Everybody Could Use a Little Therapy

<ul> <li>WORK IN PROGRESS *</li> </ul>

2009-06-17T02:54:34Z

17 After the mental breakdown that was know as 2008, I knew I needed to make some changes or else … well I don’t even want to contemplate what would have been in that case. All I wanted for 2009 was to feel normal and be okay with myself and the decisions I was making. I needed to break free from the hole I dug myself into — a really deep hole. But sometimes you can’t do everything yourself. And while it’s really hard to take that step and admit that you need help, once you do, climbing out of the that hole no longer seems like such a daunting task. everybody-could-use-a-little-therapy Everybody Could Use a Little Therapy

2009-06-17T05:20:44Z

7 I remember interval training for my track days. And I remember them being a nightmare, with the worst being the 3200 meter ladder. Just the thought of it could make a grown man cry. The ladder started with a run of 3200 meters run, then you were given a 400 meter “rest” job. After which you continued down the latter, each time halving the distance until you reached 400 meters. At that point you began climbing up the ladder until you finished back with the 3200 meter run. It was brutal, but it worked. Nothing got me in better running shaped. But I also looked like a little twig back then as well, so we have to approach this in a slightly different way as to not cannibalize our muscle gains. We are going to intersperse a short (~10-15 minutes each) <acronym title="High Intensity Interval Training">HIIT</acronym> sets inside our weight workout. The way a HIIT workout session goes is that you do some form of cardio, like a treadmill or jumping rope of the spinning, at 85% of your maximum for a set length of time and then at a low intensity (about 30% of your maximum) for half that length of time. Try to start off with 3 ten-minute HIIT sessions and work your way up to fifteen-minute session in the final week. Since I like to run, my HIIT workout looks like this: Run 1:30, Jog 0:45, then repeat 3 times and finish off with a 1 minute all out sprint. Now since you are going to be adding these in addition to your regular workout, you might need to rearrange what muscles you workout first. Try to preform exercises that are most taxing early one, utilizing the largest muscles first and finish with “easier” exercise. <h1>Week One:</h1> <h2>Monday and Thursday</h2> <table> <tr> <th>Muscle Group </th> <th>Exercise </th> <th>Sets/Reps </th> </tr> <tr> <td> Chest </td> <td> Incline Bench Press + Incline Fly </td> <td> 3/8 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Chest Fly + Bench Press </td> <td> 3/8 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Shoulders </td> <td> Barbell Overhead Press + Bent-Over Lateral Raise </td> <td> 4/4 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Dumbbell Front Raise + Dumbbell Overhead Press </td> <td> 3/5 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Triceps </td> <td> Dips </td> <td> 3/25 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Pressdown + Cable Overhead Extension </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> </table> <h2>Tuesday and Friday</h2> <table> <tr> <th>Muscle Group </th> <th>Exercise </th> <th>Sets/Reps </th> </tr> <tr> <td> Legs </td> <td> Squat + Dumbbell lunge </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Leg Extension + Leg Press </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Leg Curl + Romanian Deadlift </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Calves </td> <td> Standing Calf Raise + Seated Calf Raise </td> <td> 3/15 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Abs </td> <td> Hanging Leg Raise + V-Ups </td> <td> 2/failure </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> </table>

2009-05-13T17:50:08Z

16 For the past two months I have been following a pretty rigorous workout plan, which involved high intensity sets with low reps. But with summer just a little more than a month away, I needed to step things up. For the last phase of my workout program, I am going to incorporate cardio into the mix, via interval training. A friend of mine helped me put together this workout program, so I thought I would share with the world. summer-ready-workout-plan Summer Ready Workout Plan

2009-05-13T18:29:21Z

17 Although the version of <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/">Prototype-UI</a> that is currently available is considered a release candidate, I found their carousel to be quite stable. I have yet to try out some of their other components, but the autocomplete does look quite promising. You can start off by <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/download/rc0/carousel.zip">downloading</a> the code (javascript and css files) from their server. Once you have extracted the files, put the carousel.js and prototype-ui.css in your sites public folder. You can also copy their next/back buttons as well, but I went ahead and created my own. I am going to assume that you have some model that contains an array of photos. In this example that model is called <code>album</code>. In your view that you want the image carousel, put in the following rhtml: <pre><code class="multiline_code"><div id="horizontal_carousel"> <div class="previous_button"></div> <div class="container"> <ul></ul> <div id="spinner" style="display: none;">Loading ...<br /></div> </div> <div class="next_button"></div> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ function runTest() { carousel = new UI.Ajax.Carousel("horizontal_carousel", {url: "/albums/<%= album.id %>/elements", elementSize: 140}) .observe("request:started", function() { $('spinner').show().morph("opacity:0.8", {duration:0.5}); }) .observe("request:ended", function() { $('spinner').morph("opacity:0", {duration:0.5, afterFinish: function(obj) { obj.element.hide(); }}); }); } document.whenReady(runTest); // ]]> </script> </div></code></pre>The important thing to notice here is the value of the URL passed to the <code>UI.Ajax.Carousel</code> function call. I have decided to call the method that returns the request images <code>elements</code>. It is found in the <code>album</code> controller and is expecting the id of the album that contains the photos to be displayed. Next we will update our album’s controller. This is the part that gave me the most trouble. I orignally though I just had to supply the HTML that should be inserted inside the UL element, however after some digging I found out that it was actually accepting JSON. Luckly for us, it’s not that hard using some Rails magick. <pre><code class="multiline_code">def elements @album = Album.find(params[:id]) count = @album.photos.size - 1 to = [params[:to].to_i, count].min from = params[:from].to_i more = count != to ? true : false html = @album.photos[from..to].collect { |photo| "<li><img src='#{photo.public_filename(:thumb)}'></li>" } data = { :html => html, :from => from, :to => to, :more => more } # Rails magick to get output in JSON format render :json => data.to_json end</code></pre>The last thing we need to do is update our routes file so that the path /albums/:id/elements is recognized by our Rails application. Add the following line to your routes.rb config file: <pre><code class="multiline_code">map.resources :albums, :member => { :elements => :get }</code></pre> After a quick restart of your server (since we updated the routes file) and you should be ready to go!

2009-02-20T10:04:49Z

15 I happened to be looking for a better way to show a preview of my web albums when I came across <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/">Prototype-UI</a> which is a suite of user-interface components. Their carousel component was just want I need to spruce up my site design. The only problem was that documentation on the site is quite sparse and it took me a while to get things sorted out. creating-an-ajax-image-carousel Creating an AJAX Image Carousel

2010-01-15T13:17:38Z