DUMB Goals in Action!

Introduction

If you were a cyclist in your mid- to late-50s, and I promised I could help you improve your average riding speed by 5%, and/or lower the time of your 20-mile evening loop by an average of six minutes, while maintaining or even lowering the amount of time you spent training, would you be interested? Now let’s assume you aren’t a cyclist: would you still like to know how I’ve actually achieved these strides—among others—simply by setting a DUMB goal and working casually toward it? Well, read on. That’s what this post is about.

But first … what is a DUMB goal?

Years ago in these pages (here!) I derided the ballyhooed but also hackneyed “SMART” goals that motivational speakers like to trot out. SMART generally stands for  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. I dislike this framework because it makes you decide in advance what success really looks like, when so often we have no idea. Consider workplace revenue goals: their feasibility is at the mercy of industry trends, the economy in general, and the skill of those trying to decide what a reasonable target really is. Only once in my thirty-plus-year career did a director push back; after a missed revenue goal, he told his leadership, “We don’t have a performance problem—you have a forecasting problem.” (He didn’t last long.)

Let’s consider a SMART goal of losing fifteen pounds by December 1. That’s specific, measurable, possibly attainable (depending on the person and how overweight he or she is), perhaps relevant (if a doctor recommended the weight loss and/or the person feels bad), and clearly time-bound. But is it a good goal? I think not. Suppose a person exercises a bunch, eats really well, and ends up only ten pounds lighter on December 1. He or she might feel bummed out at having failed. But what if he or she had actually lost fifteen pounds of fat and gained five pounds of muscle, but doesn’t know it? The specificity becomes a setback. The person may feel demoralized and less inclined to bother with the new lifestyle—which brings up another issue, which is that making this goal time-bound kind of suggests the project  is over, when of course a noble goal like a better lifestyle  should be a lifelong habit, regardless of silly metrics.

That’s why in a subsequent blog post (here!) I proposed an alternative: DUMB goals. This type of goal is Duplicate,  Unimpressive, Mealy-mouthed, and Best-effort. Am I kidding? Well, of course I always seek to amuse, but actually, I’m completely serious. Consider:

• Duplicate: A goal you failed at already—never mind what anyone else tells you—is a great goal to try again at because if an attempted improvement was important to you before, that probably hasn’t changed. Failing to achieve something attests only to its difficulty and is no excuse for giving up.
• Unimpressive: Too often, a goal puts too much emphasis on getting credit, on getting noticed. By gaining too much social payoff just for stating your flashy goal, you can actually reduce the likelihood of achieving it, because your ego gets stroked before you’ve even succeeded (as described here).
• Mealy-mouthed: Being too specific, as with the weight loss example described above, can set you up to feel like a failure even when real progress is being made. Being more vague gives better elasticity to the tricky, messy business of self-improvement.
• Best-effort: Defining success as pass/fail can lead to a sense that you’re done, or conversely that a goal is futile … and either way, you may be inclined to check—or strike—the goal off your list. Treating your goal as an ongoing attempt at improvement can keep it alive indefinitely.

But do DUMB goals actually work?

My original post about DUMB goals, being on the theme of New Year’s Resolutions, was more hypothetical than empirical. The idea was to shift the reader’s thinking about how to formulate a better resolution. But over the last two years—and especially the last ten months—I’ve actually made startlingly good progress on a DUMB goal of my own.

Here’s the goal: as I age, I want to build and maintain as much strength and vigor as possible, on and off the bike, while improving my balance so I don’t fall and break a hip when I’m 80.

How DUMB is this? Very. Is it Duplicate? Well, I’ve been fretting about the ravages of age for, well, ages—my first blog post on this (here!) was over 17 years ago. Is the goal Unimpressive? Yeah, I’d say—it’s not as bold as planning my first Tough Mudder or marathon; I mean, who doesn’t want to age gracefully? And is it Mealy-mouthed? Sure—it doesn’t apply any metrics. And it’s clearly Best-effort, with the vague “as much as possible” element that gives me all kinds of wiggle room.

Now, this isn’t to say a DUMB goal is no better than no goal at all. Instead of breaking a lofty aim down into very time-bound and measurable milestones, with progress tracked carefully, as one would with traditional goals, a DUMB goal like mine can be simply directional: without getting too meticulous about it, what general lifestyle changes might take me in the right direction?

And this, as I learned kind of by accident, is the secret sauce of DUMB goals: you can make huge strides by selecting just a few general behaviors which should bring the goal closer, and then focusing on the process of executing these behaviors as well as possible. Getting feedback on your progress in the  moment, as opposed to periodically measuring yourself against some (frankly kind of arbitrary) goal, turns out to be incredibly powerful. I love this quote from an article about parenting in the NY Times: “A Dutch father of three told me about his Buddhist-inspired approach: total commitment to the process, total equanimity about the outcome.”

General behavioral change #1: balance saucer

I wrote already about my balance saucer, here. And it’s been great. I ditched the directions and started with just a vague idea of the kinds of motion I wanted to do (e.g., tapping the front edge of the saucer on the floor with both feet on the saucer; tapping the back edge; tapping forward on one foot; backward on one foot). At first I couldn’t even do them all; the backward-on-one-foot seemed impossible. But it wasn’t, and when even that got too easy, I started adding in other stuff to do on the saucer: standing on one foot pulling a knee to my chest; standing on one foot and sticking a leg out straight; doing a slow, all-the-way-down squat; putting on my shoe and tying it while standing on the other foot. I avoided the drudgery of trudging toward milestones; my saucer tricks are more like what the Cat in the Hat would do (e.g., now I’ll balance on the saucer with this fishbowl on my cane!) or the ways Tom, of Captain Najork fame, enjoys just messing about. Maybe I’ll work up to a one-legged squat, or juggling while tapping on one foot, or doing all this while drunk (kidding!).

Though I had no objective other than to buy this saucer and use it, I can tell you now my balance has improved significantly. For example, I can now ride the white line of the road shoulder on my bike, not just coasting, but pedaling at full power, even out of the saddle. (It’s rare to learn a new trick after forty-five years in this sport.) Not only that, my core seems a lot stronger: my back never hurts anymore (knock wood), and basic tasks like putting on socks and shoes have become easier and more fun.

General behavioral change #2: join a gym

Lots of people join gyms, and then they don’t go, and they feel bad, and they fall behind in their SMART goals, and the whole thing is just a big drag. But I’m the world’s cheapest man, so when I join a gym I actually go, just to get my money’s worth. Meanwhile, half the reason I joined is that my wife wanted me to, so I could go with her and, as needed, kick the asses of any creepy guys there. (That’s the theory, anyway; so far everyone has behaved, which is a big disappointment.) So when my wife signs up for a class, I head over there with her, because honestly I seldom have a good excuse not to.

Now, I could ruin all this by making SMART goals around the gym workout, like gaining or losing some number of pounds, or adding some measurable amount of visible bulk, or being able to bench press some specific weight. But I’m too DUMB for that, so all I did is get a tour from the gym staffer, showing me a generic circuit training regimen that is popular, and that’s all I do, with no real programmatic rigor other than always being in motion. I get it that if you want to become huge and swole via a specific machine, you have to sit there for fifteen minutes between sets, scrolling on your phone, so your muscles “recover” or some damn thing, but that’s not a good use of my time.

I started off setting the machines to really low weight, just to keep from maiming myself, on the assumption that anything is better than nothing. I do fifteen minutes of cardio on  the elliptical machine to warm up, then do my circuit training, in order of whatever weight machine is open next so I don’t have to stand around waiting for some dude on his phone working toward a SMART goal. My routine takes almost exactly an hour. Now, as long as I’m there I might as well do a good job, which means paying attention to how my body handles each exercise so I can gradually, but safely, increase the weight over time. And since all the muscles in my body other than my legs have been neglected my entire life, progress is swift even at my advanced age. On the leg press I’ve gone from 90 pounds last October to 155 pounds today; on the rowing-esque machine I’ve gone from 35 to 80; on the shoulder press from 20 to 55; and so on. As with the balance saucer, working toward a DUMB goal helps keep things fun and stress-free. It’s hard to miss developmental milestones when the only one you have is “go to the gym a few times a week.”

And has all this paid off? It sure has. It’s a fun new routine with my wife, biking to the Y and back for our workouts; the improved core and back strength I touted earlier is probably partly due to this regimen; and, believe it or not, the arm warmers in my cycling costume stay up better than they used to. In fact, my biceps look a bit less like the almost two-dimensional blades of an oar and more like normal arms (though I dare not suggest they’re muscular, at least not yet). I’ve gained seven pounds, and it’s not in my belly so I’m going to call it an improvement. And, as you’re about to find out, the weight room circuit training might actually be helping with my cycling.

General behavioral change #3: use a power meter

About a year ago I bought a new road bike. As detailed here, it’s a totally sweet machine, and even came with a built-in power meter (that is, a strain gauge in the crankarm), which measures my output in watts and sends it to my bike computer. The power-meter-capable bike computer is sold separately, and after a brief struggle—dragged out by misplaced faith in AI—I got it working just in time for the new year, so I could switch platforms without messing up last year’s stats. Figuring that this new tool could probably help me somehow in my DUMB goal to age more gracefully, I started fiddling with it during my rides, studying the numbers and wondering vaguely, in the spirit of Alice as she tumbles down the rabbit hole toward Wonderland, how its data could help me improve. What I eventually realized is that my average power output for a ride exceeds what I’m doing at various points during it, and this represents a major area for improvement.

Let me explain. On a typical ride, my power output will average around 210 watts (or 250 “normalized” watts, meaning the average after all the very low readings from almost coasting, etc. are discarded). So I have been challenging myself during rides by asking, “Why is my output below 200 watts right now?” And for that matter, why should it ever be below 200, if I know I’m capable of maintaining that? Unless I’m doing a tricky descent, there’s really no good reason. To have a wide variance in effort during a ride just boils down to laziness (albeit a less drastic version than coasting when you could pedal). Despite my long tradition of making myself suffer during rides, I also have the human habit of conserving energy where possible, instinctively. Once I started paying more attention to my power output in the moment, throughout the ride, I started seeing the duration of my standard evening loop drop, and then drop some more.

Now, managing my effort better on a ride, nipping and tucking the lazy bits, might not seem like a game-changer; I mean, I get home a couple minutes earlier but so what? Well, as I eventually realized, going harder, consistently, all the time, actually improves your fitness. I mean, duh! It kills me how long I took to realize this actually, since it’s so obvious. But what I found is that the more I managed to keep the intensity up, ride after ride, the faster I got, and the more fun I had, and the more motivated I got. I discovered that the biggest improvement was in my power output while riding in the saddle, probably due to the increase in my core strength from the balance saucer. The muscular strength from the gym must be a factor too, because my fitness just seem to start to compound, like a freakin’ 401(k).

Improvement by the numbers

Here are some numbers to illustrate how crazy my progress has been. It’s a bit hard to compare my performance since a year ago (since during that period I had to alter my evening route due to a road closure), but my average speed over my longer (mostly weekend) rides went from 15.1 mph last August to 16.0 now, with most of the improvement coming since March, when my average was 15.2 mph. That’s a 5% improvement in speed, for the longer rides, in about four months.

But you know, my average speed during longer rides is a bit diluted, because loafing is naturally a bigger part of a 65-mile weekend ride with friends. My 20-mile after-work solo spin represents about three fourths of my rides, so this is where most of my fitness is built. It’s also where my improvement has been the most dramatic: last March my solo loop took me, on average, 1:24 (an hour 24 minutes), and this past month only 1:18. Can you imagine shaving six minutes off a 20-mile loop? And it’s not just that I’m bothering to ride faster; I’m capable of riding faster—much faster. My best time for this loop last March was 1:23, and a couple weeks ago I did it in under 1:14. Nine minutes faster. Are you kidding me?

But wait, this gets even better. I happen to track my total exercise duration pretty closely because I do an online DIY training contest with my family, and when I compare July 2025 to this past July, I see that my total duration actually declined significantly, from 58:12 (58 hours 12 minutes) in July 2025 to 45:26 last month. It’s nuts: I’m training less and my performance is soaring. All because I keep adding balance saucer tricks, gradually upping the weight on the gym exercise machines, and striving to maintain higher power throughout my rides. All in the service of this one DUMB goal.

And here’s probably the best part: all of my improvement has been, ultimately, gravy. Sure, I’m closely measuring and tracking my power, time, and speed on the bike, and my weight selection in the gym, but not in the service of holding myself accountable to anything. If this rate of improvement levels off next month, or even starts to drop, I won’t get discouraged, because remember my goal: to build and maintain as much strength and vigor as possible, while improving my balance, as I age. All I have to do is not decline. Actually, to not decline too fast. Best-effort!

Unimpressive

A final note: I want to emphasize the “U” in this DUMB goal: unimpressive. Consider how bored you’ve been getting over the last few paragraphs. That’s because, as important as my progress is to me, you couldn’t care less—and shouldn’t. This is why I think goals should be personal, and essentially private. I only present my experience to you as an illustration of what you yourself may achieve if you stop beating yourself up with SMART (or even just traditional) goals, and start thinking DUMB! Good luck with it!

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Ageing Focus - Make Balance a Habit!

Introduction

Last week’s post, though perhaps an amusing romp, wasn’t very responsible. I mean, why showcase my bad habits? Whose idea was that, anyway? I hope I didn’t come across as condoning any of those behaviors (though honestly, as odd as they are, you’d have to be some kind of kook to adopt them). This week I hope to provide a whole-grain, high-fiber, wholesome corrective. I’m offering up sincere and helpful advice here and I will try my best to make it amusing somehow.

Some background

My younger daughter is home for the summer and perhaps being around her vivacious youthfulness emphasizes how fricking old I’ve gotten. I guess I’ve reached the age where I worry more about my advancing decrepitude than reveling in whatever vigor I still have left. Sure, I can still make my bike go pretty fast when I dig deep, but I also dread the prospect of, say, my back going out for no good reason. (A buddy of mine, though he is still athletic and does all kinds of yoga, threw out his back putting on a sock.) I contemplate how to preserve my physical faculties over the last few decades of my life.

Strength and heart health are all well and good, but I lately I’m putting more focus on balance. Seventeen years ago I read a fascinating New Yorker article about the role balance plays in graceful ageing, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The article, by the doctor/professor/writer Atul Gawande, is called “The Way We Age Now.” (My friend P— and I have a running joke about Atul Gawande. P— is a doctor, and I fancy myself a writer, and we complain to each other how Gawande is a better doctor and writer than both of us, and is also better looking; we naturally assume he’s even seduced our wives at some point.) In the article Gawande describes how he tagged along with a Dr. Bludau, a geriatrician, during a routine physical exam of an 85-year-old woman:

It seemed to me that, with just a forty-minute visit, Bludau needed to triage by zeroing in on either the most potentially life-threatening problem (the possible metastasis) or the problem that bothered her the most (the back pain). But this was evidently not what he thought… The danger for her was losing what she had. The single most serious threat she faced was not the lung nodule or the back pain. It was falling. Each year, about three hundred and fifty thousand Americans fall and break a hip. Of those, forty per cent end up in a nursing home, and twenty per cent are never able to walk again. The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness. Elderly people without these risk factors have a twelve-per-cent chance of falling in a year. Those with all three risk factors have almost a hundred-per-cent chance.

What is to be done?

How do I address these three risk factors?

1. Being an athlete is a non-negotiable part of my lifestyle, because cycling is a) fun, b) something I have enough experience in that it’d be a shame not to do it, and c) my number-one way to burn off stress. Cycling addresses the strength part of my ageing, to a point. (I know that ideally I should do core exercises, join a gym, do yoga, etc. and I’m trying to muster the resolve to take those things up.)
2. In terms of prescription medications, I’m not sure how feasible it is for any of us to avoid needing them when we’re old. It’s not like we can just resolve to go without. I’m lucky enough to be blessed with low cholesterol, and my blood pressure is decent, and so far I have no risk factors for diabetes, but you just never know what I may need for this or that ailment in my codger years.
3. Balance: this is the area where I think I can make the biggest difference.

