speaker 1: And then you know, wait a couple of months and
Speaker 1: then it's fine, there's nobody there. Pretty standard. So yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's affecting the statistic here. Though, a less encouraging
Speaker 1: statistic is apparently when you um, and this is adults
Speaker 1: between the ages of twenty five and sixty four, when
Speaker 1: you add in the combination of the aerobic activity and
Speaker 1: the strength training recommendations, both of them at the same time. UM,
Speaker 1: just twenty point seven of Americans. We're hitting them. I
Speaker 1: have some theories about that, Yeah, I do. I would
Speaker 1: say that a lot of women are not strength training
Speaker 1: because they have been taught that are they think they
Speaker 1: haven't even been taught. They just have this conception that
Speaker 1: if they if they lift weights or otherwise he use
Speaker 1: resistance training, that they are going to get crazy dude
Speaker 1: muscles and that everything will be terrible. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 1: A I think that Linda Hamilton's in Terminator two is
Speaker 1: just about the prettiest lady ever on the planet. Well,
Speaker 1: and be should work like four hours a day just
Speaker 1: to maintain those arms like this is not going to
Speaker 1: happen to the average person turned over her mental institution
Speaker 1: bed and do the chin ups on it right? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the actors did not, but the character, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, she might have been a method actor. She
Speaker 1: lived in an institution, working out all the time. There
Speaker 1: is a fear among a lot of women that they're
Speaker 1: somehow going to get really bulky and huge. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then it's not the case that I mean, for for
Speaker 1: most human people, that is certainly not the case. And
Speaker 1: everyone's body type is different, of course, and you know,
Speaker 1: and you can you can. There are exceptions to every rule,
Speaker 1: but generally women do not have the testosterone in their
Speaker 1: bodies to build muscle at a rate that demand would.
Speaker 1: That's just the bottom line, right, So yeah, so uh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the benefits of regular exercise versus the
Speaker 1: negative outcomes you might have if you don't get regular exercise.
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest things is that exercise helps
Speaker 1: control weight UM. And this is interesting. I think some
Speaker 1: people have a misconception that it's like, well, if you
Speaker 1: ex size a lot, you're gonna be really skinny, and
Speaker 1: if you don't, you're going to be really fat. And
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like that. But what research seems to
Speaker 1: show is no matter what your weight level is, exercise
Speaker 1: seems to help you control it in that range UM
Speaker 1: and also within UM whatever range you are. Exercise also
Speaker 1: helps combat some of the negative effects of being overweight.
Speaker 1: So like having um uh bad HDL versus LDL levels,
Speaker 1: exercise helps control that in a very positive way. That
Speaker 1: that is here, that is your good cholesterol in quotation
Speaker 1: marks versus bad cholesterol. Right, Yeah, those the technical scientific names, Yeah,
Speaker 1: extremely technical. Yes, I'm completely forgetting what know what those
Speaker 1: things stand for they actually do always use those words.
Speaker 1: I always see it. They put it in quotes like
Speaker 1: just so they're like kind of giving it the side eye. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good and bad. That's you know, it simplifies. It's also yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy communication. It's making a sound bite moral judgment on cholesterol,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit goofy evil cholesterol. Cholesterol. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I also did want to put in, um that
Speaker 1: weight in general is not your your best indicator by
Speaker 1: far of how healthy you are, because muscle weighs more
Speaker 1: than fat, and so, I mean, especially when you're first
Speaker 1: starting to work out, you might not lose any weight
Speaker 1: or even gain a little bit of weight. And wonder
Speaker 1: you know why your scale is is telling you these terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible things. And it's not it's not that you're I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, exercising will make you more healthy. As I'm
Speaker 1: sure Joe is about to explain, weight is just not
Speaker 1: the best indicator, right, Um yeah, so uh. It also
Speaker 1: basically correlates to a lot of conditions, especially that we
Speaker 1: encounter in older adults, like regular exercise will help stave
Speaker 1: off heart disease, UM and all kinds of cardiovascular and
Speaker 1: pulmonary problems. Um. It Also, it improves moody. People who
Speaker 1: get more exercise are happy. I think this is really
Speaker 1: easy to notice, just between those weeks where you're going
Speaker 1: to the jam and the ones where you slack off.
Speaker 1: You get better sleep when you get good exercise. Sure,
Speaker 1: most people, you're both looking at me and I don't
Speaker 1: know what to tell you because I have sleep issues.
Speaker 1: I thought you knew everything. Well, I just in in
Speaker 1: terms of personal experience, like I'm a lifelong insomniac. I
Speaker 1: don't really care for sleep, and if I didn't have
Speaker 1: to do it, I wouldn't So okay, I'm there with you. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, that's weird. Three vampires here in the same room.
Speaker 1: Three am party tomorrow, excellent, that sounds great. I'll probably
Speaker 1: be sewing or on the treadmill. I'm actually usually working
Speaker 1: out about one am. That's what I like to That's
Speaker 1: what I like to do that I do like to
Speaker 1: us in the middle of the night. But for many
Speaker 1: normal human people, for the non freaks, right, well, I
Speaker 1: all of this has to do with the the hormone
Speaker 1: balances that happen in your brain and in your body.
Speaker 1: Things like Sarah tonin um uh increased workouts can can
Speaker 1: get your brain and muscles involved with more of that,
Speaker 1: which is your happy good times, um for your mood
Speaker 1: and uh. And also I think that has to do
Speaker 1: with sleep as well. So I'm talking totally off the cuffs.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm hoping that what I'm saying is actual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard the same information. UM, so round up on
Speaker 1: what we've seen so far. Pretty standard, but just just
Speaker 1: know that this is verified by science. Exercise is really
Speaker 1: good for you. You need a lot of it, You
Speaker 1: should do it. At least half of American adults are
Speaker 1: not getting nearly enough the stat I mentioned earlier, thinking
Speaker 1: I remember just from the same Boston Globe article I
Speaker 1: said it earlier that it says that the most recent
Speaker 1: federal health data show a steady climb since two thousand
Speaker 1: seven in the number of US adults meeting weekly workout
Speaker 1: goals or its words. So though the long trend may
Speaker 1: have been kind of negative, like we've been getting less
Speaker 1: fit in the past few years, it seems like apparently
Speaker 1: there's been an upswing a bit. And and this does
Speaker 1: coincide um with more people having more access to the Internet,
Speaker 1: which obviously gives you more direct access to social circles
Speaker 1: and allows you. I mean also things like fitness trackers
Speaker 1: have been coming down a lot in price and and
Speaker 1: increasing in popularity. Fitness trackers. Fitness trackers, is that like
Speaker 1: a like a hunter tracker guy with like a hat
Speaker 1: and a rifle and he follows you too. That's actually
Speaker 1: how marathons work, now now that you mentioned it, I
Speaker 1: would much rather have one of those than a fit bit.
Speaker 1: But um, but fitness hunter, fitness hunter. Yeah, no, no no,
Speaker 1: no if fitness trackers are you know, a little pocket
Speaker 1: sized bits of tech that take measurements and create some
Speaker 1: kind of useful output to tell you how you're doing
Speaker 1: in your exercise and other related metrics, possibly including your
Speaker 1: your eating habits in your sleep. Um, they're kind of
Speaker 1: a lot more useful as technology has improved, you know,
Speaker 1: giving us things that are water a k A sweat resistant. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, having tiny, longer lasting batteries, more efficient screens,
Speaker 1: more powerful onboard and or linked software to crunch that
Speaker 1: data into something you can really use rather than just
Speaker 1: giving you a graph of you ran a bunch um
Speaker 1: and uh without a graph, right exactly? Yeah yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know you know more on board memory,
Speaker 1: smaller transistors, all all of that kind of good Moore's
Speaker 1: Law technology stuff has has led to fitness trackers. Holly
Speaker 1: is wearing one right now as we speak. What kind
Speaker 1: is that? It's a Fitbit Flex. I I love it.
Speaker 1: I will say it was startling. It's one that Fitbit
Speaker 1: has put out numerous trackers throughout the years. I don't
Speaker 1: want to make it sound too long, but their um
Speaker 1: their newest one is the Flex which you were on
Speaker 1: your wrist versus the one which was more of a
Speaker 1: clip situation, which is their previous model. And one of
Speaker 1: the startling things was the sleep tracker function, right you
Speaker 1: said it by tapping it five times as you go
Speaker 1: to bed, and then you tap it again five times
Speaker 1: to wake up, so it comes out of sleep mode,
Speaker 1: and then it will tell you how good or how
Speaker 1: well or poorly you're sleeping, based based on how much
Speaker 1: you were rolling around your movement. Some people think there
Speaker 1: is a pulse element to it. There is not. It's
Speaker 1: just based on your movement and your twitching. And I
Speaker 1: in mine was like you woke up twenty three times
Speaker 1: last now, which wasn't a huge surprise to me because
Speaker 1: I am, like I said, I have lifelong insomnia. And
Speaker 1: I am one of these people that routinely wakes up
Speaker 1: like a dozen times a night. But even on nights
Speaker 1: when I think I've really just slept like a log,
Speaker 1: it will turn out that in fact, that is why.
Speaker 1: So that was a little startling initially. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: really fabulous in the in terms of tracking your motion,
Speaker 1: attracts your overall motion for the day so that you
Speaker 1: can set yourself a goal of like they put it
Speaker 1: in step terms, but sometimes it's not always just walking
Speaker 1: steps like right might be swimming. Set to track fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand steps a day, so for each and it breaks
Speaker 1: it down into fifths. You have a an illuminated light
Speaker 1: in LED for each fifth, so like right now, when
Speaker 1: I tap it, it says I have not been doing
Speaker 1: all that much because I'm only three dots into my
Speaker 1: day and I should be further. Uh so yeah, And
Speaker 1: then as you hit your goal for the day, it
Speaker 1: makes all kinds of rumbling noises and is exciting and
Speaker 1: it just makes you know you're getting enough movement throughout
Speaker 1: the day. I think that sounds really helpful because it's
Speaker 1: got to be frustrating if you're trying to improve your fitness,
Speaker 1: but you don't exactly know what you're doing. You don't
Speaker 1: have a sense of how of whether or not you're
Speaker 1: actually meeting your goals. Well, and most of the fitness
Speaker 1: trackers now, uh, they really do kind of measure a
Speaker 1: much bigger picture kind of motion for the day instead
Speaker 1: of just trying to track your exercise time so that
Speaker 1: you do know, you know, Like the job Bone up
Speaker 1: is another one that does a similar thing. The Misfit
Speaker 1: Shine is brand new. It just to chipping I think
Speaker 1: in the last six weeks Indigo Go launch and that's
Speaker 1: a really cool one. Um. It's just little metal disk
Speaker 1: that has these little pretty lights on it and to
Speaker 1: to know anything about it you have to wirelessly connected
Speaker 1: to your computer. Medieval jewelry, right, yeah, Well it's interesting
Speaker 1: and different from other ones that exist, like the job
Speaker 1: oone up is a wrist based tracker that bit flexes
Speaker 1: risk based. The one is a clip like I said,
Speaker 1: but the Misfit Shine you can wear in any number
Speaker 1: of places and they actually sell different accessories where it
Speaker 1: can be a necklace or a bracelet or a it
Speaker 1: can be a clippy thing and it's aircraft great aluminum,
Speaker 1: so it can go through that your washing machine, which
Speaker 1: is a problem for a lot of other trackers. Like
Speaker 1: one of the problems with previous versions of the fitbit
Speaker 1: is that people would forget it was like one of
Speaker 1: the things they tell women is that you could wear
Speaker 1: a clip to your bra so that it's out of
Speaker 1: the way and it doesn't you know, you don't see it.
Speaker 1: It's not taking up accessory space in your life until
Speaker 1: you do, and then a hundred dollars of ruined check um.
Speaker 1: So like the newer fitbit can go in the shower
Speaker 1: with you and it's not a problem. They say. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things that where they say it's um
Speaker 1: water resistant or water tolerant, but not water proof, so
Speaker 1: you couldn't. You can go swimming and it will track
Speaker 1: your swimming activity, but you don't want to go deep
Speaker 1: sea diving with it or anything. Generally you probably should
Speaker 1: go diving with Yeah, I don't know. I do not
Speaker 1: recall the pretty solid little guy. So these guys can
Speaker 1: have any number of sensors in them. Um. The wrist
Speaker 1: related stuff that Holly was talking about is is usually
Speaker 1: placed on your wrist because of PPGs or a photo
Speaker 1: thesmo graphs. I think I said that right on the
Speaker 1: first go that's crazy talk grown up. Oh that's oho
Speaker 1: you're challenging me, Joe photo plet thesmo graph um and
Speaker 1: and that's that's the new standard in noninvasive heart rate monitoring.
Speaker 1: What they do is they bounce light um usually in
Speaker 1: LED so that they're not burning your skin um through
Speaker 1: the first through layers of your skin, and measure what
Speaker 1: comes back to see how much blood is moving through
Speaker 1: your capillaries because blood is going to absorb more light
Speaker 1: than the surrounding tissues, so they can track your your
Speaker 1: pulse and through that, which is super awesome future technology. Uh,
Speaker 1: this real, this is totally this is this is what
Speaker 1: is it. I've always wanted a machine that will keep
Speaker 1: track of my blood. I never thought it would come true.
Speaker 1: Usually they're big, encumbersome and the wheels squeak, but it's
Speaker 1: these days. They're also being paired with an accelerometer which
Speaker 1: will help compensate for your body and skin movement, which
Speaker 1: makes them more accurate. The old version of this, of course,
Speaker 1: was an electric cardiogram A K A and E C
Speaker 1: G R E k G. That was so many initialisms
Speaker 1: in one short sentence. There I apologize guys. UM, and
Speaker 1: and those would detect electrical electrical signals through your skin
Speaker 1: with little electric pickups. UM. Other stuff that happens in
Speaker 1: fitness tractor, fitness tractors, fitness trackers, I think is drive
Speaker 1: it around the house fitness tractor. UM. Pedometers podometers, of course,
Speaker 1: are the things that that measure the motion of your
Speaker 1: of your hips when you walk, or the impact of
Speaker 1: your steps. Accelerometers, which are motion sensors that measure the
Speaker 1: change in direction and velocity of anything. They're connected to
Speaker 1: GPS receivers for tracking your position. Altometers altimeters, yes, altimeters
Speaker 1: really that's so goofy sounding, which measure elevation gained and
Speaker 1: lost and uh therefore can can attribute calories burned to
Speaker 1: harder work like climbing stairs than just going in a
Speaker 1: straight line. Galvanics in response sensors, These are some of
Speaker 1: my favorites. They detect perspiration and thereby they measure the
Speaker 1: connectivity of your skin and thereby detect how much your sweating,
Speaker 1: which can help detect how much work you're doing. UM.
Speaker 1: And then infrared thermometers to track your body temperature and
Speaker 1: the ambient temperature, with the principle that if you are
Speaker 1: warmer than you're surrounding environment, you are doing more work. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty awesome. They're they're pretty awesome things I do
Speaker 1: not I have a I have a panometer that we
Speaker 1: got from work through a you know, corporate fitness initiative thing.
Speaker 1: Um it is it is just a potometer. That is
Speaker 1: what it does. It does that one thing. It has
Speaker 1: one job. Um, but but I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1: You know, They're fun and I no doubt about all
Speaker 1: this tech. I'm really excited to see what other kind
Speaker 1: of crazy laser related stuff they start strapping to us. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, Uh, are we always going to have to
Speaker 1: have this is like a I don't like wearing stuff
Speaker 1: on my wrists or like clipping things to my clothes. Really, um,
Speaker 1: is there any easier way to do this? As it
Speaker 1: turns out, yes, Um. They are starting to make things
Speaker 1: that they are calling temporary tattoos that are really more
Speaker 1: like stickers that contain all of the circuitry or some
Speaker 1: of the circuitry, not all of the circuitry, because because
Speaker 1: things are still a little bit too bulky to put
Speaker 1: it all in a single sticker. Do you stick to
Speaker 1: your skin and it does the stuff and then you
Speaker 1: can collect the readout you know, either wirelessly or um
Speaker 1: uh through some kind of computer hookup. How long can
Speaker 1: you wear it, like a like a day? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I think I've seen I don't have numbers on that
Speaker 1: in my research, but I but I've seen them stick
Speaker 1: on for a few days at a time. So wait,
Speaker 1: epidermal electronics that can track your bio functions? Is this tongue?
Speaker 1: Is this an idea like a pro or is this
Speaker 1: like a prototype or is this already on the market.
Speaker 1: These these are in the kind of prototype research sort
Speaker 1: of stage. They they are being used in laboratories to
Speaker 1: track these biomedical indicators. But but no, you can't go
Speaker 1: out and buy one like at Walgreens yet give it
Speaker 1: a minute? Two minutes, I would say, But yeah, certainly
Speaker 1: less than twenty to fifty years. So I could just
Speaker 1: potentially in the future, instead of having a uh uh
Speaker 1: wrist band or something like that, I could just put
Speaker 1: this on in the morning, like stick it to my
Speaker 1: skin somewhere like a nicotine patch. Share. Yeah, it uploads
Speaker 1: whatever information it needs to to my device and boom,
Speaker 1: I'm done. Hypothetically, Yeah, that is that is where we
Speaker 1: are headed, and I think, yeah, I really do think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it might be very expensive in the near future.
Speaker 1: I mean I think the average fitness trackers hovering right
Speaker 1: around the hundred dollar mark. Yeah, they range. Um, like
Speaker 1: I know the Nike Plus fuel band is. I think
Speaker 1: the price ist of the like small personals and it's
Speaker 1: what one thirty nine. Yeah, they're not that bad. Um.
Speaker 1: You can get the sort of heavier hitter like the
Speaker 1: I think there's still a model of body Bug or
Speaker 1: body Fit Media. I think those two those have higher
Speaker 1: price points, but they're also not the tiny little right right.
Speaker 1: They might involve jewelry style. Yeah. Yeah, they also involved
Speaker 1: the e k G or something which is more act
Speaker 1: it but you have to wear it on a chest
Speaker 1: strap to really get the year or they'll be on
Speaker 1: like an arm strap. Um, I don't know. I can
Speaker 1: get like fifty bags of potato chips for the propos
Speaker 1: of that thing. More you would just be fifty bags
Speaker 1: of potato chips. Richer not so much with an eye
Speaker 1: on your longevity. Um, but yeah, that is that. All
Speaker 1: of this is super exciting. Okay, Well, so we've talked
Speaker 1: about how keeping track of what you're doing could possibly
Speaker 1: help the public health aspect of a fitness in the future.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about motivation. This is an
Speaker 1: issue that concerns me because everybody knows that should get
Speaker 1: more exercise. I mean, it's not a secret. Yeah, you can't, can't.
Speaker 1: It's not a guarded piece of to find people. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll find people who will kind of argue with that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't believe the doctors. But basically
Speaker 1: everybody knows that you think more exercise is a good thing,
Speaker 1: yet people still aren't doing it. So there's clearly like
Speaker 1: a motivation gap. It's not a problem where people don't
Speaker 1: know what to do, they don't understand how to do it,
Speaker 1: and they and it's hard to get the willpower to
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, and I can attest to this, you know,
Speaker 1: like it. You can. You can be doing good for
Speaker 1: a couple of months, going to the gym a lot,
Speaker 1: and then you get busy, you get a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff to do, and you just don't make time for it.
Speaker 1: There Well, what always happens to me is there will
Speaker 1: be that week, you know, the dread week, where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I have thirty two deadlines at work and
Speaker 1: this is happening, and this life thing is happening, and
Speaker 1: I have to take care of just this week. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to worry about it so much. And then
Speaker 1: suddenly three months later you're like, wait, what happened? Right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well there's so yeah, Well I think we should talk
Speaker 1: about motivation. How can you trick your brain into wanting
Speaker 1: to do this thing that you know is good for you.
Speaker 1: You have to make it fun, make it fun, making
Speaker 1: it fun that there's scientific evidence it says that if
Speaker 1: you make it fun, if you give yourself a challenge
Speaker 1: past even a social challenge, then you know, like in sports,
Speaker 1: this is why a lot of people will wind up
Speaker 1: playing sports if they if they have the time to
Speaker 1: do so, and use that as an exercise, because, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, if you make a game out of stuff,
Speaker 1: people like to do it more. You know what. You
Speaker 1: know what the corporate dudes call that gamification? Don't you
Speaker 1: love that word? I don't. Well, let's take something that's
Speaker 1: not a game and make it into a game so
Speaker 1: more people will do it, and furthermore, make it into
Speaker 1: it and increasingly ridiculous now and phrase, so that we
Speaker 1: can gamification well, I think once I get saturated into
Speaker 1: like the world of marketing and stuff, it gets some
Speaker 1: fingerprints on it that make it kind of feel not
Speaker 1: so pleasant and delightful. The concept of gamification, I think
Speaker 1: is pretty clean. It's actually so if these marketing executives
Speaker 1: can turn like I don't know, collecting coupons into a
Speaker 1: game or something, which I'm sure they do in one
Speaker 1: way or another. Yeah, they they can turn getting fit
Speaker 1: into a game. And actually that's it on heard at
Speaker 1: all because we've been doing it for thousands of years. Sports. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what soccer is, guys. Um but uh but but
Speaker 1: but but also, I mean that's what fitness trackers can
Speaker 1: help you do if you use them as such. You
Speaker 1: can you can, especially the ones that link up through
Speaker 1: social media. You can compare what you're doing to what
Speaker 1: your friends are doing and make it into a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a competition and social Yeah. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so I was I was like wildly gesticulating and everyone
Speaker 1: was looking at me. Well, we we know what sports are.
Speaker 1: Everybody is aware of them. But it is true that
Speaker 1: there are probably a lot of people I might put
Speaker 1: myself in this category sometimes who wish they got more
Speaker 1: exercise who enjoy when they do get more exercise, But
Speaker 1: you you can't really just find the time and the
Speaker 1: social energy to get yourself into a soccer club or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, Or scheduling gets really tricky sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I really want to take some lyric classes, but
Speaker 1: it happens at like ten am on Tuesdays. So are
Speaker 1: there good ways that we think advances in the future
Speaker 1: or even stuff that's happening in the present can really
Speaker 1: help turn fitness into a game without these scheduling conference
Speaker 1: of them already there are tons of them loads what
Speaker 1: are they? Uh? I actually would love to talk about
Speaker 1: console games first because they've been around much longer than
Speaker 1: the other thing we're going to talk about. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of what year your Self Fitness came out,
Speaker 1: but it's all ways back. It's back like pre three
Speaker 1: six Xbox, and that was the first one that was
Speaker 1: really available widely in something like two is I think
Speaker 1: it might even be I think people who played the
Speaker 1: et game for the Atari actually got a lot of
Speaker 1: exercise by smashing the cartridges over and over. Uh that
Speaker 1: you know, there's merit. You're still getting movement, but you're
Speaker 1: saying this is the first real It's the first game
Speaker 1: that was really like intended. It was a virtual trainer
Speaker 1: who you know, would put you through your paces, would
Speaker 1: pick whatever the focus of the workout would be for
Speaker 1: the day. And her name was Maya, and I love
Speaker 1: that thing. It was super fun. It was it mean
Speaker 1: like the we No, it was not, although she would
Speaker 1: kind of let you know when you were falling down
Speaker 1: on the job, like she'd like, you're not doing so
Speaker 1: great this week, like we fit Pig is like, hey
Speaker 1: you gained weight. Hey, chubs, I mean it's really not
Speaker 1: you know what kind or gentle. I think the ideal
Speaker 1: exercise console game would be one where the King of
Speaker 1: the Cosmos from Katamari Domassy trains you in getting exercise.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, like what would he say when you
Speaker 1: your utter failure and embarrassment to your family. But and
Speaker 1: that motivation works for some people. Some people do, like
Speaker 1: when you think about the old school athletic coach that
Speaker 1: yells at people, that still does work for some people,
Speaker 1: but not for everyone. So thankfully this has really diversified
Speaker 1: quite a bit. But that first game, it was really basic.
Speaker 1: You still had to use your controller monitoring your actual movement.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of an honor system to
Speaker 1: it where you would have to be following along with
Speaker 1: Maya the trainer, almost like you would a workout video,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of each segment you would
Speaker 1: say like, yes, that's done or whatever and uh and
Speaker 1: then based on that. But you couldn't game it like
Speaker 1: it was on its own time or so you couldn't
Speaker 1: speed it up or anything. Uh. I mean you could
Speaker 1: sit there on your tail and wait for it to
Speaker 1: be time to give input and lie. But that sounds
Speaker 1: of those people that has a very hard time lying
Speaker 1: to my electronics. And I don't know why. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's forever, it's on record. Um so I never lied
Speaker 1: to Maya. But it's very noble, I don't think. I
Speaker 1: think it's more neurotic than noble. But trying to cheat
Speaker 1: the fitness game I happen all the time. Uh. But well,
Speaker 1: because they had gamified it in a way where like
Speaker 1: as you achieved certain things, new exercises would be unlaw
Speaker 1: and people would get obsessed with the unlocking of things
Speaker 1: but not the doing of them, which I always found funny.
Speaker 1: That sounds I'm just picturing like like especially I mean
Speaker 1: she sounds like she was nice, but if she were, like,
Speaker 1: if she were that we Fit pig, like, I would
Speaker 1: probably be sitting there with a bunch of park ground
Speaker 1: sitting back on like, yeah, I totally did that. No,
Speaker 1: she's pretty nice, so you'd have to eat soil and
Speaker 1: green and uh, she's human esque. But then for a
Speaker 1: while Sony got in on it with the eye toy
Speaker 1: and they were doing some fitness games and then Connect
Speaker 1: really kind of bridged a gap, and of course we
Speaker 1: Fit kind of really opened up the fitness gaming market
Speaker 1: once you got some accelerometers and stuff like that in
Speaker 1: your controllers. Yeah, it was you know, they didn't have
Speaker 1: to have a camera involved. It was still measuring your motion.
Speaker 1: And I mean, do you remember when that thing came
Speaker 1: out how hard it was to get ahold of one. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: first I was getting the text alerts from Amazon to
Speaker 1: let me know when it was in stock. And I
Speaker 1: remember I was at my job at the time, in
Speaker 1: a meeting and I got the alert and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go, I'll be back and I had to
Speaker 1: go place my to really really and then I went
Speaker 1: back to the meeting. Um, and I still have my
Speaker 1: we Fit and I still play with it sometimes, just
Speaker 1: partially for nostalgia at this point. But you know, you
Speaker 1: can find a range of really supportive and fun things
Speaker 1: that are very very game like, Like the we Fit
Speaker 1: has straight training and it also has games that are
Speaker 1: getting you to move. And so whichever one of those
Speaker 1: people tend to enjoy more, they can focus more on.
Speaker 1: Um I I knew some people in college who would
Speaker 1: play the home version of d d R as a workout.
Speaker 1: Oh I Love My Dance Dance Revolution for those of
Speaker 1: you who do DOWT. Now that was fun stuff. And
Speaker 1: they actually did try to launch a campaign at one point,
Speaker 1: like a marketing campaign of like look at these people
Speaker 1: who have lost waiting Unfit playing but it really didn't
Speaker 1: take off or go anywhere. I mean, it kind of
Speaker 1: fizzled out. He did have to have a pretty aggressive
Speaker 1: love of really bad J pop, which I think might
Speaker 1: have been a barrier. I don't understand why that would
Speaker 1: be a problem. But that's neither here nor there. You
Speaker 1: are standing in for Jonathan too. He really loves J pop.
Speaker 1: Guy to a lot of great But now it's what's
Speaker 1: really interesting is that a lot of athletic and fitnesswear
Speaker 1: companies are in on it, like Nike has a game
Speaker 1: for connect Um that they're partnered with Microsoft. UM. Adidas
Speaker 1: has a game called My Coach UM. And I will
Speaker 1: say though I don't know that sales on those have
Speaker 1: been stellar. Like a couple of years ago, e A
Speaker 1: Sports Active came out and that was really popular initially, um,
Speaker 1: and then it seems like it kind of fizzled. So
Speaker 1: I think the console element is a little bit dropping
Speaker 1: off because now it's all about apps right right, And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of apps. You there's one, there
Speaker 1: are dozens that I use all the time. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, I like technology and I like running around. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: one I mentioned in the script because I love the
Speaker 1: idea so much was the one where you run from zombies.
Speaker 1: I love this thing. I get Holly's Facebook updates about
Speaker 1: this all the time. Explained to us, it's like an RPG, UM,
Speaker 1: so it's a serialized story that plays out during your run.
Speaker 1: So each run is like a mission. You are Runner five.
Speaker 1: Who is this runner that gets recruited? It's post apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: There's been a zombie outbreak. It happens um. I think
Speaker 1: just outside of London. And uh, it's kind of this
Speaker 1: base that's trying to, you know, put itself back together
Speaker 1: and sort of form this little pocket of human civilization
Speaker 1: and survive together. And you become a runner. Basically your
Speaker 1: job is to go out and run to places and
Speaker 1: collect supplies. Uh, and zombies will chase you. There's actually
Speaker 1: a setting in the game where you can activate zombie
Speaker 1: chases or not. They will still appear in the storyline.
Speaker 1: But if you have zombie chases activated and they catch
Speaker 1: up to you, like you don't speed up enough during
Speaker 1: your run when a zombie chase alert happens, you'll drop
Speaker 1: some of your supplies so you won't be able to
Speaker 1: old your base is quickly. And this is basically interval training.
Speaker 1: I mean that this is this is a pretty the
Speaker 1: zombies on Yeah, Yeah, that's that's yeah that that zombie
Speaker 1: running thing in in particular, right is Yeah. I just
Speaker 1: think that's so clever. It's so great, I mean, really
Speaker 1: smart and fun. So you find this like actually very
Speaker 1: motivating above your level of normal interest in running, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there are days when I don't feel like running.
Speaker 1: I mean I love running, I hate running. I love running.
Speaker 1: I hate running. I think many runners I have a
Speaker 1: shirt that says that. I mean, it's not an uncommon
Speaker 1: scenario where there you know, you have great days and
Speaker 1: when it's a good run, it's exhilarating, and when it's bad,
Speaker 1: it hurts and it just is awful. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where you know, I really got
Speaker 1: to get more supplies and build my base. I had
Speaker 1: better I better get out there. So even like because
Speaker 1: we sometimes get to telework, Like if I'm teleworking, that's
Speaker 1: usually a day when I'm like, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it Lunch is I'm gonna go get some
Speaker 1: supplies to build my base. I'll pop out and get
Speaker 1: a run where I probably wouldn't otherwise. And I believe
Speaker 1: this is using GPS tracking to to tell how far
Speaker 1: you've gone, and you have options actually you can do
Speaker 1: GPS tracking or I often um in my week night training,
Speaker 1: I run on an indoor track, so I use the
Speaker 1: accelerometer for so it doesn't give you mileage at that point.
Speaker 1: And the way UH they handle zombie chases in that
Speaker 1: instance is they base it on like your base pace,
Speaker 1: like what you're going, and how much you accelerate beyond
Speaker 1: that based on what the accelerometer is getting in terms
Speaker 1: of feedback, so you can still get caught by zombies
Speaker 1: and drop your stuff. Very troubling, um, but it is
Speaker 1: very fun. They're deep into season two now, like the
Speaker 1: first season was so successful that they put out a
Speaker 1: second season, and it really is. The story is really
Speaker 1: well written and super engaging any fans of like Radio
Speaker 1: because there's lots of references to Buffy. There's the occasional
Speaker 1: doctor who reference. Uh. It's a very nerd focused but
Speaker 1: it's also accessible to people that are not into all
Speaker 1: those things. Yeah. The slightly less health inducing game was
Speaker 1: the one where you get chased by dollegs just upstairs,
Speaker 1: lie down your deceased. Uh. Yeah, So I find it
Speaker 1: super engaging. I love it. I like I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to proselytize people into downloading Zombies Run and joining me
Speaker 1: in my crazy um adventure. But and that one has
Speaker 1: a little bit of a social element, you Um. They
Speaker 1: have a site called zombies Link and you can upload
Speaker 1: your your runs and you'll compare your base building to
Speaker 1: other people's base building and it's all very exciting. But
Speaker 1: there are so many other running apps it's not even funny,
Speaker 1: Like Nike Plus has one that I sometimes use. UM.
Speaker 1: There are apps that will keep track of your path
Speaker 1: that you take and it will share it with other
Speaker 1: people so that like if you have friends that you
Speaker 1: have allowed excess, they can see where you are. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a company called road i D that's been making
Speaker 1: these literally like UM um metal identification tags that runners
Speaker 1: can wear so that if something were to happen to
Speaker 1: you on the road, you would have all of your
Speaker 1: emergency information. But now they've made an app that both
Speaker 1: drops a breadcrumb, like when you start your run. You
Speaker 1: could say I'm starting to run. I'm gonna run for
Speaker 1: about an hour, and like I use it with my
Speaker 1: husband because I don't always know where I'm going to
Speaker 1: run and he wants me to be safe, and it
Speaker 1: will send him a U R L and say this
Speaker 1: is where Holly's at and he can click that and
Speaker 1: it will show him the map of where I am
Speaker 1: all the time. UM, which is super cool. And it
Speaker 1: has like a thing where you can set up a
Speaker 1: lock screen, so if Heaven forbids something were to happen
Speaker 1: and your phone locks like most people do, UM, they
Speaker 1: can still like emergency services would be able to just
Speaker 1: see on your lock screen, who your emergency contact is
Speaker 1: if you're allergic to anything, what you need to what
Speaker 1: the who they need to be in touch with, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's very cool. So tech is kind of helping not
Speaker 1: just motivate, but keep everybody safe because the zones have
Speaker 1: gotten you. That's awesome. There are even apps where they
Speaker 1: will um read tweets to you. Like if you're running
Speaker 1: and you open your you know, you set your app
Speaker 1: and say I'm going for a run, your friends will
Speaker 1: get They'll see in their Twitter feed like this person
Speaker 1: is really going for a run. And if they reply
Speaker 1: to you and say, oh my god, you literally hear
Speaker 1: the robot rong boys say, you know, Jennine says, Holly go,
Speaker 1: it's like very very fun. It sounds like a nightmare. No,
Speaker 1: it's and know that that sounds much more relaxing than
Speaker 1: my other friend who had like like war Analysis's tweet
Speaker 1: stream straight into his into his job, which sounded awful.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I want this. Some are like
Speaker 1: really pleasant, you know, it depends on how nice your
Speaker 1: friends are. I guess nice ladies from Great Britain summer.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, your standard neutral American accent. They're very cool.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if does the social media aspect of
Speaker 1: this really actually help people get better performance and better gains.
