Slashdot Mirror
Open Access To Exercise Data?
identity0 writes "A recent Slashdot discussion about heart-rate monitors in schools got me thinking about getting one for my own exercise. It turns out that the available models have a wide range of features: calorie rate, pedometers, GPS, PC connectivity, etc. Being a geek, I want one that will let me look at my exercise data, and I'm curious what experiences Slashdotters have had with them. Some download data to a proprietary application — are open source alternatives available or is the data format easily readable? Others upload data to an online app — can the data be pulled off the site or is it forever trapped on their servers? While I'm not an open source zealot or a paranoid about my data being shared, I would like to know that I can access my data in the future. Whatever method you guys use to monitor your exercise, I'd love to hear about it."
PolarViewer only works with certain monitors, but is under the GPL.
Linux.com had an article in 07 on the subject as well.
I use a Garmin Edge 705 for my training needs. The device shows up as a normal USB Mass Storage Device, and the file format is an easily readable XML type file.
I'm quite happy with the Garmin bike GPS I have. It downloads the data in a pseudo-proprietary format, but it's easy to convert into an XML format that's fully documented on their website: http://developer.garmin.com/schemas/
Also for those that use linux, here's a couple of scripts that sync down the garmin data, do the XML transformation, and uploads it to garmin connect: http://braiden.org/?p=62
if and when non invasive blood sugar / insulin monitors monitors were going to become possible. Being vaguely interested in the rammifactions of the Atkins diet, as a geek i'm bloody interested to know (not suffering from any metabolic problems (yet)) just exactly what happens to blood sugar and hormone levels as I consume various products. One see's so much stuff labled "Low GI" now, but how do you really know?
Isn't this the wrong forum to ask this question? Pimply 11-year-old slashbots and exercise? Well, hello?
;-)
*ducks*
A discussion about excercising on /.
I never thought I'd see the day.
Concept2 rowers will dump their full workout log to CSV, and also allow realtime monitoring via USB + a supplied SDK.
I've got my rower hooked up to a WinAmp plugin I wrote which pipes heartrate, rowing speed and stroke rate into the visualisation system. This gets projected onto a 2m wide screen, so the harder I work, the more intense and psychedelic the visuals get.
My next project will be to connect the playback speed of VLC to the rower so I have to keep rowing at my target rate to keep watching House.
Garmin Edge 705 shows up as a regular usb-drive where you can find the data. The data is stored in .tcx files which is plain text xml-files. gpsbabel can convert the gps-data to gpx for wide usage. Any health related software should be able to read the tcx-file or be easy to add that option since it is xml.
I have a Polar 625SX. It stores heartrate info for easy transfer to the computer. There are two files generated. Both are proprietary, but one is considered secret and the other is well documented. I can't remember what the contents was of the first file, but the second, readable, file had all the HR, speed and distance information I needed. I have written some simple programs that calculate kilometer times and other basic stuff, so I can confirm that it works and is as simple as you can hope for. As for privacy, that data is stored locally. There are loads of applications on the web you can use to load that data to, but I have never seen the need for that. If you are the least bit serious about this, do note that Polar, Suunto and Garmin all are high quality options. The Nike+ stuff is terrible and should be avoided. You can't configure it and the precision is just god-awful. My wife has it. According to that, she would probably win the Olympics in most distances. She is fit, but not that fit...
Use the PASCO gear, with their Datastudio app. It's great, and will take all sorts of data wirelessly.
http://store.pasco.com/pascostore/showdetl.cfm?&DID=9&Product_ID=53770&Detail=1
What you need is a monitor that tells you when you've leveled up and that exports data in d&d character sheet format.
http://xkcd.com/189/
You should also look into http://www.runsaturday.com/ this site imports/exports data to a lot of sites and devices if you are feeling vendor locked.
Don't worry, soon you'll be able to watch your carotid artery with Google Earth.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
The Garmin Forerunner models 205 and 305 have been rated relatively highly GPSbabel users. Both are GPS loggers though the later has a heart rate monitor. I'm looking to get a 205 myself.
