![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynI'm "working" on two projects now. The library anecdotes. And tonight I started looking to see if I couldn't create a database for tracking workout data.
I looked at several online workout tracking places, many of which just required web access (so I don't have to worry about what kind of phone I have, the Palm Pre really is an awesome phone, but its lack of popularity makes the app selection seriously less awesome) but the TOS for these places are egregious. It's not like the DW kind of thing which says by posting your data you are giving them a license to distribute, one site actually said by posting you were forfeiting your own copyright to the data itself. Sure there's not a lot of reason why I would worry about that being enforced, but why would I do business with people who set out to be nefarious?
It's not that hard to go to the gym with a sticky note that's been pre-gridded (manually) and then to input the data later. But I thought about data format and how annoying it is when the data hasn't been entered in a manner which can be imported or queried. It's lame when people choose to add linebreaks or extraneous whitespace so they can type things in a human-readable way. It's much easier to import from a one-line-per-record tab-delimited datafile. But I have 70 fields on tonight's sticky note. That's pretty standard for a full workout. But even tonight there were some blank fields (going to fill in blood pressure later, and didn't do three sets of every lift) and that made it difficult to accurately enter the data into the correct field (when it's only tabbed apart, there's no way to count how many tabs there are.)
So then I thought about what I really needed was a form that would only let me enter the appropriate data and then the data would be pulled from there cleanly into the correct place in the records.
I thought about using a spreadsheet, but honestly, spreadsheets are SLOW to launch. Not that the DB is faster, but considering I wanted the Notepad-style version of a spreadsheet, not the full on power of Excel (or whatever the OpenOffice people call their spreadsheet)... I opted for severe overkill the other way.
I looked at several online workout tracking places, many of which just required web access (so I don't have to worry about what kind of phone I have, the Palm Pre really is an awesome phone, but its lack of popularity makes the app selection seriously less awesome) but the TOS for these places are egregious. It's not like the DW kind of thing which says by posting your data you are giving them a license to distribute, one site actually said by posting you were forfeiting your own copyright to the data itself. Sure there's not a lot of reason why I would worry about that being enforced, but why would I do business with people who set out to be nefarious?
It's not that hard to go to the gym with a sticky note that's been pre-gridded (manually) and then to input the data later. But I thought about data format and how annoying it is when the data hasn't been entered in a manner which can be imported or queried. It's lame when people choose to add linebreaks or extraneous whitespace so they can type things in a human-readable way. It's much easier to import from a one-line-per-record tab-delimited datafile. But I have 70 fields on tonight's sticky note. That's pretty standard for a full workout. But even tonight there were some blank fields (going to fill in blood pressure later, and didn't do three sets of every lift) and that made it difficult to accurately enter the data into the correct field (when it's only tabbed apart, there's no way to count how many tabs there are.)
So then I thought about what I really needed was a form that would only let me enter the appropriate data and then the data would be pulled from there cleanly into the correct place in the records.
I thought about using a spreadsheet, but honestly, spreadsheets are SLOW to launch. Not that the DB is faster, but considering I wanted the Notepad-style version of a spreadsheet, not the full on power of Excel (or whatever the OpenOffice people call their spreadsheet)... I opted for severe overkill the other way.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 06:17 am (UTC)Basically you can import text into a spreadsheet, and an easy way to format it for that import is just to use commas.
Example:
Save your pre-gridded posty, which might say:
Today's date
Time went to gym
Ounces of water brought
Minutes on cycle
Lifts done per set: ___ ___ ___
Time left gym
Then you'd save a text document as follows:
9/20,214pm,40,17.5,14,12,,255pm
If you skipped the last set of lifts then you'd just leave those two commas there with nothing between them at all, and that way it'd format correctly when you imported it into your spreadsheet at home.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 08:11 am (UTC)Tab separated values is much easier to cope with importing. And since neither is particularly human-readable, I should go for the one that's more machine readable.
However, the problem that you're not considering is that I have a LOT more data than you think I do. 2 cardio exercises (bike, elliptical) which both have calories, distance, time (so 8 fields). 2 kinds of other exercise--- like situps or tai chi with an additional tracking field for count or time. Date, water, blood pressure, weight. Now we're getting to the real problem: weight lifting exercises. I usually do 3-6 of them up to 3 times each and often vary the weight between sets. So I need Name, weight, count, weight, count, weight, count. 7 items times 6 kinds of lifts= 42 items.
Assuming I don't need any other information we're over 50 items. That would linewrap even with CSVs but it fills half the screen in Notepad with tab seps. But the other problem is that it's almost impossible to organize the data in such a way that the things I'm going to skip are always at the end. Importing the data when it's not properly aligned is harsh.
So I was looking at what I would need to make a good UI for entering the data and the best thing was to create a database with an entry form. I have intimate knowledge of my primary user being a complete moron while doing drudge work.
I would also like to be able to come up with some sort of visual representation of the data I'm tracking and some idea as to how often I should be pushing myself to increase weights on various exercises. I want to know if extra cardio raises or lowers blood pressure (not measured immediately around exercising). I want to have some sort of ability to anecdotally at least prove that exercise isn't going to make me lose weight (based on historical data).
I don't really track the time I arrive at the gym and leave. A partial workout (3 lifts+ 20-25 min cardio) takes me about an hour leaving to returning, if no one talks to me. It would be interesting if I could track how long I exercise and come up with a periodic sum though.
That way when I went to the doctor I could say, "Look, dude, I'm at the gym 5 hours a week, I do 2 hours of active sweaty cardio shit, I lift weights for 2 hours a week, I do an hour of tai chi class; I take the stairs (10 flights per day when I go to the gym or do laundry). I still way the exact same amount and I'm not getting any knitting done because my free time is being wasted on this exercising crud. If you tell me you 'See no difference.' again, I'm going to pitch a wobbly."