How can we improve our balance?

I’d like to think that being a cyclist automatically gives me great balance, and of course it can’t hurt, but I don’t think it’s actually enough. I learned this when I was doing physical therapy after breaking my femur. As we began my regimen, my physical therapist asked me what my goal was for the therapy. As I’ve explained in these pages, I’m not actually that into goals, but this time I had one. “I want to come out of this better than I was before,” I declared. After all, I had a gym to work in and an expert to guide me … why not dream of shoring up some of the classic deficiencies of the pure cyclist?

To start with I had to learn to walk all over again, and realized in the process just how complicated walking is. With every step, the back leg has to swing forward, the knee bent so your foot doesn’t hit the floor, and then you have to plant that foot and swing the other leg forward, and that swinging is more rhythmic when we realize. But because I didn’t trust my bad leg to bend properly, I was kind of swinging it around sideways so I could keep it straight, and thought I was doing pretty well until my physical therapist, laughing, told me to walk toward a mirror and watch myself. I looked like a drunken zombie.

After relearning how to walk, one of the toughest things I did in that gym was a toe-tapping exercise on a fairly unstable platform. It was basically a square plank of wood with a half-cylinder under it (i.e., a half-circle cross section), kind of like a teeter-totter that you stand on. I would start by standing on the plank, balancing so it wouldn’t tip forward or back. Then I’d tip the plank forward until its front edge tapped the floor, and then rock back until the plank was level again, the slower the better. I’d do this ten times, and then I’d switch to rocking back, to tap the back edge of the plank on the floor, return to level, and do that ten times. Once I mastered that with both feet, I learned how to do it standing on just one foot. Oddly, I was no better at this with my good leg than my recently healed one, but in time I went from incompetent to totally proficient, even after adding in a barbell in one hand to put me slightly off balance. I cannot tell you how stoked I was to have learned a new trick that I couldn’t have done before my accident. I actually was better than before.

So now, with Gawande’s article in mind, I want to continue that trajectory of actually improving my balance. The fun way is to ride indoors with my bike on rollers, when it’s too dark and/or wet to ride outdoors. The less fun, but logistically easier, way—and, more importantly, the way I can recommend to you, albertnet reader—is to do the PT balancing trick on a balance saucer. You can buy one of these (one manufacturer’s product name is “Wobble Balance Board”) for about $20. This is even harder that what I did in physical therapy.

The regimen

The great thing about the balance saucer is that you can do your whole routine in 5-10 minutes. (I suppose this duration will vary as you become more proficient, and based on how much you want to do.) My current regimen consists of the following exercises, in sets of 10 repetitions each:

• Standing on both feet, tap the front edge of the saucer on the floor
• Standing on both feet, tap the rear edge
• Standing on one foot, tap the front edge
• Standing on one foot, tap the rear edge
• Standing on both feet, tap the right edge
• Standing on both feet, tap the left edge

I hold a barbell in one hand, and after the first five reps I pass it to the other hand. If I feel like it, I pump the barbell in the air for extra exercise and instability. (I plan to figure out other cool things to do on this saucer, maybe even incorporating my upper body.)

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, and five movies totaling two minutes at 60 frames per second is therefore worth about 7.5 million words, here are videos showing the exercises:

(Video credit to my daughter, expertly wielding her superfly non-phone camera.)

Don’t be surprised if it takes a while to get good at this. When I started up again (over a decade after my physical therapy days), I was pretty wobbly and struggled for a while.

Make it a habit

Did you notice in that video that I wasn’t in a fancy studio with mirrors and mats, wearing PrAna yoga pants and fancy workout shoes and headphones and a fitness tracker? All you need for this is the saucer and a pair of shoes with good, grippy soles. With worn-out or loose-fitting shoes, I have a lot of trouble, and if I try to do this barefoot my feet slide off. But other than that, no special gear or preparation is required, not even a warm-up. That said, this activity is oddly strenuous given how low-impact (actually, zero-impact) it is. During winter, when I’m working from home and stuck at my desk with my blood congealing, almost like suspended animation, I like to take a break and do my balance regimen to get my blood flowing. It really warms me up.

Making this a habit is key. Initially you’ll need plenty of repetition to develop the balance needed for these exercises, and then you’ll want to maintain that consistency so that five, ten, and twenty years from now you won’t have lost the ability. It’s kind of interesting to ponder how well we could maintain this, if we do it daily … can you imagine having this kind of balance at 80? Assuming we don’t, at least we’d be declining from a pretty decent height of capability. I think that’s well worth pursuing.

Postscript

A few more notes, as I have used this thing for a couple years now:

Make sure your shoes are not only grippy enough not to slide, but are completely dry before doing your balance regimen. I started in on my routine once, months ago, when my shoes were a bit wet (though I thought I had wiped them enough on the mat). My saucer squirted out from under me and I fell, wanging my wrist. Not all saucers have the same anti-slip texture; my brother has one (from the same manufacturer as mine, but newer) that is much grippier. I will probably buy some of that sandpapery-textured tape you put on stairs and add it to my saucer. So be careful!

Not all these saucers have the same depth, so get one that is appropriate for your balance level (which may have a lot to do with your age). I recently tried my mom’s saucer and it’s far shallower than mine, which makes the exercises vastly easier (too easy in my case, but probably much better for, say, an octogenarian). Mine is four inches deep; I have seen three-inch versions and even 1.5-inch versions available online.

This article (also available in a schlockier form here if you get blocked by a paywall) suggests that a good measure of your body’s effective age is how long you can stand on one leg, especially your non-dominant one. The doctor who wrote the article cites Mayo Clinic research and concludes (as paraphrased by ChatGPT), “While balance tests offer a simple method to gauge physical aging, incorporating balance training into regular exercise routines is crucial for sustaining overall health and mobility.” Running the calculation cited in the article, I have determined that a typical person my age ought to be able to stand on his or her non-dominant leg for about 22 seconds. That seemed way low to me, so I tried it out. I stood on my left leg for a couple of minutes, no problem, and then I started to get bored so I passed the time by doing the Wordle, then added stickers to my Wordle snapshot before sending it to my daughter, and finally, after over eight minutes on one foot, I was really bored and my leg and foot were starting to hurt so I bagged it. Needless to say, this balance regimen really works!

Another postscript

More recently I came across an article suggesting that a good balance challenge is to tie your shoe while standing on one foot. This capability is said to bode well for preserving balance into old age. I didn’t find this much of a challenge, and decided that tying my shoe while standing on the balance saucer would be a better trick. It is, and now I’ve incorporated it into my saucer regimen. Check it out:

If you perceive that the above video ran a bit long—i.e., that it took me longer than necessary to tie my shoe—it’s because of the role vision plays in balancing. As it turns out, where we look has everything to do with balance. If you close your eyes while on the saucer it’s almost impossible to do the taps, etc. described in this post. And I’ve found that looking at my shoe while balancing on the saucer totally messes me up. Something about locating ourselves in space is instrumental to balance. Only if I look out into the room can I tie my shoe while on the saucer.

Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Overlooked Posts of 2023

Introduction

This evening I’ve been casting about for a post that would tie together the events of 2023 and kind of put this long and tiresome year to bed. In the process I discovered this fun article in the New York Times listing stories from this past year that their editors felt didn’t reach as many readers as they should have. That inspired me, and in this post I’ll go one better: I’ll not only list my least-viewed posts from 2023 but explain why you shouldn’t have missed them. (And if you did read these, this is your chance to feel all smug and validated.)

January

 “Ask a Fitness Dweeb” has so far received the fewest pageviews for January 2023. In fact, by my rough math, if I had ads turned on for this blog, this post wouldn’t have even earned me enough for a cup of coffee. And yet, doesn’t a fitness-themed post seem perfectly timely as readers ponder their New Year’s Resolutions?

