But before you order the protein supplements and pre-pay a three year membership to your local gym, you could try to start getting in shape by using the OneHundredPushups method. The pushup workout program is based around your regular standard old push-up, but as it turns out it’s quite a good exercise.

So what is OneHundredPushups? Actually it’s a very basic pushup workout program in which you do a fixed number of push-ups every other day for 6 weeks. In the end, you should be able to complete 100 push-ups in a row. It doesn’t really matter how fit you are beforehand, since you can follow certain tracks with more or less repetitions. If you’re able to do more than 20 push-ups during the initial test, you’re even allowed to skip to week 3 (Anyone? Start bragging in the comments).

The geeky part is that they have a really decent website with an explanation of the pushup workout program where you can keep track of your progress with the Pushup Logger and there is even an iPhone app (it isn’t free, link to iTunes Store here) that helps you reach your goal. Another cool thing is the printable schedule that you can fold into a mini booklet. They call this booklet a pocketmod and it can be found here.

So you’ve printed the booklet, signed up at the pushup logger and maybe even installed the iPhone app. Now it’s time to actually do something. You start out with an initial test that determines how fast you should start in the program. If you don’t manage more than 20 continuous push-ups you start at week 1. You will do three sessions of push-ups a week. You are supposed to reach the final week and do a hundred pushups after six weeks, but in reality you keep doing exhaustion tests that tell whether you should redo a week.

In my experience, it is a simple and easy to follow program. Of course you’re only doing one exercise, but I’ve found that it really trains many muscle groups. A good-form pushup is known to train almost all muscles of your upper body. I noticed my progress pretty fast, even though I already train (somewhat) in the gym. Especially when you stick to the rules and keep doing the push-ups three times a week you will see progress. I’m not sure everyone will reach the hundred continuous pushups, but you will see progress. I think when you really want to make a sincere effort of working on your health you should also start doing cardio workouts and pay attention to what you eat. This program is very good for beginners and others with limited free time because it only takes 30 minutes to an hour a week.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve started the OneHundredPushups pushup workout program. It helpt to share your results and goals with other people. You can also have a look at this Friendfeed group for instance. If it goes well you can also try the Two Hundred Situps program or Two Hundred Squats program. Good luck!

One of the first steps in being healthy is changing how you spend your time, which will include getting rid of some bad habits. For many, this will mean no more snacking on potato chips, popcorn or soda. For others, it means quitting smoking or consuming alcohol; and still others will have to do all three. Either way, Ryan recently found a website called Joes Goals and this is a good place to start if you’re trying to break a bad habit. He also wrote about the best workout websites that combine technology and fitness. Both these articles are great and I hope they will come in handy.

However, there’s another website dedicated to helping their community to lose weight and feel great – SparkPeople.

SparkPeople’s motto is “Lose Weight. Get Fit. Look and Feel Great!” and they have really done a fantastic job at developing a site that has multiple tools and features to help you achieve your weight loss goal! It has everything from:

• expert advice
• blogs
• weight calculators
• fitness videos
• meal planning
• custom workouts based on your goals

SparkPeople is a HUGE website so I suggest checking out the Getting Started Guide to learn how to use the site.

After you sign up, you will see the main area with three primary tools:

• Nutrition Tracker – create a menu and shopping list based on your goals.
• Fitness Tracker – create a workout based on your goals.
• Weigh-In – calculate your calorie and nutrient needs based on your weight loss.

Each of these tools is a link to various options and features. For example, when you click on the Fitness Tracker, you can view an auto-generated workout based on your goals. One of the nice features with SparkPeople is you can also watch a demo on how to do each exercise.

There is also a section where you can modify an auto-generated workout or create one from scratch.

Notice the screen shot above is just showing the exercise options based on “crunches”.  There is a plethora of exercise options based on selections, such as: upper body, lower body and core. Furthermore, each of those areas have beginner and advanced sections.

For those who are looking for expert tips and video workouts for the home or gym, SparkPeople has a free video section as well.

I have only skimmed the surface of what the SparkPeople website has to offer you on losing weight and feeling great. I have not yet started to get into the: blog, message board, receipes, teams and other SparkPeople tools; you can even create your own Sparks web page.

If you use SparkPeople and have a favorite section that I did not mention, please let us know. Also, if you use a different site to help you lose weight, share with us in the comments.

Image credit: N!el from Flickr

Walking is probably the best exercise for me, but I get bored. So I tried listening to music. But I love country music and that’s generally fairly slow. So I tried to find country music that had the range of beats to keep me going. That’s how I found Best Workout Music

Best WorkOut Music is one man’s effort to bring you your own brand of workout music.  Thank you Amnon! His site has some great features such as a music database that you can search by beats per minute and music genre. Although Tibetan Throat Singing doesn’t return many results.

