Use Your iPod As a Personal Trainer

This is pretty neat. Nike has set up their website so that you can download tunes that are great to work out to, but even better you can download audio that serves as a personal trainer while you work out. The voice can give you encouragement, but also tells you exactly what do as far as a cool down, warm-up, etc. Say you're a runner... the audio can tell you how long to increase your pace for and when to slow down. You just tell Nike what you want your workout to be. You can also incorporate subliminal messages into your music. If you enjoy working out it might be worth checking out.

"I decided to change that, by seeking the help of a downloadable expert. Opening iTunes, I clicked over to the Music Store’s Nike + iPod workouts section to browse the selection. The concept is simple: Overlay a bunch of tracks suited for working out with the encouraging voice of a real coach. I chose “Increase Your Speed 1,” coached by multiple-marathon champ Alberto Salazar. That I recognized none of the artists included in the $14.99 workout mix worried me, but I figured the selection must have a good amount of oomph if it had any hope of fulfilling its promise.
With a post-snowstorm temperature of about 25 degrees, I slipped on a knit cap, a few upper body layers, some glove-liners for my hands, and went with soccer shorts for the lower half because I don’t own any real running pants.
Some light-beat music started up as Alberto chimed in with a welcome. He laid out the course: ten minutes of warm up, followed by four intervals of increasingly faster sprints with rests in between, finishing with ten minutes to cool down. I was instantly turned off because I figured the ten minutes to warm up then ten more to cool down equaled twenty minutes of slower-paced running, which would yield a slower overall pace result. Then again, perhaps those four bursts would balance things out and I’d wind up with a respectably quicker pace in the end."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18075569/