Speaker 1: There's there's a whole lot of information out there about
Speaker 1: about motivation and emotional support and all of that. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, the the answer is basically yes, Yes, it
Speaker 1: is scientifically proven that if you have emotional support when
Speaker 1: you were doing stuff, and that social media accounts is
Speaker 1: emotional support. Uh do you have? I mean, Holly, do
Speaker 1: you feel like when you link your stuff up too?
Speaker 1: Because I don't have a personal I've never done that
Speaker 1: thing where I've linked it to any of my social
Speaker 1: social media accounts. Uh yeah, I mean it's nice like
Speaker 1: Nike Plus has A has another one that's similar. They
Speaker 1: don't read you the text um or your Facebook things.
Speaker 1: But every time someone likes your status on Facebook that
Speaker 1: you're out for a run, you just hear cheering. It
Speaker 1: kind of breaks in over your soundtrack whatever you're listening to,
Speaker 1: and it's really nice, like somebody likes that I'm running. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if you I feel like such a jerk
Speaker 1: now because when I see people on social media bragging
Speaker 1: about the exercise they're getting, I'm just like you don't
Speaker 1: have to do that, but now feel like a mean guy.
Speaker 1: You're not well, and some of it isn't even m conscious,
Speaker 1: like some will just automatically upload it like you really
Speaker 1: aren't doing anything, like I'm not always aware and I, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't feel like that. I renounce it. I renounce it.
Speaker 1: It's okay. You're allowed to feel ways about things. Uh no,
Speaker 1: no judge away. That's the deal we make as part
Speaker 1: of society. We're gonna get judged sometimes, I do. I will.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do another episode on fitness as well, and
Speaker 1: I think in that one, I've got a big old
Speaker 1: section on on exactly how what your community is doing
Speaker 1: affects what you're doing in terms of motivation and self
Speaker 1: control and uh and fitness. So cool. Well, I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk about something a little bit like that that
Speaker 1: I think comes in big when we're talking about the
Speaker 1: gamification of fitness. And this definitely shows up in standard sports,
Speaker 1: like when you talk about something like conjunctive tasks. UM.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenon that's often applied to exercise science, and it's
Speaker 1: known as the Cohler effect. Have y'all heard of this?
Speaker 1: I have, because you mentioned it in your notes. So
Speaker 1: the color effect works like this. UM, imagine you've got
Speaker 1: a person A and person B, and uh, let's give
Speaker 1: them names. Uh, let's not give them names. You can,
Speaker 1: you can, you can call them Holly and Lauren. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. Let's let's say there's Holly and Lauren.
Speaker 1: Now we UM, take Lauren and we put her on
Speaker 1: an exercise bike and in a room by herself and say, um,
Speaker 1: go as fast as you can for as long as
Speaker 1: you can, and we'll just like monitor your progress, and
Speaker 1: then we track what she does. Then we put Holly
Speaker 1: in exactly the same condition, except we put her in
Speaker 1: a room full of people who are collectively trying to
Speaker 1: achieve the best possible average time, and they're all better
Speaker 1: than her. Um, how do Holly and Lauren compare? Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that exercise science shows that Holly does
Speaker 1: a lot better case. Um. And and this is what's
Speaker 1: known as the color effect. Basically, lower performing individuals who
Speaker 1: are placed among a group of higher performing individuals show
Speaker 1: much greater gains than people who work alone. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean that's pretty commonly known. I think in fitness. One thing,
Speaker 1: if you ever talked to like a group fitness instructor.
Speaker 1: They will tell you, like the people that normally would
Speaker 1: kind of turn in a mediocre performance if they were
Speaker 1: exercising solo er by themselves, when you put them in
Speaker 1: a class, they're aware that people are watching them, so
Speaker 1: they automatically done it a little bit more. And also
Speaker 1: there's just like a different energy when you're all doing
Speaker 1: something together that kind of brings everybody up a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Felts Kerr and Irwin and a little article I have, Uh,
Speaker 1: it seems that they found that the peak performance gain
Speaker 1: is when the less k the bole member is about
Speaker 1: forty less capable than the stronger partners. Well, it's very specific,
Speaker 1: it's also very distant, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's a big gage. That's a huge gap. So when
Speaker 1: you're less good than the person on your team, that's
Speaker 1: when you get the biggest benefit. I should be so
Speaker 1: much faster. I run with much faster people sometimes, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened yet, I guess. I guess that's also
Speaker 1: why things like like for example, marathons are are very
Speaker 1: popular because you're running with a bunch of athletes, many
Speaker 1: of whom are are you know, do that almost professionally,
Speaker 1: if not actually professionally. And although usually people like me
Speaker 1: don't see those people well in a big group, well
Speaker 1: because they stagger your start time so that the fastest
Speaker 1: people aren't collogged up with slow people. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm usually a few corals back. By the time I start,
Speaker 1: the fast people are long gone. Well, blow kisses to
Speaker 1: them in the distance. So I think one of the
Speaker 1: cooler implications of what we know about the color effect
Speaker 1: is actually how this pertains to the gamification of fitness,
Speaker 1: specifically like placing people among team teams. Uh, we already
Speaker 1: have team sports, I mean, that's pretty common thing. But
Speaker 1: applying this to games, it's interesting to think of the
Speaker 1: idea of having not just a game like these most
Speaker 1: of these console games where you do fitness training and
Speaker 1: it gives you results and you can unlock new games
Speaker 1: and all that, but maybe adding like a massive multiplayer
Speaker 1: approach to that, so where you are using your fitness
Speaker 1: game not just to play against the computer, but that
Speaker 1: you're placed among a team of peers. Yeah, and some
Speaker 1: games do have multiplayer, they're not. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: if any of them have an online multiplayer other than
Speaker 1: just uploading stats from what I've read, I think this
Speaker 1: is sort of underdeveloped at the point at this moment,
Speaker 1: but what I've imagined. I mean, if you could take
Speaker 1: the kinds of games that people really love. I mean,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that a lot of these console games, the
Speaker 1: sales aren't stellar yet. I mean, if you could take
Speaker 1: this kind of gaming mccannic, I can put it in
Speaker 1: a game like World of Warcraft or whatever, or Halo
Speaker 1: or something like that, people just go insane for I
Speaker 1: can see that being a big hit. I'm I would either.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I had to exercise in order to
Speaker 1: play Halo better, I would, I'm not. I'm really honestly
Speaker 1: not sure whether I would really exercise, or whether I
Speaker 1: would end up hating my opponents in Halo even more
Speaker 1: than I already do and calling them even worse names.
Speaker 1: I wonder that too, because I have done my own
Speaker 1: sorts of experiments with this, where I'll say, like, um,
Speaker 1: and it's not even against other players necessarily, but like
Speaker 1: games that maybe don't require me to be standing the
Speaker 1: whole time, or like a we game like Epic Mickey,
Speaker 1: which I love. Not everyone does. That's fine. There have
Speaker 1: been there was a time when I was playing through
Speaker 1: like a second time, and as an experiment, I was
Speaker 1: going to say I could never sit down. I had
Speaker 1: to always be standing and moving to play. And after
Speaker 1: about an hour I was like, I have to play
Speaker 1: through this time. I want to sit down. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if with him, when you put that in a big,
Speaker 1: massively multiplayer kind of concept, if it does like Laurence said,
Speaker 1: you just hate the having to of it, Well, it
Speaker 1: could be, but um, another thing that would be interesting
Speaker 1: is to imagine, say like a massive shooter game like
Speaker 1: Halo or something where it's, uh, it's sort of mixed mechanics.
Speaker 1: So imagine you're at some points of the game, you're
Speaker 1: using your controller or whatever to to play the normal
Speaker 1: combat simulation, but there are also lots of segments of
Speaker 1: the game that involve, you know, sprinting across enemy lines
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it hooks up to I
Speaker 1: don't know what it would be, maybe your smart treadmill
Speaker 1: or your or you know, your GPS thing on your phone.
Speaker 1: If someone had to be able to lift and swing
Speaker 1: appropriately the weight equivalent of an energy sword at me
Speaker 1: in order to hit me with an energy sword, I
Speaker 1: would be a fan of that thing. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I would like that real good. Well, no, I mean
Speaker 1: that's actually you would have to be I think I'm
Speaker 1: a sniper. You guys, I'm back there as they are.
Speaker 1: They are, But that's fine. I could I feel like
Speaker 1: I could deal with that. Um. Yeah, so I find
Speaker 1: this idea interesting. But also here's another complication on it. Um. So,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about playing against actual, real players. One
Speaker 1: problem with that is that there's a there's a counterbalancing
Speaker 1: effect to the color effect that's known as the social
Speaker 1: loafing effect. Yeah. So, if you are the underperforming individual
Speaker 1: on this team, you're going to have sustained gains and
Speaker 1: you're gonna do better and better all the time. This
Speaker 1: is a real good thing for you. If you're one
Speaker 1: of the best people on this team, this is not
Speaker 1: a good thing for you because you, yeah, you will
Speaker 1: be losing your motivation and actually underperforming. Um. And so
Speaker 1: one interesting remedy to this I've seen are some experiments
Speaker 1: where exercise science has looked at this and they said,
Speaker 1: I wonder what would happen if we replaced this team
Speaker 1: with a virtual partner, someone who can get who could
Speaker 1: look like a rabbit, who can always be better than you,
Speaker 1: no matter where your performance. Yeah, the greyhound track, the
Speaker 1: rabbit that's always just ahead of them. There. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna catch it, though I've heard maybe they
Speaker 1: do sometimes. Uh don racing is not really my zither,
Speaker 1: not familiar. In any case, if it was a digital rabbit,
Speaker 1: they definitely would never catch it. Um. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: you can imagine the same experiment I talked about before,
Speaker 1: but put both of you in rooms, um and the
Speaker 1: one of you who's accompanied by partners is not a
Speaker 1: companied by real people, but accompanied by just a virtual
Speaker 1: buddy in the game who's always a little bit faster
Speaker 1: than you. No matter how could you do, that person
Speaker 1: is always a little bit better you. Actually, this the
Speaker 1: color effects still all manifests. I wonder though, would they
Speaker 1: have to, I mean throttle it a little bit because
Speaker 1: I think if it were always better than me, and
Speaker 1: I would get frustrated. I like that. I want to
Speaker 1: catch it once in a while. Like the dog and
Speaker 1: duck hunt. Yeah, eventually you really want to shoot that dog,
Speaker 1: but because he's laughing at you, well right right, because
Speaker 1: he's always better than you. Um No, And I you know,
Speaker 1: and it does sound I think the scientific term is
Speaker 1: whack that that you would react to a digital opponent
Speaker 1: the same way that you would a human opponent. But
Speaker 1: I mean, but any kind of study into um anthropomorphizing
Speaker 1: uh digital personas will show you that people do that
Speaker 1: all the time willingly and subconsciously. So I think I
Speaker 1: could Yeah, absolutely, yeah, And I agree with Holly. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think probably the best result would be if they
Speaker 1: mixed it up a little bit, if it was most
Speaker 1: of the time better than you, but you could catch
Speaker 1: up every now and then. Yeah, you gotta feel like
Speaker 1: there's a chance. Otherwise it feels very sisifician. You know.
Speaker 1: One thing I could imagine is that, um, if your
Speaker 1: ability to catch the slightly better than you always a
Speaker 1: virtual partner was not based on your sort of what
Speaker 1: would you call it, your your gross performance, but based
Speaker 1: on your gains. So like, if you beat your own
Speaker 1: best by a certain rate, does that make sense because
Speaker 1: in that way you could sort of always advance more.
Speaker 1: It does, although I wonder what happens then when you
Speaker 1: kind of max out. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a point where like, as a runner, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get faster, sure, so at that point, I look,
Speaker 1: never ever catch the thing well. But I mean, but
Speaker 1: there's but there's also there's other indicators of how well
Speaker 1: you're doing it running than how fast you're going. Hypothetically,
Speaker 1: I mean, is that is that the only thing that
Speaker 1: you're going for? I mean, I pay attention. I really
Speaker 1: don't care about speed at all. Like when I run
Speaker 1: a race, I don't care what my finished time is.
Speaker 1: I have at some points like I've set a goal,
Speaker 1: like an annual goal, and been like I want to
Speaker 1: finish in this time half marathon this year and this time. Um,
Speaker 1: But often I'm just like, let's just all have fun
Speaker 1: out on the course. Yeah. A really funny alternative to
Speaker 1: this virtual partner that I found was the idea of
Speaker 1: a running coach drone. Apparently this is for real. Do
Speaker 1: you all read about this. It's called jogo Bot. It's
Speaker 1: a flying running coach drone has quad rotors and it
Speaker 1: basically flies ahead of you, encouraging you to go faster.
Speaker 1: The future is now. I look at this and I
Speaker 1: have such conflicting feelings. On one hand, I'm like, that
Speaker 1: is so cool. On the other hand, I'm kind of like,
Speaker 1: why it does seem like a lot of resources put
Speaker 1: towards something that would probably only have a really niche market.