Maybe it’s the “Dweeb” part. That was my daughter’s idea. Don’t worry, my persona in this post is no dweebier than ever. This (albeit contrived) advice column is particularly worthy if you check out the bit about gamification, and my description of the international training contest I run every year that is super easy, fun, and effective. (The Q4 contest just wrapped up today with, amazingly, a tie for first place!)

February

For this month, the most neglected post was “What We Should (and Will) Be Embarrassed By.” Ask yourself: has it ever seemed like people are more shameless than ever? Well, this post can be a useful guide for avoiding that. If you’re tired of the phrase “lean in,” and/or the promotion of cannabis as a “wellness” aid rather than what it is (i.e., a hedonistic drug that dudes like Jeff Spicoli use because they’re young and irresponsible and like to party), and/or you think Vitamin Water should be called “Stupid Water,” this post is for you.

March

I was pleased to see, in February, how well my (harsh) critiques of ChatGPT did. My two-part series, “A.I. Smackdown – English Major vs. ChatGPT,” garnered gobs of pageviews. I was a bit bothered, though, by a sense that the posts were slightly passive-aggressive, given that I was showcasing A.I.’s failings without exploring the potential upside. This led to curiosity about how ChatGPT would do if I tried to formally teach it, which I tried doing with the post Schooling ChatGPT. This was, for me, a fairly fascinating exercise, though also tedious as ChatGPT apologized constantly for its repeated errors. What I discovered is that (as it eventually admitted) it cannot learn in any formal way, by taking instruction from a knowledgeable person. It can only train itself by ingesting vast troves of data from across the Internet.

I’m not sure why this third post didn’t do as well as the other ones on this topic. Perhaps three posts in fairly rapid succession was just too much. Suffice to say, if you enjoyed the first two, you should definitely check this one out.

April

The loss-leader for this month was “Errata.” My jumping-off point was the policy of the Times copping to its various errors over time. Perhaps readers skipped this post because they don’t overmuch care to see my errors corrected, being more laid-back than that. But that would be missing the point: this is just a humor piece. Here’s an excerpt:

In “Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Vasectomy - But Were Afraid To Ask,” I wrote, “The nurse arranged towels around my groin until the entire area was reduced to the pink-red scrotum shrouded in white, like a sunburned toad poking out of a field of freshly fallen snow.” Upon reflection I realize that my freshly-shaved scrotum more closely resembled a frog than a toad.

Who doesn’t need a good laugh or two? Check it out!

May

Speaking of a good laugh, the post “More Tom Swifties” was my most unpopular for May (even though my original “Tom Swifties” post has done quite well). This post offers dozens of easy one-liners that ought to be a pleasant diversion for anyone. For example:

“Man, you really stink!” Tom fumed.
“I’ll just give my boss the finger,” Tom said flippantly.
“How do you feel about gay couples?” Tom queried.

In case you’re looking for something a little more sophisticated, this post also puts ChatGPT through its paces creating A.I. Tom Swifties. Spoiler: ChatGPT crashes and burns horribly; for example, “‘I’m terrible at baseball,’” Tom said bat-terly.” Huh?

June

Why did “Impromptu Commencement Address” do so poorly? Beats me. The premise—what speech would you give a college graduating class if given only twenty minutes to prepare?—seemed like a good one, and I’m frankly pleased with the result. I make fun of myself, of college grads, and of all the hand-wringing and anxiety saturating our culture these days. If nothing else this speech has some good stage directions (e.g., “[Wait for applause or maybe mostly silence, or the generalized murmur of people who have tuned out completely and are chattering away amongst themselves, and/or one or more people yelling things like ‘Get off the stage!’].” I also explore one of the pressing questions of our day: is it true the future is female?

July

Historically, my bike ride reports do quite well; for example, “Mount Baker (WA) with Brother & Nephew” has garnered over 2,000 pageviews. So why did “Gravel Riding in the Rockies” fizzle? It had the usual attractions: food descriptions, breathtaking landscape photos, and schadenfreude (e.g., “My rented helmet was designed, apparently, for Ernie, from ‘Sesame Street,’ but my head is evidently shaped more like Bert’s, so the helmet slid forward during the bumpy descents, mashing my sunglasses into the bridge of my nose, unless I tightened the bonnet hard enough to threaten a gradual concussion and/or some sanded-off forehead flesh”). So, if you’ve enjoyed my other ride reports, get over to this one and see what you think.

August

Okay, this next one isn’t just my biggest disappointment of the month, popularity-wise, but of the entire year: “If William Wordsworth Were Writing Today.” I get that Wordsworth is a moldy old British poet, and has likely been labeled “problematic” by modern scholars because he was white, male, etc. But trust me, this post is anything but stuffy. It presents a hypothetical instant-messaging dialogue that might take place if the great poet submitted a new work for review to a modern, sales-obsessed editor. It’s breezy, fun, and one of my shortest posts ever. Check it out!

September

I wasn’t able to cover the Vuelta a España on albertnet, but I wrote a special post, “Jumbo-Visma & the Kuss Conundrum,” about perhaps the most exciting thing in the race: an American, Sepp Kuss, had a couple of amazing days in the mountains and moved into first place overall, only to have his biggest challenge come from two of his own teammates. This was a major soap opera for anyone following the sport, and though I was perhaps a day or so late covering it, I was surprised how little traction this post got. To this day, YouTube is constantly offering me up more videos on the whole affair, even though I didn’t even use YouTube for my research.

This post advances ten theories on why a professional team would hamper their own star rider when he’s winning for them. My theories range from the quite plausible to the mildly facetious to the outright bogus, all in keeping with my primary goal, which is to entertain. Rereading it now, I think it’s held up well, long after the race itself has been decided.

October

I guess it’s not really fair to pick on one post in particular for October, since all four of them were on the same topic, that being my weeklong cycling trip in the French Alps. But the last installment, “Epic Trans Alps Cycling Trip – Part VI” has the fewest pageviews and doesn’t seem to be catching up. I guess six posts on the same topic might have pushed my readers’ patience. But if you missed this before, it’s a good one: lots of photos, with the best scenery of my entire trip, and perhaps the most potent Schadenfreude as I completely melted down on the legendary Alpe-d’Huez climb. Give it a whirl!

November

I am frankly offended by the notion that human beings don’t have free will. You can well imagine, therefore, that I’d be super annoyed when a vainglorious douchebag from Stanford, with a big dumb Karl Marx beard and long hair in ringlets, throws together a crappy book that pretends to prove, via neuroscience, that we don’t have free will. To make matters worse, the book is selling well, and a surprising number of intellectual types are apparently stroking their goatees and saying, “Yes, yes, this is all very compelling.” I bent over backwards with my critique, “Undeterred - A Critique of a Book About Life Without Free Will,” and even got my daughter to do a wonderful drawing of the douchebag in question, the bloviating, preening Robert Sapolksy. Naturally I’m disappointed more people didn’t read this post. Even if you never considered reading Sapolsky’s book, you should read this as a cautionary tale about academic types getting drunk on their own bathwater.

December

Okay, I’ll grant that it’s a little early to tell which post from this month is underperforming. It’s not like my posts open like Hollywood blockbusters. But I suppose I can feel a bit disappointed that “Cycling Smackdown – Small Cog Tale” hasn’t already gone viral and made me an overnight Internet celebrity, or at least racked up a really solid number of pageviews. This is a ripping yarn about an all-out cycling sprint on a cold, dark, rainy evening, depicting a classic confrontation between robust teenagers and a seasoned but middle-aged coach. I suffered horribly to produce this tale so you might as well honor that with a quick read.

See you next year!

Thank you for visiting albertnet. I look forward to another year of writing about, well, anything that amuses me, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

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Ask a Fitness Dweeb

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

I read somewhere that I should always do my weight training before my cardio. Do you agree?

Justin D, Asheville, NC

Dear Justin,

I doubt it matters very much. According to the CDC, more than 60 percent of U.S. adults don’t get the recommended amount of physical activity, which is 150 minutes per week. Fixating on the order of your activities seems like gilding the lily to me. I will say that doing cardio first might help you warm up, which can prevent injury when lifting weights.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

OK, I get that you work out a lot. So I’m wondering: do you still have some clothes that fit too tight, and/or some that are baggy?

Whitney P, Santa Monica, CA

Dear Whitney,

Sure I do! Don’t stress if you have this issue. It’s not you, it’s the clothes. Some stretch, some shrink, and even if we’re fit our bodies still do change over time. For example, my suit pants are super tight … I must have been biking up a lot of hills when I had them tailored. But I’ve also got these jeans that I’m practically swimming in, so having those fit better will be a nice silver lining when I gain some weight at some point.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

During these short, dark, cold winter days my husband works out indoors on his bike trainer, and it’s almost scary to watch. He’s thrashing around with such intensity, and breathing so hard, it’s like an act of violence. Should I be worried? Could he have a heart attack or something?

Kim A, Berkeley, CA

Dear Kim,

As long as your husband is in good shape and warms up properly, it’s probably harmless. It could be that to reach his desired intensity he just needs a super high cadence, or resistance, or both. Maybe he’s working through some stress. See how he is afterward … if he seems mellower, that hammer-fest could be exactly what he needs (click here for details). As far as heart attacks, these do afflict sedentary people who suddenly exert themselves too intensely (for example, every winter you hear about people suffering heart attacks while shoveling snow). There is also some anecdotal evidence of ultra-fit athletes having heart problems, but I don’t think that’s widespread … click here for details. (I’m no real authority, of course … everyone is advised to consult a medical doctor before embarking on a fitness regimen.)

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

Walking is so low-intensity … does it even count as exercise?

Charles D, New York, NY

Dear Charles,

Any activity is better than nothing. Sure, you’ll be better off if at least some of your exercise is vigorous, and if you’re trying to lose weight intensity will definitely help. But it’s so simple to go for a walk, even if you have only 5 or 10 minutes, and it’s such a nice way to shift gears, get some air, etc., it would be absurd to denounce it. I use walks as a way to keep a perfect track record of getting activity every day. Even if you don’t get a chance for a proper workout, it’s never too dark, rainy, or cold to get out for a quick stroll.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

I’m trying to increase my exercise consistency. Some of my fittest pals tell me the trick is gamification—that is, using a scoring system and/or friendly competition as a way to motivate them. They mention Strava, Zwift, etc. Do you employ gamification and if so is there a specific platform you recommend?

Brad H, Austin, TX

Dear Brad,

In general, I have found gamification to be very powerful. I haven’t tried Zwift (until recently, I thought it was a floor mop of some kind), nor am I on Strava. From what I’ve seen of Strava, it looks great for budding athletes because improvement over time can be very motivational. But as much as I exercise, age is slowing me down year by year, and in the Bay Area where I live there are so many dedicated bike racers, getting a KOM or even a top 50 would be pretty difficult. But regardless of age, level, talent, etc. you can totally employ DIY gamification. This could be as simple as sticking a gold star on your calendar for each day you exercise.

I have a really cool DIY gamification scheme. I host a quarterly online contest with over a dozen participants, all friends or family members, using a shared online spreadsheet. Here’s how it works: we simply enter the duration of our activity each day, and select the activity type from a pull-down menu. The spreadsheet calculates a score based on the difficulty. Here’s a snapshot (click to enlarge):

Formulas, graphs, etc. do the rest. The contest works really well for a lot of us, being very fun and motivational. The youngest participant is 17, and the oldest is almost 85. All but two of us are at or above the CDC exercise guideline, and three of us have more than tripled it. I’m happy to share the spreadsheet template—just email me here. (For what it’s worth, I used to do a far more complex contest that rewarded high intensity, based on heart rate, which led to absurd levels of fitness and suffering as detailed here.)

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

Given how much time you apparently spend exercising, do you ever contemplate what your regimen is displacing? In other words, what are you giving up to worship at the altar of fitness?

Laura M, Minneapolis, MN

Dear Laura,

I have contemplated this, but not at length, because for me it is an article of faith that exercise is worth making time for. I suppose there are insanely busy people, like the scientists who developed the COVID vaccine, or single mothers working two jobs to feed their families, who really cannot afford the luxury of daily workouts. But for the rest of us, trying to reduce exercise hours would make sense only after first cutting back on all the time wasted indulging in clickbait, binge-watching video entertainment, and being glued to the 24-hour news cycle.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

Why do you settle for such an unflattering moniker? Don’t you feel demeaned? Why not “Exercise Advisor” or something? Just curious…

Rob R, Topeka, KS

Dear Rob,

When I first pitched this column to my editor, I proposed something like “guy who actually exercises.” He laughed in my face and said, “Sounds pretentious, which is especially annoying coming from a dweeb like you.” He reluctantly agreed to let me do the column, but only if I called myself The Fitness Dweeb.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

My girlfriend wants to get an e-bike, not just for commuting but for actual exercise. If the point is fitness, isn’t an e-bike kind of like putting an escalator or moving walkway in a health club? Can you set her straight?

Monica L, Phoenix, AZ

Dear Monica,

Actually, I disagree with you. If an e-bike makes your girlfriend more likely to exercise, it’s a good thing. We all have to fight our natural aversion to unpleasant duress, and if that one big hill on her route is just too much to face before or after a long workday, why not get a little help surmounting it? I tried out a friend’s high-end electric-assist road bike once, and it was a total blast. I was still pedaling, still working, but I just flew along; more than anything, it made me feel young again. My impulse wasn’t to loaf; it was to go even faster. Look, when you compare cycling to a truly difficult sport like running or swimming, it could seem like the bicycle itself is cheating. Where pedal-assist bikes are concerned, I say go for it. (But that other kind of e-bike with no pedals, that’s like a scooter … forget it, that’s just a vehicle.)

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

Do you get a lot of hate mail?

John P, Detroit, MI

Dear John,

Of course I get some negative feedback, but most of it is positive. Here are a couple of recent comments:

I admire this article for the well-researched content and excellent wording.I got so involved in this material that I couldn’t stop reading.I am impressed with your work and skill.Thank you so much. 情趣用品 

With up to as} $3000 up for grabs as a new new} participant, DoucheyBetOnline has one of the best on line casino bonuses round. Remember that 25x playthrough requirements apply and every one|that every one} video games besides craps and stay dealer video games can be played.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

I am an avid runner but don’t have the ambition to do any races. Can you suggest some S.M.A.R.T. goals to help me improve over time?

Jill M, Lafayette, CO

Dear Jill,

To be honest, even when I was a pretty serious bike racer, I didn’t put much stock in long-term goals. As detailed here, that approach covers the rest of my life as well. I think that devoting myself to the process, without worrying about where that might take me, has always been enough. For example, instead of worrying about next year or five years out, why not just make each run as fun and challenging as you can? More recently, I’ve concluded that SMART (i.e., specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals might be the worst kind. As I describe here, when setting long-term goals such as New Year’s Resolutions, I favor DUMB ones: duplicate, unimpressive, mealy-mouthed, and best-effort. For example, my goal for this quarter is to try again to beat my brother Geoff in the humble online contest I described earlier … and if I fail, who cares, because it means he got a lot of exercise too! All this being said, if you want extra motivation for your running, maybe sign up for a Fun Run that’s longer or hillier than what you normally do.

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

After a workout I feel so good, I’m already looking forward to the next time … but then when the next time comes around, I find I’m dreading it. What gives?

Thomas B, Seattle, WA

Dear Thomas,

I struggle with that myself, and have for decades. It’s just the way we humans are wired, I’m afraid. But as I describe here, it may be possible to mitigate this dread a bit by making sure your workouts aren’t too long or too intense. In the moment, when we’re caught up in all the adrenaline and endorphins of a great workout, we’re often tempted to dig deeper and/or go longer, which is all well and good until we viscerally recall that experience later, when the adrenaline and endorphins have worn off. Then we seem to mainly remember the brutality of it. So I make a point to keep my regular workouts more reasonable, to exercise self-compassion, and to save the big efforts for when I ride with friends (i.e., when I struggle to keep up).

Dear Fitness Dweeb,

I had a gym membership for years because I thought shelling out the money for it would make me actually go … but it didn’t. So now I’ve quit, and I’m thinking hey, maybe I can put the money I’m saving toward something else, like nice gear, that can help motivate me to work out. But part of me thinks that might just be throwing good money after bad. What’s your take? Am I just being crazy?

Sarah D, Portland, OR

Dear Sarah,

No, you’re not crazy. Obviously spending money on fitness doesn’t guarantee results, but if any of your gear isn’t up to snuff, and thus makes your workout less fun, by all means replace it. Are your shoes completely comfortable? And given how much rain Portland gets, do you have the all-weather gear (i.e., groovy technical fabrics) you need? I have zero regrets about the super-cool bike wheels I bought a few years back, and I’m already dreaming of a new yoga mat that’s long enough that I don’t clonk my head on the hardwood floor during the full-body stretch…

The Fitness Dweeb is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask the Fitness Dweeb,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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New Year’s Resolutions - Let’s Get It Right This Time

Introduction

There’s a lot to hate about January. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, it’s probably cold. Meanwhile, the holidays, though they can be a grind, at least represent a slowdown at work—but now they’re over, it’s a new year, and corporate leadership is all gung-ho about plans and quotas and everything. And on top of it all, everybody is talking about New Year’s Resolutions.

Okay, that last statement was untrue—not “everybody” is talking about Resolutions. But if just a few people are, especially in the media, it can sure seem like everybody. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In this post I’ll provide some strategies for grappling with this annoying ritual. Don’t worry—I’ll try to be more snide than sanctimonious.

Recycling old resolutions – fair game?

When I bothered to research New Year’s Resolutions for a previous post, I found that most goals were pretty predictable: lose weight, exercise more, drink less alcohol, get out of debt, spend more time with family. Probably not a lot of first-timers, then … more like recidivism, people renewing their resolve to improve in ways they failed at the previous year. No wonder these Resolutions are such a drag! So what is to be done?

Well, one obvious solution is just to give up. I often tell my kids, “Look, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that anything difficult isn’t worth doing.” (This isn’t my own idea; I think I’m quoting, or at least paraphrasing, Homer Simpson.) Face it, if you’ve been in debt for ten years, you’re probably not gonna suddenly make it into the black just because it’s January and you’ve resolved to do so. And if you want to spend more time with family but both your kids are teenagers, good luck with that, too. I’m not trying to be defeatist … but maybe you should scale back or jettison the perennial good intentions if they just frustrate you year after year. Be compassionate with yourself!

Did you see what I did just now, when I said that I didn’t want to be defeatist, even though I was totally being exactly that? That’s a sophisticated literary technique called “bullshit.” If I were a Ph.D. I’d probably call it “being slightly disingenuous.” But I kind of meant it. I really, actually don’t want to be defeatist, not when we’re still only in the first week of January. Let’s try harder.

Improving your approach

Just because you’ve failed at a Resolution before doesn’t mean there’s no hope … maybe your approach was wrong. A friend of mine sends me articles he writes for his Counseling website, and the thing is, I don’t mind because they’re actually useful. They’re also really brief. (I could probably learn from that, but I refuse.) He writes here, in his article on Resolutions, that it’s really helpful to “create a social accountability network” by enlisting friends to help cheer you on when you make progress and/or shame you when you fall off. I think this makes tons of sense.

I’d been employing the accountability strategy to some degree already, in my effort to lose weight. I have always used the buddy system when tackling my watered-down version of the South Beach Diet (click here for details). But after reading Ceely’s article I doubled down and looked for ways to “gamify” my program. So now my Sloth Beach buddy and I have a new tab on our shared spreadsheet where we summarize our meals (Good vs. OK vs. Crap) and color-code them red or green. We even have a rudimentary scoring system: 2 points for a Good meal, 1 point for an OK meal (only two meals a day count), plus we subtract a point for Crap, add 2 points for a Large workout, add 1 point for a Medium workout, and tally it up. On a good day you can score six points. On a bad day you may come up negative.

Is this working? Hell yeah! I applied the scoring system retroactively to last year so we could compare our results. So far this year, my average score is up 31% and my buddy’s is up 80%—no  joke! Yes, the year is young, but we’re off to a roaring start.

A low-tech approach

Obviously the above example only applies to nerdy people who don’t mind infusing yet another aspect of their lives with high-tech tools. So for the rest of you, here’s another case study: I’ve resolved this year to manage stress better, and (given my poor track record in this area historically) I’m trying two new methods: focused breathing and a mantra. (You can’t get much lower-tech than a mantra.)

You might think I’m joking, or that I’m a joke, but the thing is, as I researched stress reduction I kept stumbling on articles expounding the virtues of a mantra, and I’m willing to try anything. I’m pretty early in the process and am still deciding what my personal mantra should be. Apparently it doesn’t really matter what the word or phrase is; many that people select (e.g., “Aum,” “Namah Shivaya”) aren’t in their native tongue, and some are almost like babble. It’s the repetition that does the trick, I’m advised. So last night, when I was tossing and turning in bed, stressed out after a hard day, I started trying out different phrases. Nothing worked until the edges of my consciousness became ragged and my subconscious started to take over. Then a suitable mantra suddenly popped into my head: “Kick your ass, kid!”

This is a phrase dredged up from my past. When I was like ten years old, I got into an altercation at the roller rink with a bigger kid. He was a total stranger to me. His name was like Shane or Shaz or Shalom or something and he was a friend of one of my schoolmates, Brian Bogart, whom I’d previously gotten in a fistfight with during a slumber party. Now, at the roller rink, Brian essentially sicced Shane on me, seeing an opportunity for revenge. I baited Shane a bit, even though I was kind of scared, because I knew my big brother Max wasn’t far away. Sure enough, Max showed up in the nick of time, he and Shane started pushing and shoving and mouthing off. “Kick your ass, kid!” Shane shouted a couple of times. Max threw this phrase back in Shane’s face, mocking him. Just as they were about to start throwing punches, we all got thrown out of the roller rink. That really sucked because Mom had dropped Max and me off there for the whole afternoon, so we were basically standing around in the parking lot for the next hour. Needless to say this incident made “Kick your ass, kid!” part of our family lore.

I totally get that “Kick your ass, kid!” seems like the wrong tone for a mantra, and you probably think I’m being facetious here, mocking the whole mantra concept, but really I’m not. I’m not against finding a new mantra that’s a bit calmer, but the thing is, “Kick your ass, kid!” really did the trick last night. I just kept working on my breathing—this “square breathing” technique where you inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale for four counts, and then pause again for four counts to complete the cycle—while saying (in my head), “Kick your ass, kid!” over and over in a very non-threatening way, kind of droning it. Four counts per breathing step, four steps in the cycle, and a four-syllable mantra ... perfect. I’d breathe in, with the phrase counting off the beats for me, then hold my breath through another iteration, then breathe it out—“Kick your ass, kid!”—before completing the cycle with one more (albeit silent) incantation of it during the pause. It was like magic … I was asleep in no time.

(Even upon reflection I find that “Kick your ass, kid!” holds up well as a mantra. Had I been better educated at age ten, I might have summed up that roller rink altercation, and the parking lot purgatory it begat, and in fact all the fights teens get into everywhere, and how that turns into posturing and one-upmanship in later life, by quoting Ecclesiastes: “All is vanity.” That was one of the candidates I’d come up with when first casting about for a mantra. But phonetically speaking, “All is vanity” is just not as satisfying as “Kick your ass, kid!”)

The brain-dead simple approach

Okay, this breathing and mantra regimen—though low-tech—isn’t exactly easy either. You want a super-simple way to be more successful in your Resolution? Employ an “affordance.” My wife came across this term in some book. It has to do with a change you make to your environment to encourage and facilitate a desired behavior. (Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it.)

