Linux at Home: Keeping in Good Health with Exercise

Last Updated on September 6, 2020

We are told by our governments that in the current crisis the single most important action we can take is to stay at home. The repeated message is that everyone should minimise time spent outside the home. By following this directive, this will flatten the spread of the coronavirus, thereby protecting our health service, and saving lives.

We are starting to see some positive news. More than 1 million people known to have the Covid-19 virus have recovered. And we’ve seen a few European countries begin to relax restrictions. It appears the UK is also past the peak of its outbreak, and the UK government is set to publish its lockdown exit plan next week. While there are currently no details in this respect, we can be certain that relaxing restrictions will be a gradual process.

In this series, we look at a range of home activities where Linux can play its part, making the most of our time at home, keeping active and engaged. The change of lifestyle enforced by Covid-19 is an opportunity to expand our horizons, and spend more time on activities we have neglected in the past.

One of the permitted activities inside and outside of the home is taking a piece of exercise a day. Exercise is so important. It helps people maintain or lose weight, and lowers the risk of some diseases. Staying fit offers enormous benefits to your wellbeing. And research shows that physical exercise releases proteins in the brain that can actually help improve your memory and increase your cognitive performance.

There’s a good range of software which helps to plan and analyze your fitness regime. Let’s start with an absolute corker of an application, GoldenCheetah.

GoldenCheetah

Cycling is a great form of exercise. Road traffic has seen a huge fall because of the coronavirus crisis.

GoldenCheetah is a feature-laden application that offers an excellent range of features. I particularly like its charting facilities which let me perform insightful analytics.

And it’s equally impressive with its ability to import all popular formats. It’s a real gem that I only discovered recently.

Read more about GoldenCheetah

SportsTracker

SportsTracker is a desktop application for people who want to record and analyze their sporting activities. It’s very simple to use.

It’s much more basic than GoldenCheetah, but it’s not focused on only a single activity. SportsTracker can be used for anyone who cycles, runs, swims, and more. There’s support for a good range of heartrate monitors including models from Polar, Timex, Oregon, Garmin, CicloSport, and more.

Data is stored in the XML format which makes it easy to import/export to other programs.

The program is written in Java, so you can run it on many operating systems.

Read more about SportsTracker

RouteConverter

RouteConverter is another Java-based application. It’s a GPS tool that displays, edits and converts routes, tracks and waypoints in over 81 formats.

It includes an embedded browser with which Google Maps and various OpenStreetMap maps can be displayed.

RouteConverter uses elevation services to retrieve elevation information and add it to positions. There’s also a RouteCatalog which makes it easy to share routes, tracks, or waypoint lists.

Read more about RouteConverter

All articles in this series: