Beep Beep!
The timer goes off…
When I jog-walked the Chicago Marathon this year at the way back of the pack with Zen Runner and Eddie Marathon one of the interesting things was the cacophony of beeping going back there. It was like being in a microwave oven convention. The vast majority of participants in the back of the pack were using the walk-run Galloway methodology. They had affixed somewhere on their bodies a timer that went off when it was time to run or time to walk.
The preferred and promoted timer is the Gym Boss timer. Galloway promotes this device. It just so happens that a couple weeks ago I came into possession of my own Gym Boss. Kevin from the Extra Mile Podcast sent it to me.
Now, I’m not ruling it out, because the universe is infinitely malleable when it comes to the fate of man, but I haven’t ever used the run walk method. I do however have some gym workouts that require me to do a certain activity for X amount of time. For instance; do inclined pushups for a minute, followed by alternate two armed bicep curls for a minute.
In these cases the Gym Boss is outstandingly useful because I don’t have to look at my watch to know when my minute is up. Just like a burrito in the microwave, it beeps when I’m done.
My Gym Boss is familiar. It is the size and shape of the pagers people used to use in the early 90’s. Maybe and inch-and-a-half square by ¾ inch wide with a belt clip. Mine is pink. I think this is probably some sort of infantile joke by Kevin but I don’t mind. It comes in 7 different colors including a very manly camouflage for those jungle work outs.
You can clip it to your belt or you can clip it anywhere else where a clip will work. I sometimes clip it to the neckline of my shirt so it doesn’t get in the way of exercises like oblique crunches.
It allows you to set two interval times. For instance if you wanted to have one minute of workout followed by 3 minutes of rest it will easily do that. That’s as sophisticated as the timing options get but it is powerful for its simplicity and it does what it does.
The Gym Boss has a rubberized case and appears to be reasonably sweat proof. It has three buttons and is programmed a bit like a digital watch. You can set it for one or two intervals. You can set it to beep or to vibrate and the beep has 3 levels of loudness. A great feature that I have already used is the pin-hole reset where you can stick a pin in the hole and reset the device back to factory settings.
It conveniently runs off of one AAA battery and seems to last for a long time.
It is an interesting and simple product that combines hardware and firmware into one unassuming package. Sure, you could do much of this with your iPhone or sports watch but it’s interesting that a company can isolate this one need and provide a fairly low-tech solution for it and make a business out of it.
At the end of the day what we all need is a little simplicity in our lives and the Gym Boss provides this.
Links:
http://theextramilepodcast.blogspot.com/
http://www.gymboss.com/boxing-round-timer.php?gclid=CMXqv-y-660CFUWQ7Qod70xk7w
Bank of America Chicago Marathon
www.chicagomarathon.com