My wife and I just got back from the local fitness center which we recently joined. Today I used a rowing machine for the first time and noted a couple of interesting features.
One of the display options on the LCD readout is time to row 500 m. Why 500 m, I wonder. Is that a standard race length for crew meets. (You know the kind---shells, oars, obnoxious helmsman.) I think it also displays the cumulative distance rowed in meters. Another display option provides power output in watts. I was averaging 50 W today in my warm-up prelude to using the Nautilus machines, since I was not trying to set any records. My output varied from 40 W to 60 W and never went any higher, so rumors that I'm on a par with a dim bulb are probably true. Somewhere in all those displays was one that read out in calories per whatever. On a machine that is so neatly metric, why calories? Aren't we ready for joules? Jim -- James R. Frysinger Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist Senior Member, IEEE http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: Physics Lab Manager, Lecturer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University/College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 843.953.7644 (phone) 843.953.4824 (FAX) Home: 10 Captiva Row Charleston, SC 29407 843.225.0805