An affordance can be extremely basic. For example, if you want to work out more often, and are looking for a way to hold yourself accountable, that doesn’t mean you have to keep a really complicated training diary complete with heart rate and power data. You can just get a fresh wall calendar and record your workouts with a check mark. This is positive feedback, and by hanging the calendar where you’re sure to see it, you make it into an affordance. My family has a shared workout calendar posted in our phone room. This is perhaps the simplest “social accountability network” imaginable.

What if you’re too perfect to need a Resolution?

Look, I know there are people out there who so totally have their acts together, it’s impossible for them to formulate a single New Year’s Resolution. Maybe you’re just too perfect and there’s no need to change a thing!

I’ll confess, when I look at my life every January and think of what to fix, I don’t see a lot of low-lying fruit myself. Though I chafe at having a belly where there was none before, my actual body-mass index is spang in the middle of normal. I exercise a lot and I’ve never smoked. Medical studies suggest I should perhaps drink more alcohol than I do. I’m no further in debt than anybody fortunate enough to own real estate. But to assume everything is fine is simply a failure of the imagination. If nothing else, I’m a year older and that automatically suggests some Resolutions:

1. Get a colonoscopy … it’s time
2. Work with a physical therapist – learn some spine exercises I can do regularly, to lower my odds of randomly throwing out my back
3. Research 401(k) catch-up contributions (which I’m entitled to now that I’ve turned 50)

I’m lucky enough that if I’m ever tempted to leave well enough alone in January, I have my brother Max for inspiration. Most years he comes up with new fewer than a hundred Resolutions, many of which could easily apply to me. Here are some highlights from his fresh 2020 batch:

9. Be alone with someone else who likes to be left alone and leave each other alone.

11. Mom

19. Stop lying to the universe.

21. Stop dripping oil. Period.

49. If I see something, say something, and vice versa.

62. Increase popularity among non-college-educated white males.

65. Don’t eat hot dogs because dogs are sentient beings.

68. Become more sly, selfish, and manipulative but in a good way.

71. Be boring, but with a twist.

72. Learn to ignore impulses by fashioning a quick list of possible outcomes until the moment’s gone.

78. Go easy on myself. I’m a stupid dumb-ass, I make mistakes.

79. Take it easy on all stupid dumb-asses who make mistakes.

93. Scratch ear lobe in a way that doesn’t make it look as though I have bugs or mites. Make it sort of suggestive.

94. Find my secret talent and use it to exploit myself.

My brother sure makes it look easy, doesn’t he? If you’re lamenting (as I am) not being nearly that clever, well … maybe 2020 is the year you finally do something about it!

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Is This Peloton Ad Sexist, & Should We Care?

Introduction

A commercial for the Peloton stationary bike went viral recently based on widespread accusations of sexism. In this post I evaluate the ad, explore the question of its alleged sexism, and (more importantly) assess a much bigger problem illustrated by this flap.

The ad

You can see the ad here (at least for now; Peloton has pulled it down and might go after re-postings of it). On Christmas morning, an affluent man has given his fit, pretty, 30-something wife a gift of a $2,300 exercise bike. She gasps, “A Peloton?” The rest of the ad is the woman vlogging about her rides. She’s visibly anxious at first, telling her smartphone camera, “‘I’m a little nervous, but excited.” Then, “Five days in a row. Are you surprised? I am.” At the end the camera pulls back and she’s just shown the finished video to her husband; it ends with her saying, “A year ago, I didn’t realize how much this would change me. Thank you.”

After running for a while, the ad suffered (as detailed here) a widespread backlash across the Internet. The more people forwarded it in disgust, the more of a story it became. Eventually it had amassed a reported 3.7 million views, with 2/3 getting a thumbs-down, before Peloton yanked it. Of course, Peloton defended itself, and naturally a lot of anti-PC people joined the fray. 

Seizing the moment, the movie actor Ryan Reynolds, who is launching his own gin brand, did an ad using the same actress, making fun of the Peloton spot. In the gin ad, this same wife is at a bar with two girlfriends. As the scene opens, the wife just stares blankly ahead of her, for a solid ten seconds, as if pithed. Then she toasts “to new beginnings” (she’s no longer wearing a wedding ring) and aggressively downs an entire gin martini in one go, before enthusiastically accepting another from her friend who says to herself (and us), “It’s gonna be a fun night.” Clearly the wife has changed her mind about this gift and her husband.

Further fanning the flames, the actress went on “The Today Show,” along with Ryan Reynolds, to discuss the two ads. Lots of other mainstream media have weighed in, including the “Financial Times” of London.

So … is the ad sexist?

My initial reaction to the ad was that it’s pretty stupid, anyway. First of all, a $2300 exercise bike, which comes with a $50/month subscription to online spin classes, doesn’t strike me as a very good gift. For this kind of money, you’d have to really want it for yourself—which is itself a big if. I know a ton of cyclists and very few of them are interested in indoor workouts; those who are want to use their own racing bike, on a proper resistance trainer or on rollers, rather than this clunky gym-ass thing with its unisex saddle and corny aero handlebars. To shell out that kind of coin, you’d have to be really committed—but the wife looked surprised to receive it, and a bit apprehensive. I can relate … if my wife bought me a $2300 rowing machine or a fancy yoga mat, I’d have even more trepidation than the Peloton wife (as would my wife upon seeing my Year-of-Dana-Doing-Yoga vlog, which would be more unsettling than “The Blair Witch Project”).

That said, the ad didn’t get my heckles up particularly. The wife might have asked for the Peloton and is only pretending to be surprised to receive it. And as my wife pointed out, she might have played up her trepidation for her vlog, to seem more humble.

Curious about the opinions of other reasonable people, I polled my bike team for input, asking who found it sexist. One pal replied simply, “nope,” and another found it “no more sexist than any other commercial,” citing car ads where the man always drives.

Another of my teammates had this observation: 

Well, I’m not sure if it’s sexist but it’s definitely lame. What I find annoying about it is her fear and trepidation. It’s not like he just gave her a downhill mountain bike or a track bike. She’s going to be riding in her comfy home. Also, having gone through childbirth she knows more about pain than her husband. The fact that the ad makes her seem worried about that really makes her seem diminished, weak and lacking any confidence. Although they don’t show her husband out shredding it up on a bike or doing super ‘manly’ things, you get the impression it’s his role to bring her out of her meek little shell. [If I did my own version of this ad, she’d say] “Hell yeah, I’m going to crush this thing” or “Uh, I actually wanted a gravel bike.”

The “Financial Times” writer had a similar reaction, finding the ad “unintentionally sexist” based on the woman’s statement, “a year ago, I didn’t realize how much this would change me.” The writer points out, “Not only did her husband know better, it seems, but he was right to push her into becoming more toned.”

Moreover, just like with the clearly sexist Pinarello ad I reviewed awhile back, I cannot help but mourn the lost opportunity here: the ad creators should have reversed the roles. This would lessen the risk of anybody being offended, because fat-shaming is less often aimed at men. (The ad creators rightly identified the fat-shaming risk and made sure this wife was thin even before getting the bike.) In my experience men are more likely to blithely let themselves go, so for a woman to give her husband the bike just makes more sense. Males, who have historically enjoyed the power position and who also seem to think a few extra pounds just makes them cuddly and/or Falstaffian, can be expected to have a sense of humor about being overweight. I think an ad could tastefully play with that. Upon receiving the Peloton the husband could say (a bit too sincerely), “You shouldn’t have,” and then his wife could poke him in the soft belly and say, “Actually, hon ... it’s time.” He could then mount the bike with typical male swagger, only to have his first online spin class kick his ass. From there, his gradual apotheosis into a truly fit person would make a much more satisfying “personal journey” than the original Peloton ad is able to provide.

So why did this ad agency go with the dangerous trope of a guy pressuring his wife to get fitter? It could be unconscious bias. Perhaps the idea of a generous guy, who knows what his wife needs, came naturally to the ad creator, based on habitual, prevailing sexism.

My wife suggests a simpler reason for having the woman receive the gift: maybe the ad creators focused on an attractive woman just to get more people to watch. I asked her, “If the ad starred Chris Hemsworth, wouldn’t you watch?” She replied, “I don’t think that would work … he’s too large, he would dwarf the machine.”

