A small shell script for doing interval training (or circuit training) coveniently from your desk. The script will make your computer call out the exercises you need to do, when you need to do them. I was inspired to write this quick script after reading the NY Times "The Scientific 7-Minute Workout" article covering the HICT research by Kilka & Jordan. The workout from that manuscript is the default for this script.
The shell script loops through a list of exercises (potentially user-supplied)
and announces each one verbally
(literaly, over your speakers)
using the say command.
The script sleeps between exercises using the
sleep command. This basically sounds like
Ready? We're going to do 10 exercises for 30s each, starting with 'push ups'.
[a moment passes]
Ok, 'push ups' for 30 seconds, Go!
[30s passes]
Stop, Rest 10 seconds. Next, you will do 'sit-ups'
[10s passes and the process repeats itself]
So, the computer is leading you through the exercises in a manner that
- keeps track of time for you;
- does not require looking at the computer;
- alerts you to the upcoming exercise so that you can get ready; and,
- allows you to play music in the background.
The easiest way to install the script is to clone the repo on GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/kljensen/shell-interval-training-timer
Or you can just grab the shell script
curl -O https://raw.github.com/kljensen/shell-interval-training-timer/master/workout.sh
First, you probably want to make the script executable
chmod a+x ./workout.sh
Do the default workout
./workout.sh
Or, you can supply a file with your own exercises, 1 per line
./workout.sh -i my-exercises.txt
Finally, here's how you would supply a file with your own exercises, 1 per line and do each for 45 seconds, resting for 20.
./workout.sh -i my-exercises.txt -t 45 -r 20
This has only been tested on Mac OSX.