Also there is a desktop app called pytrainer which allows you to track you performance.
If it's your business, if you want to build an application that takes all this data and turns it into something easy to understand that doesn't intrude on people's lives, that's one thing. But fussing over numbers for the sake of it? There are many, many better things to do in the world.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I use a Polar S725, download the data with S710 (http://code.google.com/p/s710/), and view it with Sportstracker (http://www.saring.de/sportstracker/). It's definitely not as easy as the Polar software, but its OK.
I'd love to upload the heart monitor data to https://www.polarpersonaltrainer.com/index.ftl, but I have not yet found a way to do it.
I hate to sound like a luddite, but I find it far more interesting to use minimal technology when exercising. I think the obsession with metrics is counter-productive. Maybe if you're an world class athlete that needs that extra edge, you can exploit science and technology to your advantage. But it seems less pure than simply going for a hike, a run, or living some free weights. At most a small journal of how long you exercised and what you did, but honestly I never go back and look at what I have been doing. I also am against setting goals for target heart rate, weight, number of reps, etc. It seems all overly competitive. I hate to sound like a hippie, but what is wrong with doing what feels good? I know recording distances, beating personal records, etc will never make me happy, perhaps others find joy in it, but I totally do not understand how that could be.
There is at least a small number of Linux applications for watches and heart rate monitors, as well as some free and open source tools for bikes, including applications and open hardware for data acquisition from exercise bicycles. You may find (yet little) information about appropriate data formats, too.
Being a geek, I want one that will let me look at my exercise data
*head explodes*
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Headline used the word "open" without following it with "source".
Where is this, and what have you done with the real slashdot?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Bodybugg does not measure heart rate but a few other exercise-related data
(acceleration, heat flux, galvanic skin response, skin temperature)
http://www.bodybugg.com/science_behind_bodybugg.php
The data has been hacked by some guy:
http://bodybugghacks.blogspot.com/
it still requires some work to use it thought
Big brother is watching your heart rate!
I bought one a few months ago. My brain was swimming with options and I didn't want to spend $500.00 on this equipment. I ended up going with a $100 timex solutions that does everything I need. I felt it was a good investment.
Wait...an admitted geek and EXERCISE?
http://www.fitbit.com/ regular shipping starts in the next few weeks
The only place where 3 months of exercise implies 89 days of dev work. :)
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
a wide range of features: calorie rate, pedometers ...
cause you never know how much of a pedo you really are
I used to run prior to buying my Garmin 305, and I even ran a 10k with decent timing, after deciding last year to leave the couch behind. I had a myriad of foot related injuries and at one point my sports med pretty much told me that all lower extremities will require replacement. I hope he was joking. But the fact was I had no clue as to how I was pushing myself. Even the course around my house I knew as if the back of my hand, I didnt know whether I was doing better one day vs the previous, whether I am pushing myself too hard, how far I was running etc. I would drive my car around the course usually, If I ran different to calculate the mileage, but that became a hassle (found out later that there are other ways such as Mapmyrun which overlays google maps etc.)
My two bit advice to you would be dont buy a gps training device (which is what it is) unless you were training for something. And something bigger than a 5k or a 10k. If you just started running, then run for the fun of it and when you have got that in your blood, get a training device, when you are ready to step up to the next level. A gps device the first time you start running would overwhelm you with all the data (and Garmin 305 buries you with it, and I love it!). You need all the data when you are ready to make sense with it. Initially, you should smell the crisp air outside (or the smog), feel your heart pounding inside the ribcage, see the next hill as you race towards it and its more gratifying than a lot other things, like reaching for the next bag of chips.
