Last night I had one of the best nights of sleep since 2009, and I think my body has finally reset from last week’s cold and allergies. I’m fortunate to start off Monday in this regard as this week will be very challenging. Here’s the results from this morning’s exercise:
I haven’t felt this great in awhile — mentally and physically — considering the workload we have going on right now at the office. I’m not going to lie, there are days I really don’t feel like doing my routine but I’m glad I’m sticking it out. Forming regular exercise habits can definitely be difficult, but after every exercise the endorphins flowing throughout definitely make me happy that I did my routine. Next step is to get into the habit of doing my routine the moment I wake up.
Day 18: Eight Workout
Dropped the ball today and a little disappointed in myself but only missed push-ups by 1. Friday is the last day of the Challenge, and I’m going to do the workout first thing in the morning. Hopefully my endurance is a little better.
Day 20: Last Workout
Tried to get all stars across the board on my last day, but killed my endurance for pull-ups and missed pretty bad. Oh well, check out the before and after photos — I’m pretty happy with the results. We’ve got a few bugs to iron out that we’ve discovered during this process, but otherwise I will continue doing a slightly modified version of the Hacker Workout from here forward. Shift my exercises around for a few weeks, upper body needs more focus.
We also need to add something more rewarding for finishing a routine. We have a good idea for it, but it’s going to take some work to integrate. Look for it in future updates.
As part of the Valentine’s Day marketing push on iTunes, Apple included the Little Black Book in their list of recommended apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Thanks Apple!
Read more about the Valentine’s Day promotion on MacWorld.
In coming weeks, Saltlick Labs’ products will receive an update that includes our new customer support service. Customers will have access to user manuals, latest news, and soon the ability to submit feedback, bugs, and features requests directly from their iPhone or iPod Touch. Until the update is made available to your product through iTunes, you can access the iPhone support application by navigating Safari to support.saltlicklabs.com. Please be advised that the support application is still under development and you may experience hiccups from time to time.
January was a crazy month for BreakkUp.com and we’re all very excited about its growth. Our traffic doubled with 60k unique visits and just over 1M page views. Averaging 120 new accounts a day, visitor spend 6-7 minutes browsing an average of 15 pages. 2 weeks ago we introduced our own product advertisements using Google AdManager, and we’ve delivered ~1M ad impressions. 95% of our traffic is through the BreakkUp iPhone app.
We’ve had Quantcast running for a few weeks, these are just estimates. We still need a few months of solid data before these results are "quantified". What interests me is how the system quantifies affluent users across various geographic regions. Is there some sort of Big Mac index?
The two months we’ve spent on the AppStore has been quite a ride, both good times and bad. Version 2.0 is in production, likely another 2 months before it’s ready.
Seeking a relaxed weekend to recover from Week 1, we decided to go camping from Saturday to Sunday in 30′F weather at Ink’s Lake just outside of Austin. It was great to unplug but I was definitely struggling today during the routine and missed my target for pull-ups. Fortunatly the beer drinking did not stack on any extra pounds.
I’m a little concerned that I’m going to start missing more targets in the coming days; week 3 will surely be brutal. Doing the Hacker Routine in 3 weeks is half the time we usually recommend (hence the "Challenge"), and I would feel a lot more confident about reaching my target goal if I was doing this for 6 weeks. There’s no turning back though — hackers aren’t quitters! And, whether I reach my target goal or not I’ve definitely improved in just a week.
Day 11: Fifth Workout
The weather has been absolutely crazy the past week in Austin, TX and I came down with a mild cold and 101′F fever yesterday. After a few bottles of water, medicine, and a solid night of sleep I feel a lot better less the runny nose. Fortunantly, I did a lot better than I was expecting, but I also decided to not press myself to try and beat the daily targets. On the last day I’ll post better before and after pictures.
New Feature Idea: Last night I was concerned that I might have to skip Wednesday, which makes me wonder if we should add a "Pause Routine" feature so I could pick up on Friday and shift the schedule back a few days. What do you think?
Day 13: Sixth Workout
It’s definitely getting a lot more intense and at the wrong time. The cold front brought in a lot of allergies and I’ve been unable to get much sleep, spent most of this week on meds. Nevertheless, I managed to hit the targets for crunches and pull-ups during the first set, but my average was a few short. Definitely a sign of fatigue. I hope this weekend treats me better and week 3 ends on a good note.
Note: Version 1.0.2 submitted to Apple As you can also see from Saturday’s day-off summary screen, we added a few more icons which will be present in version 1.0.2 as well as a user manual. This should be available as a free update in the new few days.
Pocket Massage is now available on iTunes for only $.99 (after 3.5 weeks of fighting with Apple about inconsistent AppStore policies). We had a lot of fun making this app, and put a lot of focus on creating an immersive user experience. Pocket Massage is also the only massage app on iTunes that supports 9 languages. Download now
For the next 3 weeks I’m going to blog my progress using Pocket Workout in conjunction with the Hacker Routine. This is an ideal routine for me because I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk working at my computer, and haven’t engaged in intensive physical activities in quite some time as you can see from my test results . My goal is to improve 150% in the next 3 weeks as oppose to 6-weeks as suggested by the Hacker Routine.
Hacker Routine
1 set of Windmills – stretches the entire body
1 set of Jumping Jacks – works the legs and cardio
3 sets of Push-Ups – upper body
3 sets of Crunches – trim the gut
3 sets of Pull-ups – upper body
Personal Trainer Setup It’s best to setup your trainer the first day of your intended routine as you’ll be required to take a test of each exercise you include. Today is Monday and Day 1 of my three-week plan — I’ve setup the training routine and performed all of my tests.
User Profile After completing the personal trainer tests, I setup my profile and added a picture my girlfriend took with the phone’s camera. I do not have a flexible measuring tape and our bathroom scale is broken, so my measurements are sure to vary. I’m more interested in gaining back muscle strength rather than losing weight as I have a high metabolism anyway.
Daily Workout Each time I open Pocket Workout from this point forward, I’ll be shown my daily routine and target goal for that day. Within two taps I’m able to log results and get feedback on my progress reaching the end goal of 150% improvement.
Day 2: Off Day
Day 2 is an off-day to recover from the initial test. I’m doing MWF schedule.
Day 3: Second Workout
Today was my first day to shoot for a daily target higher than my test average. The first day I tested I didn’t have much sleep, so beating the cardio routines was pretty easy. If it wasn’t for the humility of failing to meet a target goal, I may have stopped short as far as the push-ups, crunches, and pull-ups were concerned. On the first set of each exercise I beat the target, but subsequent sets saw diminishing results.
Day 4: Off Day
Today is an off-day so I figured I’d show readers what your workout screen looks like. We’ll be improving this screen visually, and exposing more stats in the interface in future updates.
Day 5: Third Workout
Whew, I was a little concerned about today because I drank a bit of beer last night, and was feeling it during the windmills. I had to stop when I started to get dizzy. After a full glass of water I felt a lot better and dialed in 100 jumping jacks. Unfortunantly, I hit a lot of resistance during the push-ups and missed my target by 1. I think after a nice long break this weekend (going camping), I’ll be able to hit my target on Monday. The remaining exercises were equally intense but I was able to hit the target with last second bursts of determination. Again, if it wasn’t for knowing the target improvement goal for the day – I probably would have quit short.
I think in future versions we should consider a moving average line so user’s can see their overall progress and not be bothered by daily fluctuations in weight.
PS. Version 1.0.1 was made available today on the iTunes store which enables support for the METRIC system.
Saltlick Labs, developer of the popular applications Little Black Book and BreakkUp, is proud to announce the release of Pocket Workout for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Pocket Workout is an easy-to-use, highly effective calisthenic exercise program stuffed into a mobile application you can take anywhere.
Designed for travelers, life-hackers, active parents, students on a budget and kids, Pocket Workout lets users create customized exercise routines based on test results, a weekly schedule, and improvement goals through a unique personal training system. Emphasizing usability and motivational support, users enter data in two taps and feedback is displayed immediately.
"After using HundredPushups.com, I was inspired to create a mobile application that could support a variety of calisthenic exercise routines," said Colin Anawaty, designer of the Pocket Workout and founder of Saltlick Labs. "I don’t have time for the gym and I love saving money. Memberships are expensive, and with our application you can create routines that require no equipment, such as the Daily Dozen as used in the U.S. Marines."
Whether you are trying to shed pounds, increase dexterity, tone muscles, or build strength, with the 19 pre-configured exercises and ability to add your own, Pocket Workout leaves you with no excuse not to live a healthy and active lifestyle.
Features include:
Personal Trainer System
Goal Targeting, Scheduling, Routine Customization
Persistent Stat Tracking
Before, During, After Pictures
Progress Charts
Positive and Negative Feedback
Intuitive Interface
More to come, updates are free!
Minimum Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch 2.0 or later
Pricing and Availability: Pocket Workout 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch is only $2.99 (USD) and available in the Health and Fitness section of the iTunes AppStore. Buy it now.
Update: Version 1.0.1 adds METRIC support
We submitted a version 1.0.1 on Sunday, Jan. 18th that adds support for the METRIC system, and apologize to our foreign friends for the overlook. The update should arrive in iTunes in the next 2-4 days.
Saltlick Labs is pleased to announce our very own full-service publishing offering for companies and individuals looking to produce and publish mobile applications to the iTunes AppStore. Backed by a team of designers and developers from around the globe, we have the experience and know-how to produce quality applications.
Faced with multiple challenges securing a position on the AppStore, we ultimately concluded that this process was unsuitable for everyone. Due to the heavy demand for publishing on the iTunes AppStore, some developers (and companies) have experienced month-long of delays costing thousands of dollars in sales while unnecessary expenses pile on.
It’s our goal to make publishing easier by delivering world-class account service, design, development, marketing, and support. For more information, please visit our publishing page. To talk with someone directly, please contact us.
Version 2.0 is in production, likely another 2 months before it’s ready. 