Didn’t find songs that turn your crank? That’s okay, Amnon wrote some neat software that will scan your own music library and give you the beat count for each song. It’s called….BeatScanner. Clever name, eh?

BeatScanner

As you can see above, BeatScanner lets you scan your music collection. Then you can have it automatically find the beats by clicking Find Song Tempo. Sometimes that doesn’t work though, and then you can click on Detect to manually determine the beat.

You can then move on to creating your playlist. To get the best playlist, enter the beats per minute (BPM) that you are looking for as well as the range, which is a plus or minus value.

Okay, my tastes are a little eclectic. Now, just check the songs that you want to have in your playlist. As you do this, BeatScanner will show you the total playlist time. Nice for tailoring the length of your workout. Once you choose a song the Save Playlist button appears. You know what clicking that will do.

Now that you have your list, you can sort the playlist to your tastes and then save it with a custom name, genre and description. I like the way that you can either save the songs directly to a disk or MP3 player from here, or just save the playlist within BeatScanner.

With my wide and varied tastes, and short-term memory issues, I sometimes can’t recall what I called the playlists. Under the Find Playlists tab, you can search through them by keywords.

But wait, there’s more! Go to the Recommend Playlists tab and update to the website. This feature allows Best WorkOut Music to create a better song library and some nice pre-compiled playlists. Doing this can earn you an activation code, valued at $24.95, for Repacer – Amnon’s software to tweak the beat of your music.

Really like Enya but can’t exercise to it? Repacer! How about your wedding dance song? Repacer!

Using Repacer is as simple as 1-2-3! Pick your song, pace your song, and save your song.

Pick It!!!

Pace It!!!

Save It!!!

(Ron Popeil would be so proud!)

I tested Repacer with Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive. Bon Jovi rocks, on occasion. The song is 50 BPM, so I pumped it up to 100 BPM. It sounded like some crazy bluegrass song gone wrong, so I wouldn’t recommend changing the pace of any song by more than about 20%. Although, it should be noted that the pitch of the song did NOT change! I’m impressed.

With all of the tools at Best WorkOut Music, you can get your sweaty groove on to what ever music fits your fancy. Next thing you know, you’ll be shaking your svelte-self on the dance floor too! Go on over and let Amnon know who sent you.

Which apps do YOU workout to?

One way Gyminee does this is through user-created workouts. Create your own workouts by specifying exercises, activities and selecting the total time you should perform each exercise, the target heart rate and details such as altitude (for running) and weight (for lifting); If you can’t really think of a great workout, browse through the millions of user-shared workouts for one that fits you and your lifestyle.

Set personal goals for yourself and track your progress with a convenient calorie intake logger. If you feel proud of your progress, share it with your Facebook buddies with an easy-to-use widget! Join other groups to meet people who share your interests and add them as “Gym Buddies”. I know I’m just listing here, but I hope you get the point that Gyminee has a broad range of user-specific tools that fit you. With the tools listed above, I’ve barely scratched the surface!

Workouts on the Gyminee website are created by professional athletes and just people who like what they do and want to share it with other users. In fact, the other day, an interesting workout caught my eye: “The 300 Workout”, featuring a picture of a bulky body-builder. Upon further examination, I read that the 300 workout was actually the exact workout performed by the actors of the movie “300″. A lot of these workouts can definitely provide expected results, as long as you persist in doing them. If you have a set of exercises you like to do, you can make your own workout, with a full list of stretches, activities and lifts to choose from. Add a description and title to make your workout more noticeable and helpful!

Once you’ve made your own workout, browse through hundreds of groups to find people who share the same interests as you. With groups with titles ranging from “Runner’s Only” to “Body Builders”, Gyminee has a group for everyone. Within group discussion areas, you can talk with other athletes and compare techniques and training equipment. If you really get to know someone, add them as your “Gym Buddy” and workout with him or her.

Another great tool featured is the Food Diary and Dietary Tracker. Log your day-to-day dietary information and track your dietary intake and look back to see exactly how many calories you consumed last Friday. Before you exercise, track the amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins you consumed and if you like your pre-workout snack, save it as a “Favorite” and pull it up with a click of a button!

Regardless what types of exercise you enjoy, whether it’s hard-core cardiovascular workouts to if you’re just trying to stay fit, Gyminee is a great community for you to join and share your stories with. Plus, membership if free and the basic membership includes all the tools profiled above. In addition to all of this, if you’ve ever been sitting in a restaurant and can’t decide what foods are most healthy, check it up! With the new Gyminee application for the iPhone, you can log your dietary intake anywhere!

(By) Anthony is a student, blogger and a distance runner. In his free time, he enjoys running track, and sifting through the web. Drop by his blog at Radicitus, Dude!