Can you better train a Smartphone help?
Perhaps - if the kind of person who is possessed of logging you have any training, tracking your pace and count how many miles per week on average. And if you are this type of person, there are a variety of applications and gadgets that can feed your mania for the recording of progress.
I spent months with two apps - RunKeeper and MapMyRun - always a taste of the quantified fitness lifestyle.
While they are can not give me a better runner, I am far more aware, as I am much (or little) actually to exercise, just a strong impetus, more work and make it better.
The apps show how a Smartphone in a collection point for an array of health and fitness data, including speed, distance, elevation, heart rate and other workout metrics such as calories and Cadence (the measurement of the steps or pedal strokes per minute) can convert. RunKeeper has also recently the ability to track weight and even sleep with the right accessories.
MapMyRun and RunKeeper work similar like. When you start a workout, you start that app and it say, what you are doing - run, walk, bike or swim. The app then is, how long you work out, is your path when able to get it a GPS signal and records your heart rate, if you have a heart rate monitor. When you are finished, press a button and your workout gets zapped to the cloud where you can view it and share you you.
Both are to get as a free download for Android and iPhone, but to the best of these apps, you need to spend some dough on a few additional gadgets. A heart rate monitor is probably the most useful addition for exercise nuts, because it can tell you, if you actually at the appropriate intensity work out.
For Android phones with Bluetooth support, chances are you can a Bluetooth heart monitor. I have the Polar WearLink + ($60), the just fine. It paired with the phone, and the data as MapMyRun and RunKeeper was immediately available.
If you have an iPhone, you need another solution, because the iPhone Bluetooth not with the polar working Bluetooth adapter. Instead I have on Wahoo fitness fisica sensor key ($80), a small white tab, the plugs into the iPhone port of the bottom of the phone. This adapter communicates wirelessly with any sensor, the Ant + Protocol, including the Wahoo used heart rate monitor strap ($60). The combination is more expensive than a plain Bluetooth heart rate strap: is another reason for Android-loving friend, Lord it over you.
RunKeeper can also weighing data from the Withings WiFi body scale, stride data of a Wahoo stride sensor ($80) and sleep and activity data of a Fitbit or ZEO device integration. I test these sensors not, but it is reassuring to know that if I even more my life want to make clean and pure numbers, it easy to do will be.
When you view the data in the cloud, reports can, of course, and also share it with your friends, your accomplishments to boast or each other, to continue to promote - or perhaps a little of both. And you can start to analyze trends: for example, I more miles sign on Saturday as I on Tuesday. And I'm faster on my lunch is running as my early morning, pre-breakfast runs.
Runkeeper has the two services a cleaner, easier-to-read interface on its website and Smartphones. RunKeeper offers also voice prompts, you can say how far and how fast have you gone at different intervals.
Apart from voice prompts MapMyRun compares Runkeeper for features, but I found it harder to navigate and the site offers fewer options for cutting and dice the data. It has more publicity in both the app and on the Web site also (although you can pay that leave map making).
Both apps have free versions, but to make the most of both apps, you have to pay something. RunKeeper "Runkeeper Elite" offers subscriptions for $5 per month or $20 per year. They offer guided real-time tracking (so your friends can keep an eye on you how you do - including during the race) and a wider range of charts to your performance trends to analyze.
MapMyRun offers paid options of $6 per month, to $20 per month (or $30 to $100 per year), you have to eliminate access to additional training charts and reports, and also view the interface.
After using both apps for months (in Runkeeper's case, I have it for years) I am a better runner? Probably, but it's not, because the data of self-coaching gave me superhuman abilities. It is, rather, that the mere act of measuring mean activity me pay more attention to it has made.
I should be a serious runner or a specific exercise goal had as losing weight, would these apps and gadgets give me a valuable edge. As it is, it will help keep me on track - and now, that seems to be just what I need.
Photo by Jim Merithew
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