A Garmin 305 with its heart monitor will give you tons of data. It will poll your position every 3 seconds, and you can use a tool like SportTracks to overlay that on google maps or Google Earth to see what you burned through. Garmin has its own training tool, like Garmin Connect, which previously sucked, but now is much better. Still I would like to direct you at Sport Tracks as its free and gives you a cumulative representation of your training than other tools. There is nothing better than seeing a month worth of data and see that you have ran 100 miles in the last one month, which days you ran, what your average pace were, your splits/laps. And oh..and graphs, more and more graphs. You can also track as to what parts of the course you were running fast vs slow, your heartbeat zones and the areas of the course where you were about to pop so that you can be better prepared etc. The Garmin 305 does a piss poor job at calculating the calories burned, as it computes it based on the distance covered, not on your heart beat which is a better route. But as long as you burn more than you take in, even if its a rough figure, you would lose weight gradually.
Sure, you dont need Garmin 305 (which is rather bulky, but once its on your hand you dont feel its there) or any other training devices unless you are prepared to take your training to the next level. I am running a half marathon in November and I am treating my training just as I would treat anything else thats important in my life. I have a goal of a set number of hours:minutes before I cross the line and I am not ready to leave that to speculation. I train because I want to be injury free and better prepared. And thats what I have my Garmin. YMMV.
Rapid Nirvana
Get a Garmin forerunner. I have one and I'm very happy with it. It tracks you by GPS and records your heart rate. It has many more options than you will ever need. If you don't mind a little scripting you can download garmin tools and pull raw data from it, feed it into google maps, and have really cool jogging maps and speed and heart rate calculations.
The only annoying thing about it is the time it can take to pickup your location when you first turn it on. Even that's rarely more than 10 to 20 seconds if you have a clear view of the sky.
Sporttracks is free and very well supported. Far better than the software that came with my Garmin watch.
Just wanted to plug runningahead.com. It's a great runners community currently supporting Garmin GPSs through Garmin's plug-in. You can share your workout log with others and even publish to Facebook.
In an indoor pool.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
I am unfamiliar with the term. Could you possibly use it in a sentence so that I may better understand the concept?
Have you heard of SportTracks?
http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/
I have a Garmin 305 and it collects wonderful data, but the bundled Garmin software is crap and the Garmin website is subscription based. So I use SportTracks, which allows me to get closer to the data, look at it on google maps, get spilts, etc.
I have a hearing aid to deal with quite severe deafness. The latest generation is quite amazing in what it can do. I'm aware that an immense amount of data logging and analysis went into designing its algorithms, and I'm really impressed by the science that goes into it. But all I care about now is that it works, and works extremely well.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Dumbbell Pal is a program that shows over 50 dumbbell exercises by muscle groups. Note that this program is currently only available in Dutch, but the exercises should be clear nonetheless.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dumbbellpal/
http://dumbbellpal.sourceforge.net/
For more detailed data, you can try something like the Bodybugg or the Gowear Fit, which uses a variety of sensors (heat flux, galvanic skin response, accelerometers, etc.) to track calorie usage. As made, the devices force you to buy an online service to get the data, but there are now open-source scripts to allow you to get the data yourself:
http://bodybugglinux.blogspot.com/
It'd be great to see more community projects like this (including community data sharing, so we can all learn more about common patterns).
Every minute you spend drooling over the 'data' you collected is a minute you could have spent exercising instead and produced real results, not farking numbers.
Seriously...while there are some people few and far between that may have a need/use for extended data and need appropriate gear I promise you that 9 out of ten people usually only buy something like that because they attempt to *buy their fitness*. Which, of course, is nonsense.
Yet people spend insane amounts of dough on all kinds of promised miracles, whether they be high-tech gadgets or the latest 'Turn into Arnold in less than 1 minute a day!!' overhyped 'revolutionary exercise system'. I see bicyclers barely able to get up a hill with their >$1000 bikes dressed up as if participating in the Tour-de-France. Meanwhile my 6-year old would have been faster than them looking a lot less than a peacock on wheels.
You want data? Take a pencil and a piece of paper and if you can do 25 push-up's this week and only 20 last week you improved. Congrats. Now get back on the floor, shut up and keep going!
My Suunto HRM uploads to an app which can then export it as a series of XML files, which is nice.