A final note on the sexism question: frankly, I’m more disturbed by the actress’s interview on “The Today Show” than by the ad itself. While an entire creative team failed to detect the tone-deafness of the ad, the actress—as if conditioned by a society that blames women for everything—takes full responsibility for the public reaction. She declares, “Honestly, I think it was just my face. Like, I think it was my fault! My eyebrows looked, like worried, I guess—I don’t know, people were like, ‘She looks scared, she looks worried,’ and I’m like, oh no, my eyebrows, they moved!” The female interviewer immediately responded, “That’s absurd. If your face conveyed the wrong emotion, that’s not your fault. The director should have spotted the problem and re-shot the scene.”

As if! Alas, what actually happened was that the interviewer said, “I guess a lot of people have Botox and stuff and their eyebrows stay straight.” (She really said this—look for yourself.) Cripes, where is the support for this put-upon actress who was just doing her job as best she could? Where is the sanity? Oh no, a commercial offended people—must have been the actress’s eyebrows! Let’s prescribe a toxic drug to fix that! Not that I’m asking for the “Today” spot to go viral and launch a massive outcry. I think we’ve all suffered enough.

Should we even care about this ad?

Okay, time to back up and consider: is it even worthwhile to worry about any of this, when more than 3 billion people worldwide live on less than $2.50 a day? Well, it can be. To ponder anything deeply, on a legitimate intellectual level, has intrinsic value, so as long as we’re looking at a larger question (e.g., what sexism is and how it manifests in human behavior), versus trotting out some knee-jerk reaction based on an entrenched worldview we already had. But I take issue with how the reaction was fueled: Americans have been trained to react strongly to specific media moments, to the point that a clumsily-produced ad gets thousands of people attacking each other in the comments section of all the “news” articles celebrating and sensationalizing the supposed scandal.

A few examples of these highly charged comments (below the “Inside Edition” article here): 

• “Getting your thin wife a weight-loss gift is bad husbanding. No intelligent man would do that. The commercial is cringey and weird. She looks like she’s going to cry in almost every scene and seems so desperate for his approval, like a child or abuse victim. It’s bizarre.”
• “lol fat shaming serves to put pressure to live a healthy life. America has become overrun with fattys and it has become normalized to the point noone cares anymore. Put down that donut lardass!”
• “If a woman wanted an exercise bike, she’d buy one for herself. Similarly, if she wanted to lose weight/get fit, she would do so. The idea that she needs to have these things bought for her/introduced into her life, continues the idea of women being economically dependent and/or passive, unable to make decisions for themselves. Similarly, the focus on a woman’s body, having a man re-design it for her, and for her to express gratitude at the end, is a long way from 21st century feminism.”
• “I hope all the haters don’t buy a Peloton and burn them in protest , PS Trump would hate that”
• “What’s with women freaking out about nothing all the time. Wtf!”

The vitriol is thick … but of course this is nothing new. So much Internet content is just a launch pad for people to vent about their personal philosophies and disparage those who disagree. I just checked out a cyclingnews.com article pretty much at random (I selected the first one I stumbled on involving doping) and counted up the journalist’s words versus those of the commenters’. The result? This totally humdrum article about a doping proceeding, “Freeman fails to get tribunal charges dropped,” ran just 423 words, but generated 1,540 words of commentary (so far). A couple of the more inflammatory comments: “Just blame the Aussie. F*CK it seems to fit most narratives around here,” and, “You would think he was friends with the Clinton’s,” and in response, “And why did you leave out Trump’s corruption and lies?” You don’t have to look very hard to find people flying way off the handle, straying ever further from the original content. So it is with this Peloton flap … people are more incensed by the gender roles portrayed in the ad than they (apparently) are by the actress throwing herself on her sword in an actual TV interview that, unlike the ad, is not a work of fiction.

Whether or not the ad was sexist, the fact that it went viral, and that this is such a common effect, starts to lead us toward what I think the larger problem is.

The bigger issue

One of my cycling pals replied to my inquiry email with this comment: “By talking about this you/we have fallen prey to their marketing scheme. They made a somewhat controversial commercial and we’re spending time discussing it. Free publicity.” I don’t quite agree, if we construe “they” to mean Peloton. I don’t believe that the Peloton folks deliberately sought an ad that would get them free publicity by causing controversy. If they had, they wouldn’t have pulled the ad down once the controversy was sparked. Meanwhile, the fact that people are discussing this ad won’t necessarily lead to more people shelling out $2,300 for an exercise bike. Buzz might sell one soft drink versus another, but nobody is going to spend big money on a complicated product they only gained awareness of through a viral reaction to a poorly made ad.

That said, I agree that we’ve fallen prey—but the perpetrator isn’t Peloton, it’s Google, Twitter, and Facebook (and to some degree CNN). Consider what I (reluctantly) put you through earlier:

It’s impossible to follow scandals like this without wading through a lot of ads, and telling Google (and/or your social media sharing platform of choice) a lot about you. They are the real beneficiaries of Internet content going viral, and not surprisingly they’re the ones training us to get outraged, to leave comments, and to forward things along. To extend the virus analogy, they’re the ones who have turned the Internet into a giant Petri dish.

A recent “New Yorker” article profiles Roger McNamee, a former tech investor who now denounces Facebook and Google for “sowing discord among Americans.” McNamee, the article explains, published a number of op-eds in mainstream magazines pointing out that “the social-media business model thrives on divisive rhetoric: the more extreme the content, the more users share it; the more the algorithms amplify it, the more ad revenue is generated.”

Obviously ad revenue for news publishers is nothing new, and I’ve quoted CNN and the “Today Show” in this post. So how does social media fit in? Well, platforms like Twitter and Google make sure everybody sees everything. The Peloton ad ran for three weeks with very little reaction—in the “Today Show” interview the actress says initially her only comments were from friends and family saying “I saw your commercial!” The complaints, when they came weeks later, were all at once, out of nowhere. She hid out for a while, thinking “it’s gonna blow over,” but acknowledges, “it didn’t really blow over as quickly as I thought it would.” Well, making things go viral, and sustaining controversy, are things Google is really good at. (I can’t pick on Facebook because I don’t use it, but their role in our last election speaks for itself.)

I base my accusation on what I witness firsthand on Google. For example, let’s look at how I stumbled onto this whole thing to begin with: Google served up a link to the story, without my asking, when I opened a new browser tab on my Android phone. I didn’t think to capture the original click-bait but here’s one of the follow-up articles Google dangled in front of me:

I wouldn’t have even clicked the link, but after ignoring Google’s unsolicited news feed for months, I was starting to get pissed off and was already contemplating a blog post whining about all the crap Google has been serving me up. Particularly annoying was a bunch of stuff about Chris Cornell, the deceased former front man for Soundgarden. To some degree, I’d asked for this, because I did do a Google search on Cornell. (Noting a strange similarity between his song “Like Suicide” and the poem/novel Pale Fire, I sought to determine if Cornell had read Nabokov.)

Ever since that lookup, Google has offered me a drip feed, through my phone browser, of some ongoing soap opera about Cornell’s death, mostly just gossip that has nothing to do with my interest in Soundgarden music. Look at this crap:

Note also that article about some protest of bubble tea … what did I do to be presented with that? I’ve also seen a bunch of headlines about some spat between Eminem and Nick Cannon, whoever he is. This supposedly neutral delivery platform isn’t just guessing about what content might interest me; it’s trying to serve up anything that might inflame me. I asked my older daughter what’s in her Google feed, and she said mainly FUD-type “articles” sowing college-related anxiety, like “Are you in the right major?”

To come full circle on the Peloton ad: if I’d just seen the commercial, without all the bolted-on outrage and counter-outrage, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it. I’d have shrugged it off like most stuff, and I think most other viewers would too. But when the Internet dispute engine got a hold of it and spun it up, telling us to weigh in and get indignant, we obeyed. The Peloton company and its products are innocent, even if this ad was hapless. It’s the Internet platforms, and their methods of escalation, aggravation, and amplification, that are turning us into a bunch of indignant scolds.

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