Speaker 1: Like I'm picturing someone trotting down the road with that
Speaker 1: in front of them, and like one just aside from
Speaker 1: the safety risks of cars slamming into each other because
Speaker 1: they're like, what is going on there? Uh? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have to wonder if it's not at that point the
Speaker 1: segue of the fitness world, like it's really neat, but
Speaker 1: why but only people with a lot of disposable income, have,
Speaker 1: you know, and like a lack of the inability to
Speaker 1: be afraid of not looking cool. I threw that away
Speaker 1: all long time, but then again, but now I'm coming back.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, that could be really awesome. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I have I definitely want to try it out. I
Speaker 1: would love that for group runs. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot because I think that would then really kind of
Speaker 1: assist in the color effect, because no one would want
Speaker 1: to be the person that falls so far behind your
Speaker 1: not able to keep an eye on the drone anymore.
Speaker 1: I would. I would if we can bring back to
Speaker 1: video games, I would expect it to be British and
Speaker 1: really snarky, and that would be that if I mean,
Speaker 1: if it could talk to us as we were running. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like the thing in portal to right right yeah,
Speaker 1: or or or Halo also has one of those you
Speaker 1: know so yeah, okay, Uh so you get a giant
Speaker 1: robot to run in front of you. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: have like gypsy danger and you chase it. I would
Speaker 1: be so all over that. That's wonderful. Okay, So we've
Speaker 1: talked about gamification. I want to talk about one more thing,
Speaker 1: which is uh, nanogenerators that I really do I want.
Speaker 1: This is a secret. No gets so excited that I can.
Speaker 1: I really do love them. We worked on an article
Speaker 1: for Houstuff Works last year or the end of the
Speaker 1: prior year about nanogenerators, and we um spoke with Zeo Wang,
Speaker 1: who runs a lab at Georgia Tech, which is not
Speaker 1: far away from us. Him. He's so nice and just
Speaker 1: really cool and you know, reading about like his work
Speaker 1: just blew my mind and was cool. And it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where I remember telling my best
Speaker 1: friend who is a mom, like, oh, this is so great.
Speaker 1: They have these tiny, you know, pieces of tech that
Speaker 1: you attached to yourself and it converts your kinetic energy
Speaker 1: into actually usable energy. And she's like they should slap
Speaker 1: that on a bunch of four year olds and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, energy crisis solved. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: professor Wang he he was involved in the nanor the
Speaker 1: nanogenerators based on the zinc oxide nano wire which they grow.
Speaker 1: They grow these wires and apparently this was a big
Speaker 1: breakthrough because it got much more return of like voltage
Speaker 1: for the mechanical energy. Right. Yeah, yeah, he really has it.
Speaker 1: I mean there have been different labs working on this idea,
Speaker 1: is his is certainly not the only one, but he
Speaker 1: really advanced it very quickly at one point when they
Speaker 1: started working with these growing nano wires. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: the effect is known in physics as piezo electricity, right right, Um,
Speaker 1: And what that means is we always have this argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's uh piece of piez I was p P
Speaker 1: I want that? Yeah? Well, it turns shellfish into usable energy.
Speaker 1: Know what it does is that I actually I think
Speaker 1: it can go both ways, right, But I think what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is it's turning mechanical energy, so
Speaker 1: like movement into electricity, correct, which is electrical current current
Speaker 1: from And you look at these things and they don't
Speaker 1: look like much It looks like just a little flexible chip,
Speaker 1: you know, but put this thing on the boddom of
Speaker 1: your shoes or really on any surface that's going to
Speaker 1: be stressed, strained or smashed flexed flex right. You can
Speaker 1: You can hypothetically even pave a rotor sidewalk with this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff if you you know, I wanted to,
Speaker 1: if you can figure out a way to protect it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this actually generates electric current straight from that. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: You could you could charge your phone by going out
Speaker 1: for a run, yeah, potentially. Now, I think the problem
Speaker 1: so far is that they they're still not like amazingly efficient,
Speaker 1: Like don't they have a cap at how much they
Speaker 1: can capture? Uh And back when we were working on
Speaker 1: the article, it was very small. It was like the
Speaker 1: amount of two double A batteries, which is to run
Speaker 1: your m P three player, like if you have a
Speaker 1: little clip on one or or your phone. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean it also outside of fitness, just as a quick asside,
Speaker 1: it has lots of medical uses as well where it
Speaker 1: can be used. The ideas that you would implant it
Speaker 1: on something like a lung that is always flexing just
Speaker 1: by virtue of your breathing and it could be powering
Speaker 1: your um pacemaker. Thank you? What did I see it?
Speaker 1: Could it could take the mechanical energy of your pulse
Speaker 1: and use it to power and implanted insulin injective. Sure? Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: insulin pumps are the one. Incredibly cool. But there have
Speaker 1: been discussions and I remember seeing in I forget what
Speaker 1: fitness magazine. It was like a couple of years back
Speaker 1: before I worked on this article. They were talking about
Speaker 1: you guys and nanogenerators. It's going to be in your clothes,
Speaker 1: and it's going to power your MP three player, and
Speaker 1: it will automatically motivate you because if you stop running,
Speaker 1: your music stops too. And then I was like, where
Speaker 1: is this technology? That's pretty cool? And we're not there
Speaker 1: yet to commercial market, but we're getting closer. Do you
Speaker 1: think that about wraps it up? Do you all want
Speaker 1: to talk about anything else? I That's that's all I got. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the bottom line is that games and gadgets
Speaker 1: are going to prevent you from dying. You're gonna live forever.
Speaker 1: Good news, No, no, no, But they may actually make
Speaker 1: a big difference. I actually I feel pretty good about
Speaker 1: the gamification issue, Like especially with zombies run. That sounds
Speaker 1: really cool, and I see that it's not just a trick,
Speaker 1: like I can see that kind of thing actually working
Speaker 1: in the long term with people. Yeah, and I hope
Speaker 1: they keep churning out seasons. Although I've replayed and really enjoyed,
Speaker 1: just like you would your favorite television series. I enjoy
Speaker 1: going around. That's awesome the plotline as well. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully our digital virtual fitness partners will keep us in
Speaker 1: shape in the future. That's the hope fingers crest. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: so Jonathan usually does some like talking out thing. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so um so, we hope that you have enjoyed this magical,
Speaker 1: magical episode of forward thinking if you if you have,
Speaker 1: if you would like to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can visit uh FW thinking dot com. That is
Speaker 1: where you can find links to our social media, all
Speaker 1: of our podcasts, all the videos, super cool blogs and
Speaker 1: uh and Yeah, you can get in touch with us
Speaker 1: there if you want to go directly to Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 1: We are at f W Thinking as well. I believe
Speaker 1: dot com. Well not that the handles the handles to
Speaker 1: your right, right, Yeah, people talk online. Joh. There's social
Speaker 1: networks to really cool. They allow people to connect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it. I gotta get on the MySpace, So
Speaker 1: find Joe on the my space, find the rest of
Speaker 1: us on those other things, and we will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this topic in
Speaker 1: the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot Com, brought
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