Simon Says For Mac

Sitting all day in front of the computer can have serious effects on your health on a long term, so moving around periodically is advisable to combat a sedentary lifestyle and prevent muscle atrophy.

Simon Says (formerly known as Sluggard) is a small status bar application that sends alerts regularly challenging you to do various types of exercises, going from climbing stairs to crunches, push or pull-ups, and so on.

Sitting down for eight hours straight increases the risk for developing all sorts of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. However, getting up once every hour and performing a couple of uncomplicated exercises to get your blood flowing will improve your chances.

Simon Says aims to help you schedule a set of exercises that you want to be doing at various intervals, sends alerts when it's time to get up from your desk, and enables you to monitor your progress via a separate History panel. The data can also be shared on social media directly from the app.

Within the Preferences, you can specify your current fitness level, your age and gender, as well as adjust the alert interval that can go from 30 to 60, 90, and 120 minutes.

The same area enables you to create a list of preferred exercises: just add the ones you want or can do around the office.

Note that, when adding new items, the exercises list is prioritized by the potential of reducing the risk of sedentary life: squats, climbing stairs, lunges, push-ups, plank, pull-ups, leg raises, crunches, sit-ups, and hyperextensions.

The challenge alert panels allow you to skip the exercise, or you can input how many reps you have managed to do. Once you input the data, it will be included in the History panel, so you can see what exercises you have done each day.

Bottom line, Simon Says provides support for fighting the “sitting disease” by periodically sending alerts and giving you ideas on what exercises you should perform. On the long term, the practice will help you achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle.