Training with Téa
LOVE YOURSELF! and love your friends ! A great way to love yourself, is to take care of yourself, and what better way than by getting a great workout in at the Beverly Athletic Club ! I of course will be getting my workout in today, but this time I’ll be using my Myzone Belt.
I was introduced to Myzone my first week here at the BAC. Myzone is a company who produces a belt that calculates your heart rate, whether it be your resting, max or average heart rates. The belt consists of a red adjustable strap and a oval shaped rechargeable device that you can snap on and off from the belt. When the device is paired with your phone through their app and Bluetooth, you can track your workouts like never before!
When I was first given the belt I had no idea how to use it, but was excited to find out. I downloaded the Myzone App on my smartphone and was ready to get started. I quickly realized that Myzone did more than just calculate heart rate but calculated calories burned, MEPs (Myzone Effort Points) and your overall effort percentage during your workouts. From the moment you put your belt on, to the moment you take it off, Myzone tracks every part of your day or workouts.
The way Myzone works:
Once you have downloaded the app you can start exploring all the things Myzone has to offer. The app is pretty easy to learn, as I figured it out in only a few minutes, but I’ll briefly describe it incase anyone hasn’t seen it yet. The main screen has 6 main options to choose from; My Body Metrics, Challenges, Connections, Workout, Home, and MZChat. For reference look at the 1st picture to the right. The more information you put into the app, the more it can help you track your goals and progress. My Body Metrics is really good at helping you stay on track. The part of the app keeps track of your weight, BMI, resting heart rate (HR), max HR and your body fat % (assuming you put in that measurement).
If you want to log challenges within the app, go to the “Challenges” tab. You can either create a challenge with friends or create goals. When creating a goal, it can be for calories burned within a timeframe or earning MEPs within a certain time frame. My two goals are currently both set for calories, and i’m already ahead of schedule on both of them ! You can see in the picture that the green line is where my status is, and the grey line is where the average person would be.
When going into the “Connections” tab, you can connect and become friends with anyone in your area that also has a Myzone account! Once you connect you can compare workouts and compete against each other in challenges. The “workout” tab is the cube that also shows up on the TV screens located around the BAC. The cube shows your name, percentage of effort being used, calories lost, and how many MEP’s you have earned. MEPs are Myzone Effort Points and are earned according to how long you work out depending in which zone.
To understand more clearly imagine each zone you workout in for 1 minute
- Grey zone = 1 MEP per minute
- Blue zone = 2 MEP per minute
- Green zone = 3 MEP per minute
- Yellow and Red zones = 4 MEP per minute
You can see the breakdown of MEPs in each color range when you head to the “Home” tab. The home tab also tells you how long you worked out for, your total MEP accumulation, average HR, effort percentage, total calories burned and your peak HR. Check out the photo to the right to see what this page looks like!
Personally, I love using Myzone because it helps me keep track of my workouts and I can see my effort during my entire workout. If I see myself start to slip into the lower effort levels I can quickly work harder and make sure I don’t slack again. Myzone keeps you on your toes if you are really serious about working out. Even if you aren’t that serious about working out, Myzone is a fun tool to use just to see how you are performing in your workouts and great way to make sure you don’t over do it, to keep yourself healthy!
“Nothing truly great ever came from a comfort zone” – anonymous
~T
For more informaiton on Myzone, please contact Alex Johnson, Fitness Director at [email protected]
