July is Dirt Month

August 1, 2023August 4, 2023 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

The lowly rock bar does its job. We later used rocks to lift the boulder for better leverage.

Shenandoah National Park, July 2023 — It’s been a typical July in the Mid-Atlantic region featuring scorching heat, dripping humidity, gads of gnats, and clouds of dust where the daily pop-up T-storms failed to drip. The rain may have missed a spot or two, but enthusiastic Hoodlums came to dig, push and pound, come what may. By the way, the gnats are a feature not a bug. 🙂

HOODLUMS MONTHLY TRIP
Both the Hoodlums’ third-Saturday-of-the-month work trip and crew week pack the calendar. Caroline and I camped at the Indian Run maintenance hut on Saturday night and weed-whacked our AT section on Sunday, hustling for an early start to avoid the heat.

While some folks breakfast at the hut, Caroline, the ridgerunners and I slipped into Front Royal for a bite at the Knotty Pine.

This is a one-meal-a-day, greasy-spoon, stick-to-your-ribs, and clog-your-arteries breakfast. These hole-in-a-wall, mom-and-pop eat shops are where it’s at in every tiny community across our nation. It’s where locals gather and a part of American culture that I love.

Our project was to work on the AT near the spring on Compton Peak. The tread on about 250 yards of the trail had drifted down hill. Our job was to restore the tread to its original location using a technique called side-hilling.

Reminds me of railroad building.

The raindrops didn’t miss the area around the hut Saturday night. The slow, steady patter on my tent fly served as white noise for sound sleeping. That meant hanging my kit out to dry once home. Cleaning and storing equipment is part of the game. Speaking of games, the ballgame was unremarkable other than the hapless Nats won one for a change, but the spectacular shot of the capitol on the drive home reminds me of why I like living here.

NOW FOR CREW WEEK

Crew week runs Sunday – Friday. We reside at the Pinnacles Research Station. It is equipped with ten bunks, a lab area, kitchen, livingroom, shower and laundry. It is surrounded by apron of flat ground for tenting and trees to hang hammocks.

We tend to work side-by-side with members of the park trail crews and various members come and go as available. I had to be home on Tuesday to chair a PATC Executive Committee meeting but rejoined Wednesday bringing Sabine Pelton, 2019’s Ridgerunner One, who was in town all the way from Maine while her husband attended a conference at the University of Maryland.

We did a lot of rock work this year. This happened while I was away. Crew colleague Cindy Ardecki shared her video of this rock’s journey. There is more than one way to move a BFR as you will see.

The previous day we used a different technique while working on the Overall Run trail just above the falls.

Crush and blunt force injuries are possible, so safety is a big deal. The park doesn’t require hard hats, but the club will consider adopting them as standard PPE this fall.

We ran into a young bear on the hike back to our transportation. He was curious but conditioned to having people nearby. He only moved 10 ft. off the trail as we hiked past.

You might ask if we were nervous. Not really. As a rule, bears are shy and fearful of humans except when food is involved. This bear showed no sighs of aggression or being concerned about our presence. Besides, he was realistically overmatched by eight guys equipped with trail tools.

We also repaired steps on Compton Peak leading to the park’s best columnar basalt formation. We built the original steps 10 years ago. They are in a difficult spot in which to build and were in need of attention.

We’re trying a new technique using logs as retaining walls to create steps filled with rubble.

We worked on the Indian Run access road on the final day. Sabine and I also slipped up to the spring on Compton to improve the flow. We also found new artifacts near the CCC trash midden located on the section. I wrote about it last winter. This trip we found a plate shard and part of a terracotta pipe section.

Sisu

Busy. Busy. Busy.

July 6, 2023 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

Here, there and everywhere, June to July Fourth, July 6, 2023 — We’ll start with the good news/bad news. My dear friend Mary Thurman is now the park manager at Flagg Mountain, Alabama.

This is stellar news for Mary. She’s been searching for “big girl” work for a long time. She’s uniquely qualified and so far, she’s loving it.

Mary’s mission: Bring a long dormant park back to life. Who could be better for that? Her degree from Florida State is finally paying off.

