MEASURING AEROBIC FINESS ACTIVITY

Health Blogarithm for 19th of December

I referred in yesterday's blog how the boffins at Exeter University found out that people lie about how much activity they do when their activity habits are surveyed.

The gof Australia used to publish activity surveys and pat themselves on the back about how active people were. I don't know if they still do it but, based on the Exeter survey the results of surveys like this are useless.

I suggested that the Exeter study should have measured how fit the 15,000 people in the survey were, not ask them how much activtiy they did. That would have sorted out the doers from the gunnas.

There is another way.

You can now purchase a heart rate monitor that can measure the duration of your exercise, its frequency and the actual heart rate. The results can be downloaded into a computer.

When I'm on the stepper I wear the heart rate monitor strap around my chest and the signal is picked up by the stepper and shows on the display. It takes me about 10 - 15 minutes of hard stepping to get my heart rate over 140Bpm. Because it's hard work I count that time as having a heart rate over 140BPM

Then for the rest of the time I'm stepping I regulate the resistance so that I just keep the heart rate over 140. Gradually I can reduce the resistance to make the session easier, but still keep the heart rate over 140BPM. Easy.

I don't bother to download anything onto the computer, just record my scores on my personal Fitness Tracka. I'm preparing a copy of the Fitness tracka for sale. Watch this space.

If you want the aerobic fitness prescription go to http://www.fitandhealthy.com/

On the track
60 minutes on the stepper over 140BPM. That's 300 aerabytes. Haven't done that since September, so things are looking up.

Weight 85.8. Same as yesterday.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and get yourself a heart rate monitor.

John Miller