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Couple designs exercise software
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 Phil and Liz Weaver, of Valley Springs, have created a computer desktop application called BreakPal that helps people exercise at their desks. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat, copyright 2010
It was 1996. There was no Google, no Facebook, no Twitter. Most people were still on dial-up modems — if they were on the Internet at all. Fourteen years later, a heavily updated version of the program is in the running to win $10,000 in a competition, Apps for Healthy Kids, being put on by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity. Their application, Break Pal, which can be found at www.breakpal.com, offers some 50 short snippets of film — all between two and four minutes — which users are encouraged to follow from their chair or standing by their desks during the workday. Some of those exercises bear the language one expects from a pair of martial arts instructors, like “Stance Drill — Horse to Praying Mantis.” Others are a bit more unusual, like “Chair Chi Kung — Seated Serving Tea.” A few are just silly, or maybe honest: “Terrible Icky Painful Things.” All videos show Liz going through the exercise, clad in the professional attire of a 9-to-5 office worker. Why did Phil stay behind the camera? “I can’t program,” she admits with a laugh. Plus, she adds, “I’m more of a ham.” Paying users can download a “widget,” or desktop application, that acts as a sort of exercise alarm clock. At chosen intervals — a half hour or hour, for example — the program reminds the user to do a routine. A membership is $9.95 a month, or $60 a year. There are about 2,000 users from all over the world, from the Midwest to Botswana. Break Pal got started as an effort to address what Phil saw as a persistent misconception in martial arts. His students assumed it took long hours of study to attain mastery of the various techniques. But he believed it just took short, concentrated practice, several times a day. “I always thought, well, if I could get my students to do that they’d be much more successful in their training,” he said. So he put together Break Pal. Much has changed since then. With the help of the know-how gained from volunteering at Calaveras County Public Access TV, the site has upgraded from photo-sequence videos to the real thing. All were filmed against a wall converted to a green screen at one end of the couple’s main studio. The Web site now has a social network for its users, through which they can share their exercise successes, frustrations and goals. “Been well over a year since the divorce. Guess it’s time to get that playboy body back!” read one recent entry from user “wyomingkathy.” And to fulfill a requirement of the competition, which is being run through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the site makes recommendations from the department’s Nutrition Dataset. “Cranberry sauce,” read one recent one. “Raw onion,” read another. Time has changed the program and it has also altered workplace culture. In the couple’s experience, people are more willing to, surrounded by colleagues, take a moment from their workday to do an exercise like, “Ram’s Head Punches from Chair.” “You’ve probably got somebody at one desk exercising and somebody else eating Doritos,” Phil said. “I don’t think the Dorito guy is going to make fun of them.” |