Unfortunately, with Mary’s fortune, we lost our ridgerunner in the Michaux State Forest, Pennsylvania.

Before she hit the road, we visited the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center where the large aircraft are on display. Obviously, this is the Space Shuttle Discovery.

We also shared a fire and some beer. Can’t wait to visit Flagg Mountain after the weather cools off.

Got to welcome four new AT Communities into the fold. AT communities welcome hikers, support the trail and are a vital source of volunteers. I kept my speeches mercifully short. Some of the politicians didn’t.

Along the way things happened. This is the readout on a gas pump. Usually I get gas in Front Royal, VA when I go to the park. It’s often 50 cents less expensive than in the D.C. area.

Guess who left home without his wallet? In addition to not having my drivers license, I didn’t have a credit card. How close was it? My tank holds 15 gallons.

Nice blowdown on Pass Mountain. Tina is my go to swamper because she’s usually available during the week. Pole saws don’t require credentials or PPE. Secret: The car is parked on a fire road less than 100 yards away.

Made a quick trip to weed the part of the AT Caroline and I maintain. Used my new Stihl battery string trimmer. Worked like a charm. The park service says a persistent bear reported by several hikers has been hanging around. Methuselah, the apple tree, is bearing fruit.

For the first time ever, the PATC was in charge of chainsaw training for a class composed solely of park service employees.

We had several park instructor/trainers working with us and carrying a substantial teaching and evaluating load for the four-day course.

Wayne Limberg is teaching chain sharpening in this photo.

My chainsaw was due for cleaning and inspection. Needed a new starter rope. Of course the dealer didn’t have one. The chain catcher had done its job too many times. Received the new parts the next day via Amazon.

A young fox caught a small black snake for dinner as viewed from the bedroom window.

Our friend Martha Kumar is a professorial scholar of the American presidency. I first met her when I served on the National Security Council staff at the White House. Of course, she was born on the Fourth of July. Our tradition is to attend the Nationals game followed by Martha’s birthday party where we sing Happy Birthday.

Let’s close with the bullseye rash found on my elbow after the chainsaw classes. We spend a lot of time in the woods. It’s doxycycline for two weeks.

Sisu

Fun Week – Open House, WFA, Hoodlums

May 28, 2023 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

PATC HQ, Vienna, Va. May 27, 2023 — The PATC headquarters building hides in plain sight, buried deep, just off the main drag, in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Vienna.

We decided it would be advantageous to piggyback our open house on the local annual street festival thinking we might attract more people. The objectives: raise our profile, sell some stuff and recruit new members. We also added a members only cookout at the end.

The crosscut salami slice is always a favorite. Fun for all ages. The youngest gets the chunk sawed off.

We had multiple displays from the ski touring group, mountain rescue and our standard science fair display used at outreach events.

The early results: $1,200 in sales, 200 visitors, 15 new members. That’s in line with our projected performance objectives.

But there’s more…

Wilderness First Aid has to be recertified every two years. https://www.solowfa.com/

Ridgerunner training at High Point State Park, New Jersey.

Of course the third Saturday of the month belongs to the Hoodlums trail crew.

The Hoodlums are like Lake Wobegon. All the women are strong, the men good looking and everyone is above average.

Of course, it’s weed season.

The mountain laurel are finally blooming.

American chestnut next to chestnut oak which mimics American chestnut.

Freshly weeded trail.

Before the string trimmer waltzed by.

Ran into Alex Gardner, the Shenandoah ridgerunner. Always good to get caught working.

Sisu

Walkabout

May 14, 2023 / jim fetig / 1 Comment

Obligatory selfie at the columnar basalt formation.

Shenandoah National Park, May 13, 2023 — About a month ago we planned to take a hike up and over Compton Peak to see the wild azalea and mountain laurel which historically are in full bloom. It was also a chance to check up on weed growth and talk about the work we’d do over the summer.

As the days counted down, the weather prognosis worsened. The precip probability in the 10-day forecast climbed from 39 to 58 percent. Digging deeper the day prior, we learned that the Weather Channel app was predicting less than a half inch accumulation with scattered showers. Those are excellent odds and conditions so we green-lighted the trek to great success. So what if we had to wear a rain jacket for 10 minutes.

Maintenance issues constantly crop up whether a waterbar rots, a spring undermines some stone steps, or some knucklehead scratches graffiti on a rock. The steps will fall to the Hoodlums for repair.

Along the way ya gotta check out the rocks. We also found a couple of thru hikers enjoying out bench.

Ultimately we found a few flowers. The azalea were waning and the mountain laurel are just budding out. The dreaded weeds are ahead of schedule. It’s going to be an interesting year.

Sisu

Gordon Lightfoot

May 3, 2023May 7, 2023 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

On parade at Fort Benning

May 3, 2023 — The passing of Gordon Lightfoot prompted a warm memory of his contribution to my sanity one summer, long ago.

During the blistering South Georgia summer of ’69, 236 officer candidates were training to become officers in the United States Army. One-hundred-four of us survived to be commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army infantry.

The training at Fort Benning, Ga. was physically rigorous to say the least. The discipline was strict and iron clad, designed to grind down those who could not take it.

Field Training 1969

In those days, harassment, including being dropped for countless push-ups for petty infractions, was the way discipline was enforced. This technique and others were used to put pressure of the candidates in hopes of weeding out the weak.

All it really did was demonstrate poor leadership technique. It taught us how not to be a leader, not how to be a leader.

Each morning following a breakfast we were forced to eat in an impossibly short time, we would go to training. We’d clamber aboard large trailers for field training. We marched to class on other days. That’s where Gordon Lightfoot comes in.

As was customary, the classes sang in complex harmony as they marched to their destinations. Singing as we marched shifted our thoughts and mood to better places.

One song we sang stands out in particular. As we lock-stepped our way across the post, we choirboyed the adapted lyrics which made sense in the context of where we were and the almost certain prospect of serving in Vietnam.

We sang:

In the early mornin’ rain

With a rifle in my hand

With an aching in my heart

And my pockets full of sand

I’m a long ways from home

And I miss my loved ones so

In the early morning rain

Without a place to go…

Inside page of our class yearbook.

At the time, OCS consisted of six battalions. We were the 64^th company. The 65^th was across the way from us. That’s a lot of cannon fodder, a fate which was our fear. For the record, only half of us served in Vietnam and no one died there, a small miracle.

Our 50th and final class reunion in January 2020, not long before the pandemic. OCS today is a much different and improved experience than it was the summer of 1969.

Sisu

Quick Trip

April 26, 2023 / jim fetig / Leave a comment

Wild flame azalea

Shenandoah National Park, April 25, 2023 — My new job as club president is keeping my away from the outdoors, more than I would have thought. In addition, this month’s Hoodlums work trip was rained out. I needed an outdoor fix.

My excuse: Yesterday was the park staff’s annual meeting with its partners – park association, trust, concessionaire, and volunteer organizations. It’s a chance to share, learn and maintain relationships. After the meeting I drove an hour northward.

A blowdown was calling near the summit on the section Caroline and I maintain. After the meeting, I dashed up the mountain to clear it. It was a step-over, so not the highest priority. We left it during spring cleaning because we didn’t think we had time to cut it with a hand saw.

The weather was ideal, a sunny 47 degrees. No breeze and no sweat on the hike up to the summit. It’s been awhile since I’ve been solo. The solitude was priceless.

Got there and it was gone. Much later I realized our first ridgerunner was on the trail and that he probably removed it. Meanwhile, the greenbrier and blackberry canes are starting to go nuts. My clippers clocked overtime.

The inspection established everything was in shipshape. The spring was flowing well. No major concerns other than we can anticipate more than our fair share of weeds.

The azalea and mountain laurel are beginning to bloom. We have a walkabout planned for May 13 to catch peak flowers. That date seems about right.

As one might expect, the animals are very active.

Coyotes mark their territory with scat. It’s possible that this is two males arguing over the boundary. This has happened several times along game trails lower down. This rock was part of some steps much further up the mountain, so I’m not certain exactly what the story is. In addition, found some bear scat, cub size, near the trailhead. That’s the fist bear scat in awhile.

Fresh bear activity. There’s not much to eat right now – mostly acorns and other nuts under the leaf litter, and insects. The bears use their claws to shred rotting logs to expose the bugs inside. This is a black birch. They are soft and rot quickly – good bug habitat.

Blowdowns never end. This one is a minor obstruction at 12″ in diameter. It’s going to need a bigger saw. We’ll get it next work trip which should be May 20.

Sisu

Where Ya Been?

February 20, 2023February 21, 2023 / jim fetig / 3 Comments

Ice-downed pine on a Pass Mountain tent pad.

Shenandoah National Park, January and February 2023 — Ice storm pick up sticks continues. We’re now on the trails. The AT in the North District is clear and mostly clear elsewhere. We’re teaming with the Park Service crews and the Appalachian Conservation Corps (an AmeriCorps group) to get after the approximately 400 miles of blue blaze (side) trails in the park. Many of them are steep in tight canyons that funnel and speed up the wind. The Venturi effect dramatically increases wind speed and consequently the number of downed trees and branches.

Don’t hold your breath for this job to get done. It’s going to be awhile as the video, photos and narrative will illustrate.

My new duties as club president also eat time like an addict finding their next fix. The PATC is a complex organization and perhaps the largest volunteer service organization in the region. We have nearly 9,000 members, maintain most of the hiking trails in the National Capitol Region, operate soon to be 48 rental cabins, 45 camping shelters, several trail centers and the Bears Den Hostel.

So far, it’s a job for a one-armed paper hanger. You’re going to be busy with planning, reports, relationships, Zoom calls, and the politics associated with the large number of people needed to manage this much complexity. That doesn’t leave nearly as much time to put your boots in the mud or to write blogs.

Since the December ice storm, the weather has been generally good. We’ve had individual maintainers and small crews out almost continually, weather dependent. My batting average is down, but I’m still in the game.

Clearing tree crowns and large branches is like cutting hair and can be tedious work. Pole saws help, but we don’t have that many of them. Loppers are the tool of choice. All you need is time and patience.

Sometimes you find a real honker. Naturally, it blocked the AT near Thornton Gap. This one was partially hollow, a condition that presented its own challenges for the sawyer, Wayne Limberg, the AT district manager of the North District.

Sometimes the pick up sticks land in odd ways. Some of these were driven into the ground like stakes. All of them had unusual binds, making it easy to trap the saw.

My friend Josh Fuchs is a blue blaze district manager in the Central District. He also owns a moon bounce business. Ever clever, he invented way of attaching a chainsaw to any pack using spare moon bounce materials. This makes it much easier to schlepp awkward Old Betsy up the mountain.

It’s not just Old Betsy. That pack also has a liter of fuel, extra bar oil, Kevlar chainsaw chaps, trauma kit, Silky folding saw. wedges, hatchet. radio, spare clothing, lunch and so much more. Not sure what it weighs, but it’s a respectable number.

On one trip, the pin that holds the starter pawls broke and and I might as well been hiking a dumbbell back to the car. I’ll be honest. I didn’t even know what a pawl was, but thanks to professor YouTube and Amazon Prime, I made the repair the next day.

Had to leave one tree that Dan Hippe clipped with his Mattel-like battery saw.

Yesterday we organized a crew to work on Compton Peak and Piney Branch.

We taught Caroline to use the pole saw. No certification or chaps needed.

The bench we built this fall got some use.

She put her new found knowledge to work on a large tree we found blocking Keyser Run Fire Road on our way to demolish a nasty tangle on Piney Branch.

Keyser Run fire road was an absolute mud hole. Type II fun. It was an all-battery power event!

This beauty was yesterday’s final objective. Several complex binds. One large branch with side bind moved 15 inches. In some cases, knowing how the tree will behave when cut can save life or limb.

The pole saw reach and stand off made many of the cuts much safer. I’m a believer.

Lots of debris to clear.

One of the trees was a hard maple and the sap was running.

End product.

After all that, we stopped at “lunch rock” before heading home.

Sisu

Shenandoah Ice Storm Clean up II

December 30, 2022 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive near Thornton Gap, December 29, 2022 — Could a wood chipper be a bird? The name sounds like it might be. In this case the yellow breasted wood chipper is a machine whose song sounds like it is loudly clearing its throat every time you stuff a chunk of wood into its famished gut. Hearing protection required.

A dozen Hoodlums gathered Thursday to answer the park’s call for volunteer help.

We come organized teams, trained, equipped with organic leadership and experience following park safety protocols. We require no supervision in most cases, but we’re used to working along side our park service counterparts. It really doesn’t get better than that.

On Thursday, we divided into two teams, a small chainsaw team and the larger group to feed the chipper starting at Thornton Gap, headed north toward Beahms Gap.

There’s more wood down than one would imagine. It’s important to clear, not only the drive, but the road margins where seasonal mowers need to work. In some places, that doubles the area requiring clean up.

It’s a slow, mind-numbing stoop labor dance done to the brrrrrrrt and rhythm of the wood chipper’s song. Hey, somebody’s got to do it and it brings us together for another adventure.

In some places the sun has melted the ice and snow while in those mostly shady areas, in spite of the higher temperatures the past couple of days, it’s going to be awhile before the ice and snow are gone.

It’s like a chain gang on an endless play loop – see stick, walk to stick, pick up stick, take stick to chipper, put stick into chipper, chipper burps thank you – played over and over.

The park served us a warm lunch at the Pass Mountain overlook. We could finally reminisce with our ear muffs off. Then we were back at it.

Team work as Wayne Limberg, AT District Manager, and Caroline Egli stuff the chipper.

At one point the chipper broke. My completely uninformed guess is a sheer pin. Fortunately a spare was strategically located at Thornton Gap. Unfortunately is was a less powerful model that seemed to regurgitate mulch rather than spray it. While we were waiting we decided to dump some logs into the woods.

Looking at the large logs, I was thinking it was a good time to capture some video for this blog. For the record, I rolled my share over the edge. Note the sound of the frozen green log as it hits the icy pavement.

Not all logs are equal.

New chipper at work. The flywheel takes a bit to recover energy. The line looks like restroom queue.

Shortly after 3 p.m., we called it a day. The Hoodlums would be back in the morning.

Sisu

Shenandoah Ice Storm Clean up

December 24, 2022 / jim fetig / 1 Comment

Photo Dec 20 2022, 2 47 10 PM

Shenandoah National Park, End of December, 2022 — The ice storm from a week ago made Skyline Drive look like a combat zone. Hundreds and hundreds of trees and branches are down along all 105 miles of road that meanders along the ridgeline that forms the backbone of the park’s geography.

Damage reports suggest that the north district from Front Royal to Swift Run Gap seems to have been hit the hardest.

The park leadership assessed the damage and asked qualified volunteers to join the clean up effort. That request is a testament to the integration of PATC volunteers into park operations and the faith the park has in our ability to deliver value when we are asked to help.

It’s obvious from the photo that the clean up is a labor intensive effort. Each one of those branches and tree trunks has to be removed from the roadway. The roadsides also have to be cleared to the treeline so that mowers can operate in the growing season. That is a lot of stoop labor.

Those of us who normally work on trails learned a lot about the process of cleaning up the “drive” after a storm. Here’s a hint: They use a lot of “big boy” toys – bucket trucks, graspers, chippers, and loaders in addition to chainsaws, loppers, pruning saws, and rakes.

The larger debris gets piled up to be loaded into large dump trucks and hauled to the park boneyard.

The lesser debris is fed into a chipper, thereby speeding up the circle of life by feeding the forest back to itself as mulch. We learned a lot thanks to our park service partners.

Although there always seems to be a chipper operating in my urban-forested neighborhood, I never gave them much thought. Now I know they’re driven by a giant flywheel and grinders capable of crunching 15-inch logs with ease! We even learned how to clear jams and reset them. Hearing protection is mandatory. Them suckers is loud!!!

