Tag: kickyoutube

Posted on

Body Pump via YouTube – forget the gym fees!

Before I dedicated my life to blogging (it seems like that some days!) I used to go to the gym regularly. I was a devotee of Body Pump classes. I got to a stage where I was lifting pretty heavy weights and I was pretty impressed with my triceps and biceps.   

I can’t say that now. Blogging has led to me learning a whole heap, but it is a fairly sedentary pursuit and my fitness level has suffered as a result. I walk regularly with my good friend Nina (who I have converted to blogging along the way) but I’ve felt the need to get back  to the weights. I have my own weight bar and weights but trying to remember the routines when you are at home has been difficult.

I was contemplating getting back to the weights over the weekend when it occured to me that someone might have posted Les Mills Body Pump classes on YouTube. (Don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it a lot earlier.) So off I went to YouTube and there they were. It seems the Germans are the ones uploading so I spent some time over the last day or so using kickyoutube to download them to my computer.

So, if you’re wondering what a Body Pump class is like and the order in which you complete the routines, here is what I’ve been doing for the last hour. Stefan and a couple of other mostly German instructors have done a very good job of taking me through a class. It hasn’t cost me a cent in gym fees and I can do it all over again tomorrow should I choose to. I’m aiming to do three classes a week and that should get my fitness levels moving in the right direction.

Body Pump – the YouTube way.

Warm up.

Squats.

Back.

Chest.

Triceps

Biceps.

Lunges.

Shoulders.

Abdominals.  (This is actually too short, but I couldn’t find a complete track)

Cool down  

So there you have it. Body Pump without the gym fees. Another example of the kind of learning you can do via YouTube these days.  

     

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Kickyoutube – Easy download solution for YouTube

One of the best ways to start converting colleagues to the wonders of the Web is to introduce them to the vast array of content on YouTube that is suitable for education purposes. If you work in a school with a slow connection then you will be familiar with the circular loading indicator that can stay like that for what seems an eternity. Not conducive to good classroom practice unfortunately. By the time it loads your kids are in their next class!

Solution.  Download the video from YouTube using a conversion tool. I’ve spoken of keepvid before which has been my preferred option. This has involved me going to the keepvid site and copying and pasting the YouTube url once I’m there.

Better solution.  Alec Couras, ably assisted by Melanie Gibb, alerted me on Twitter to kickyoutube. It is quite simply the easiest method I’ve seen yet to download a video to a different format. All you need to do is delete the ‘au.’  (or www.) in the url and type the word ‘kick’ in front of the word ‘youtube’  and then press enter.  Kickyoutube is enabled and you are presented with a toolbar with differing options for file conversion.  You select your preferred option and press go and your download begins. Dead simple. There are even options for conversions for the iPhone and PSP as well as the garden variety options.  Some options may not be available at the time and they will not be highlighted if that is the case.

kickyoutube1

The following screencast gives a good visual explanation of how it works;

Richard Byrne, who writes at Free Technology for Teachers, (and just quietly Richard, you are a blogging dynamo! Do you ever sleep?) has posted recently about YouTube’s new initiative with downloads. Here’s what he reported;

YouTube is introducing a download option on some videos. I haven’t seen any official announcements from YouTube, but there are some videos on YouTube that now have a small download link located just below play menu.   

This is an even easier option, but like Richard says, it’s not available for all videos at the moment. All you need to do is click on the download link and a file download to MPEG 4 format begins.

It will be nice to return to school with some new and very easy options for downloads from YouTube to share with my colleagues. We may not even need to do this with some changes that are afoot. We are moving from a 2mg internet connection to  20mg and I can’t wait to see what a difference that is going to make for our school and our connectivity. I’m expecting great things!