Geek Fitness

Whether your fitness goals are simple or lofty, when faced with temptation it's easy to slip up a bit in the heat of the moment. Enter Health Month, an online way to keep track of your fitness progress that ups the ante by turning it into a game. Here's how it works:

Upon signing up, players choose rules to follow for the duration of the month. Choose from suggestions like, "limit caffeine," "drink enough water," and "limit soda." You're then prompted for more detail. For example, after choosing "drink enough water," you're prompted to disclose how much you drink, how much you want to drink in the upcoming month, how difficult you think it's going to be, and how important the rule is to your overall goal. Following your rules nets you "life points," breaking them takes points away.

Find out more about the game after the break.

Do you like keeping track of your health and fitness information online? Two years after its initial launch, Google Health has a brand-new design and new features. Google Health is a free feature allowing you to organize, track, and share important health information in a central place, granting access to doctors, family pharmacists, or others who should be privy to your health history. It stores both medical and fitness history, and you can use as little or as much of the service as you feel comfortable using.

Updates to the site include:

• A new, improved dashboard The new dashboard includes more health information, making it a fast, one-stop location for lots of important data. Plus, you can record daily goals and activities directly from the dashboard to better track your progress.

Check out the rest of the new features after the break.

This week's announcement of new iPods piqued my interest not only as a lover of shiny, new toys, but also as a runner. The two smallest versions, the new iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano, are even more perfect for running (and other exercises). Here's why:

• The new Nano is tiny. — At just over 1 1/2 inches wide and just under 1 1/2 inches high, the new Nano is considerably smaller than the previous version — it's almost half the size! And it also weighs half as much as the previous version.
• The Shuffle's buttons are back. — The most recent version of the Shuffle was, in my opinion, a runner's nightmare. The design was sleek, but there were no buttons on the device itself, making it incredibly difficult to use with any other headphones other than the ones that came with the device. Now, the same familiar circular set of buttons have made a comeback.

There are more reasons to love 'em! Check out the rest after the break.

Get excited! Donny D-Fine is back, and has managed to turn another popular social networking site into a fitness workout. This time it's Twitter. We first came across Donny a few months ago when the OnSugar blog goddessbody shared his Facebook workout: "Update your body, not your status." It was pretty hilarious, and also effective if you were looking to sweat a bit.

This time around Donny has named a series of upper body moves after Twitter actions, throwing in his own brand of humor: "Don't let you body sag so throw in a hashtag." He even references Kim Kardashian outing a federal marshal via Twitter and Britney Spears having the most followers. Are you gonna work out Twitter style?

Anyone who has trained for a long-distance race can tell you that proper training sometimes involves being a slave to your training schedule. Long runs, short runs, cross training . . . it's hard to keep track of it all! Luckily, there's now an app for that — and it comes from a trusted running resource. Runner's World SmartCoach ($2) for iPhone offers customized training plans to help you properly train for your next race. Pulling from the years of information, research, and advice in the pages of Runner's World magazine, the app will generate training plans for races from 5Ks to full marathons. Get the full details after the break.

The latest craze sweeping scores of high school students happily plugged into their iPods and other MP3 players: i-dosing, which is, on its most basic level, a digital high. I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill Facebook or Twitter addiction either; i-dosing involves listening to an MP3 track that sounds more like a loud, annoying droning noise than a digital music file. Sites that support the "drugs" promise you'll experience a drug-like high, even going so far as to compare different tracks to different types of drugs. "Users" of the MP3s are encouraged to purchase a 40-page instruction manual detailing how to experience a proper high.

One free track available on YouTube instructs listeners to lay down with a cover over their eyes to experience maximum results. Some may say this activity is no big deal, but learn why parents are taking this matter seriously after the break.

Spring has long since sprung, which means beach season is fast approaching. Usually I start to freak a little, but this year, I'm making it easy on myself and letting my geeky apps (help me) do the work. With calorie counters, workout calculators, and gym finders, there are few excuses for missing a workout, and staying on track is starting to feel a whole lot easier. Just check out these six geeky tools, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Use GymPost to Find Yourself a Fitness Center	Count Calories With Livestrong's DailyPlate	Use Google Docs to Track Your Workouts
Get the Lose It App to Lose the Weight	The Daily Mile Helps You Train	Diet.com Delivers Nutrition Facts to Your Phone