While PATC volunteers were helping in other areas of the park, the North District Hoodlums answered the call in their home territory. I think the park expected that we would have only enough to help feed the chipper.

We beat that expectation and divided ourselves up into two groups, one to stuff the chipper and the other to clear the area around the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center followed by work on the drive.

By lunch time, the chipping was nearly done. We decided to finish chipping and then join forces for the remainder of the day.

As you can see, it’s tedious work.

Photo Dec 20 2022, 2 44 10 PM

As the day ended, your enthusiastic volunteers dragged their tired butts back to the rendezvous point. We finished chipping the first four miles of Skyline from Front Royal to Dickey Ridge. We cleared the drive four more miles beyond, nearly to mile post 9.

This blog is written to offer insight into what goes on behind the scenes. This was another peek. Judging by what’s left and the potential damage of today’s bomb cyclone storm, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Thanks to Wayne Limberg, Cindy Ardecki, Justin Corddry, Dan Hippe, Tom Moran and our National Park Service colleagues. They supplied good company, shared some of these photos and and cared enough to volunteer their time and expertise.

Sisu

Digital Fitness. There’s an app for that.

November 27, 2022November 28, 2022 / jim fetig / 6 Comments

Home gym.

Home Gym, November 26, 2022 — Being in shape has been a lifelong priority. Fitness itself is not the primary objective. Instead, being in shape is a means to a higher quality of life and an open invitation to activities denied those who have gone to seed, especially at my age.

I doubt it will extend my life my much, if at all. I do think it immeasurably improves quality of life and experience.

Being fit allows me to hike hundreds of miles with far younger people as a peer, not an elder for whom they have to stop and wait. While we can find meaningful trail work for almost any level of fitness, the fit folks can do the good stuff – carry heavy tools on strenuous approach marches, work with big rocks and heavy timber, and schlep chainsaws up and over the mountain du jour.

It truly makes a difference when you can run with the big dogs.

This spring, the balloon popped. The personal training gym franchise for which I was a loyal customer for 16 years, changed ownership. The previous owner was a bodybuilder/gym rat first and a business owner second. As a West Point grad, we bonded over our mutual military service. When he sold, I understood, but was disappointed nevertheless.

The new owner was friendly enough, but was also a newly minted mid-life MBA. He was amassing a collection of gyms in several states. For him, it was all about the dollars, and my opinion, very little about sense. I girded my loins for Mr. Finance.

As I anticipated, he raised my rate. I was heavily discounted for a couple of reasons, including as one who paid well in advance. Cash is king in a small business. Customers who give you interest-free money are the ones to love.

Love wasn’t exactly the new owner’s approach.

A little TLC would have gone a long way toward winning me over. He could have simply said to me, “Hey bro. Thanks for the free classes and hikes you led and for paying so far in advance, but costs are increasing dramatically. I’ve gotta make payroll, insurance and rent. In appreciation for your loyalty, I’m going to give you the best deal I can.”

I could afford the new rates. Instead the sterility of the transaction turned me off. I kept thinking the rate increase would be the first of many until he got me paying the full non-discounted amount.

So I quit. Now what?

The new terms were still reasonable. It’s not like I could find a better deal somewhere else. Individual personal training is priceless and rightfully expensive. Group training is near worthless, for me anyways, so I thought I try one of the new apps.

There’s also a twist.

During the pandemic, we trained virtually via Zoom. I decided to push myself hard and dramatically increased the amount of weight I could lift. My then personal trainer, Sam, did an excellent job coaching me as I improved.

Secret: I have hated the weight room my entire athletic life. Weights can make you humble. They can bring you to your knees and turn your limbs to jelly. Their ultimate revenge can put you either on your ass, or in the driver’s seat of the porcelain bus. That “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” is a profoundly true statement. Weights can exact revenge far faster than sprinting suicides. (Wind sprints for older folk.)

Father time also weighed in. As one ages, connective tissue becomes less elastic. We become far less flexible. Pushing the weight led to tendonitis almost everywhere and occasional sciatica. Moreover, during this period, I finally graduated to the medicines commonly prescribed for people my age. Among them statins, to lower cholesterol, can have some nasty side effects.

Fortunately for me, they were minimal, but added to the tendonitis and some muscle cramping.

Quitting gave me a chance to take a break. I decided to take the summer off from lifting to recover while I searched for a fitness app that would work for me.

Taking time off isn’t always the best thing to do. In fitness, there is a concept known as detraining or regression. When one stops or dramatically reduces exercising, fitness levels drop slowly as fist, then much faster. In this equation, age is an exponent. The ability to run five miles can become one mile seemingly over night. The same applies to strength training or any other strenuous activity.

20221015_113529

The effect was soon noticeable. When Sam and I were sawing away on this brutal (triple bind) blowdown in October, I noticed that my fitness level had decreased precipitously. Sam was kind enough not to mention it, but I could not hold my own for the first time ever. I had allowed myself to regress to the mean. It was embarrassing, but highly motivational.

Now to find the right weight training app.

During the summer I had messed around with more than a dozen fitness apps. Then I discovered “Future.”

Future is maladroitly named. I think it’s founders were thinking it is the future of personal training apps, and I think it is. The problem is that the name doesn’t suggest much of anything. The name is certainly not motivational or aspirational.

Hint. If you’re naming something, start with the audience to which you’re going to sell it. If you’re the owner, you are not the audience.

Here’s the key that sold me. Future comes with a real coach. Remember about my need for accountability? Found it. Add the Apple Watch and Apple health app interfaces and you can’t hide, ghost or fake it. The data tells the truth.

First, about the coach:

Point guard: LSU women’s basketball team. Assistant strength and conditioning coach, Auburn University and North Carolina A&T. M.S. in sport coaching. There’s much more, but simply put, she’s an athlete’s coach. We’ve been working well together for a month.

The coach designs the workouts and monitors the data. After each workout the athlete gets feedback via email or text. Live Zoom calls occur monthly. For someone who knows his way around a gym and values motivation and feedback, this is truly an ideal model. The monthly cost is equal to the weekly cost at the franchise gym. Sounds like a best value to me.

The process starts with a detailed in-take questionnaire which asks about the equipment you have, goals, experience, physical limitations, exercise style and coaching preferences. Based on this information, a coach that should fit your style is assigned, but can be changed at anytime.

A 15-minute Zoom coach/client interview with your new coach follows. We talked about physical limitations, workout design and intensity, frequency and women’s basketball of which I am a huge fan.

There was a lot of trail and error in the first few sessions, but the feedback loop allowed for excellent communication and adjustment.

These screen grabs offer insight into how the app works.

Note interface. Length of workout. Equipment list. Overview is a preview of each exercise. Settings turns data features on/off.

I find the overview feature critical. It allows me to adjust weight or the actual exercise itself before trying to do it in real time. This page shows the warm up for that day’s workout. Each workout starts with a short pep talk from your coach. The coach can also add verbal pointers variously along the way.

Each exercise is continuously demonstrated on a video loop that plays until the reps are completed and the client presses the forward button. Recovery pauses are built in.

At the end of the workout, clients rate the difficulty and provide feedback to their coach. You can add a photo to illustrate problematic exercises or other difficulties such as form.

Image-1(1)

The stats are amazing. Dogging workouts: Busted!

More info available and the end of each workout session. In this case the graph shows my level of effort was solid.

The watch and health apps have even more data such as VO2 uptake, blood oxygen, etc.

So far, the Future App has been an excellent choice. Four stars.

Sisu

A fork in the road

Yogi said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." So I'm following the white blazes.

Author: jim fetig

July is Dirt Month

Busy. Busy. Busy.

Fun Week – Open House, WFA, Hoodlums

Walkabout

Gordon Lightfoot

Quick Trip

Where Ya Been?

Shenandoah Ice Storm Clean up II

Shenandoah Ice Storm Clean up

Digital Fitness. There’s an app for that.