THE ROAD TO STRENGTH: 5-DAY WORKOUT JOURNEY
Over the last couple of years, one of the most difficult things has been committing to a regular weekly workout schedule. On December 31, 2022, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to be consistent with my training days. I felt that working out continuously was a change I needed in my life for the better. Unfortunately, a few internal issues have brought insecurities that prevented me from moving forward and letting go of these ghosts from the past. But this is the new me. And this is my 5-day workout path to becoming a stronger person physically and mentally, represented through data visualizations.
To kick off this adventure, I analyzed and meditated about the things I was not satisfied with at all. The primary motivating factor towards this personal change has been the lack of physical activity during most of 2022, which led me to carry an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle. Therefore, my whole body was not in the best shape I could dream of at the start of the year, and consequently, it required some adjustments.
I began to work out again little by little around January 3, 2023. Those first few days were rough and very intense, as I had to get used to the soreness resulting from being inactive for so long.
However, for this challenge, I decided to set a range of five days in a row for training instead of a whole week to give my muscles two days to recover. The specific dates went from Friday, January 27, 2023, to Tuesday, January 31, 2023. I tracked my workouts by writing them on the notes app on my iPhone, which made it easier to remember which areas I targeted. By sketching a hand-drawn scatter plot graph, I was able to visually display the areas of my body that were trained per day during this period, as well as the time I spent each day working out such areas of my body. The areas targeted were the following: arms (represented by a dumbbell), core (represented by small ab six-pack figure, obliques (defined in the best way possible by a mini sketch showing such area), and legs (represented by a bike, it was just cardio).
I also made a second data visualization to represent my water consumption during the days I worked out. A 32oz Gatorade water bottle is the reference for this display. Using the encoding by length method, each water bottle was either fully colored in blue to describe the fact that I drank it all or just colored in half, depending on whether I just drank 16oz of water.
Overall, I had never tracked myself at doing something in such a different way. Hopefully, the motivation I got from completing this challenge remains at an all-time high for the rest of the year!