On the iPhone I use TrailGuru which enables me to upload the tracks and then export them as KML. A little bit of XML/XSLT/XPath later and I've got a mashup of the two which give me all the information I need on HRM again position/speed etc.
Is this really a big geek challenge? Pretty much everyone I know these days uses systems that upload to sites which enable the data to be exported in XML formats.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Being a type 1 diabetic myself, I have fought to get one of these myself but the powers-that-be here in Norway seem to think there are no advantages to having your blood glucose measured every 1-2 to 5 minutes for 3-7 days (depending on which monitor you get), at least not compared to the price of these gadgets. Pretty insanely ignorant, as having this info available would let me easily have perfect blood glucose levels at all times. Hell, some of these meters even come with an optional automatic insulin pump!
No offense, but the powers that be are right, for now. The advantages of these devices are vastly outweighed by the current comparative price of these devices. Monitoring your blood sugar often is good, but if you can only buy a thousand of these meters and treat a few thousand people, verses buying millions of other, vastly cheaper, but otherwise perfectly good meters and treating millions, from the view point of "the powers that be" the millions are better served. Right now they are essentially high-tech biogadgets, and even from the way you evangelize it in your post, you and they both know it. The cheapest one of those continuous-monitoring meters costs better than nine times what I paid for my standard "finger-prick" meter, and the sensors are even more expensive on top of that.
Besides, you're diabetic. If you've got the money for one of these things, get your doctor to write you a Rx saying you need one, then go to the company and buy one. If you were even smarter, you'd ask one of these companies to give you one for free, and they'd probably go for it since you're particularly vocal on the issue (and do the whole "human review"/"tech review" thing in trade).
Be overjoyed your national health care gets you diabetic testing supplies. Hell, be glad you have healthcare at all, that your government cares enough to make sure you can test your blood sugar as often as you need.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
If you just want to track weight loss, the Hacker's Dietonline weight tracker is great. It's by John Walker (one of he creaters of AutoCad)
One of the things that can be discouraging when losing weight is the daily fluctuations. The Hacker's Diet log software provides a nice weighted average so even if you gain a bit (say, 180.5 one day and 181.2 the next) you can see that the trend is still downwards.
There's also excel sheets with macros for those of you dislike the idea of putting your weight info into the cloud.
NOTE: The diet itself is crap - get your actual diet elsewhere. In fact, diet is a horrible term - think of it as a lifestyle change: Less bad food. More good running.
I've written some blog entries about my Garmin Forerunner 305. I also got it to work under linux: http://www.roalt.com/content/blogcategory/28/31/ Just one month ago, I also added a quick release fix and a Cadence meter, so I can use it both with running and with cycling. With the release kit it's also perfect if you want to do triathlon (although I'm not so sure it's swim-proof)...
I just started playing around with CardioTrainer on my new Android phone. It would be really cool if it would eventually work with a bluetooth heart rate monitor like the Spurty Chest Strap.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I'm a pretty avid runner and a cyclist before that and have Polar HRMs. The RS800 syncs using infrared and really doesn't work that well on a Mac. I use a Windows VM to handle that. Getting the data off the HRM, as far as I can tell, is proprietary. I haven't tried to reverse engineer it or anything like that. Once the data is on your computer, you can export it as csv so at least the data is not locked in. The RS800 is pretty crazy in what can record, which includes, heart rate, temperature, altitude, stride length, cadence, and "recovery rate" (haven't really figured out what to make of it yet, looks like time between beats). I think with GPS sensor, it will record the coordinates too.
For those of you wondering why the obsession with HRM, here are two reasons why they can make a huge difference in your work out:
1. If you keep your heart rate below 80% of your max, your ability to keep doing what it is you're doing increases dramatically. This is how I trained to be a long distance cyclist and then a runner.
2. I don't know about you but I thrive on accurate feedback. I want to know how I did during my training, where I'm weak, and where I'm strong. Seeing my stats improve is very encouraging.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I use software called SportTracks (http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/) that downloads data my Garmin GPS watch (and other devices too). The software is not open source but it is free and it is fantastic software -- much better than the software that comes with the watch. You can also write plugins for it. I haven't tried, but I'm pretty sure you could get any data you wanted out of the program.
PS. I have no affiliation with the company that makes the software. I'm just a very happy user of the software. I don't donate for free software very often but I did for this one.
I do a decent amount of cycling and have a Garmin 305 that tracks heart rate, cadence (pedaling speed), location, and time. I always thought it would be a lot of fun to play with the data, and have been working on a site for a while with a couple friends that has some cool features (mouse over your elevation and see where it is on the map, determine time spent in heart rate zones, estimate power output in watts, calories, put it on a calendar - currently working on finding other times you rode the same section of road and race yourself)
Without a GPS unit, you can draw a route and we pull elevation data off our server if we have it (we have the continental US in 1/3 arc second accuracy, pretty good), estimate instantaneous grade, etc... fun project and people are finding it useful
Anyway, check it out if you want: ridewithgps.com
Great way to pre-ride a mountain bike race course to know where you are high so you can plan your race for better recovery at each climb and an overall faster time. It's hard to teach yourself to slow it down on the descents (it's just so fun!) without the feedback. This is a great service that I use for all of my post-ride analysis:
http://gpsvisualizer.com/
The only time I monitor anything during an exercise, is my pulse using the two fingers trick.
I bought the Polar FT60 about 11 months ago. At the time it was one of the top HRMs on the market. The chicks like it 'Hey this guy has a Knight Rider watch', but it's not as great as I was expecting. A HRM is an expensive gadget I don't really need. I do train often enough but I need to do more longer trainings at a lower intensity. The current HRMs are made primarily only for long distance running but in fact they are quite crappy even at this activity: If I compare numbers given by a treadmill HRM and my own HRM (Polar FT60) the Polar FT60 fluctuates between 4-6 BsPM at a _constant_ treadmill speed 10km/h at the heart rate about 135 BsPM (measured by the treadmill's HRM, in an empty gym - no interferences with other HRMs). So it's useless to try to stay in a chosen intensity level if running 'open-air' Another HRM issues: 1. Run 20km on a 30 degrees Celsius summer day at a pace 11km/h and repeat this training at 18 degrees Celsius. You gonna make the 1st training at about 80-92% of your max heart rate the 2nd would be made at 68-85% of your MHR. Now compare your calorie- and fat-burn values!... wrong like comparison of apples and bananas 2. Human body needs about 20-25 minutes in order start the fat burn processes. Run 25 minutes in the morning and 25 mins in the evening 3 times a week. It makes 02:30 with fat consumption... eeee near zero although your HRM shows you sound 15% 3. Do the interval training; about 30 seconds sprint, 3-4 minutes slow pace. After 4th or 5th cycle your heart rate stays high but you hardly move from the spot. Compare the results with the numbers measured by your HRM at a constant pace. The HRM shows no difference 4. If you do swimming - you cannot look at your wrist while doing it
Beware: HRMs may give you estimated calories burned, and Polar will even claim it's accurate within 10%, but the formulas they're using to estimate calories burned makes some rather broad assumptions about human physiology and your specific level of fitness as well and will err on the high side to encourage people to continue exercising. Higher-end HRMs will allow you to enter your VO2max, which would make it more accurate, but VO2max is something that is done using a very strenuous and expensive lab test that the average person isn't going to go to the effort for, and even then there are still assumptions made based on statistical averages and general theories. HRMs are good for helping you stay within a level of exertion that is appropriate for the type of physical training you're doing (i.e., staying within an aerobic zone while running) but as a way of tracking calories they're rather poor.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This line of thought is a great way to not get in shape by focusing on the wrong things.
I'm certainly onboard (so to speak) with the idea that "real" rowing is more fun and environmentally enlightening than rowing-machine rowing. But the thing is, if you're trying to get your exercise over your lunch hour, there's essentially no way for you to do any real rowing. By the time you get dressed, get yourself to an appropriate body of water, launch, and begin rowing, you've already burned up half your available time. Most people can get to the gym more easily than to a boat launch, and you don't have to lug around a boat, either. Similarly, the weather won't always support running outdoors... therefore, treadmills. Yes, "fake" rowing and running is not nearly as interesting, but it's better than not exercising at all.
Finally, what's with the dismissal of playing with the numbers? This is slashdot, after all - we like doing that kind of thing. If playing with data is fun for you, then by definition it's not a waste of your life.
http://www.mapmyfitness.com/
Free, and allows you to actually map your routes from the data.
Though it doesn't record heart rate (and requires an Android phone), I've been quite happy with Google's My Tracks app, which uploads data to Google Docs (which you can retrieve as a CSV file) and routes to Google Maps.
I was hoping someone had bitten the bullet and writen an Access replacment.
Back to the salt mines... grrr....
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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Do you want to get in shape or just work off a pound or two?
Unless it keeps you motivated or if you really want to geek your workouts, you don't need heart rate monitors, GPS, or the like. Believe me, I've tried it all. You gain nothing.
I crossfit http://www.crossfit.com/. Its pretty simple. If you puke, your heart rate is too high. After a year of it I'm in the best shape of my life.
Cycling is my primary sport. I use a CatEye V2 for cadence. That's all I need. Because of crossfit, I can ride faster and farther than I ever imagined possible.
In the end, I use iPhone apps "As Rx'd" to keep up with crossfit WOD's, and "Zone Buddy" to manage what I eat, but a paper journal works just as well. No graphs, no trends, no geeking. Just health.
Good luck!
I totally agree that an obsession with times, distances, trends, etc. can take a lot of the fun out of endurance sports.
But devices like this are really useful for anyone training for competitive events. When I was a competitive cyclist (also about 30 years ago) I kept a training diary, a small notebook where I recorded all my rides and other training, dietary intake, daily weight, HR upon waking, etc. These gadgets are just an easy way of accumulating useful data with less work.
Nokia Sports Tracker lets you export your workout data as KML files. It also supports GPX, XML, CSV or Google Earth compatible formats. You can locally access all the data whenever you want. And, as it uses open formats, you can upload your workouts to Google Maps and have them appear there.
Turkeyphant
You may want to reconsider your distance from "open source zealotry". Your careful neutrality is admirable, but wait until it gets personal.
Open data format (or a broken one) is the way you get a driver to control the speed of vlc playback. What great motivation for consistent exercise! Then again, you wouldn't want to run afoul of DMCA while simply trying to access your health data; perhaps best to just leave it hidden away.
What about your data on their servers? Are you sure they're not sharing it with your insurance without your knowledge? What if the gov't is your insurance provider? I can only imagine the delight in their eyes from the real-time feed of your glucose levels. Conversely, does the equipment provider maintain it securely enough that you can use it as an alibi? Do they require a subpoena, so that your rights are protected from miscellaneous snoops out to injure your reputation? For that matter, what happens when they go out of business? Do you have to shop the liquidator auctions to find the disk with your data?
Paranoid? Perhaps, but are you that sure that your partner isn't going to suffer brain injury and go nuts? Have you ever wondered what happens to the kind persons who feed data to wikileaks?
I'm surprised cycling hasn't been mentioned. Similar to rowing, we've enjoyed using power measurement tools for years. Special cranks or hubs, for example, measure the force applied in the pedal stroke, and provide us with instant feedback, measured in watts, so we have quantified feedback on our efforts. These devices store the data, which of course we interpret on our computers. It's excellent feedback, and really enables riders to fine-tune their training, revealing weaknesses and strengths. Data peaks are usually stored for time intervals, so peak wattage over 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 5mins, 20mins, etc.. Looking at any rider's output over these areas shows if they're more of a sprinter or endurance rider, etc.. Once you have their weight, you can compare riders in watts per kilogram, which is helpful for determining how well a rider will be able to climb. (ie, a heavier rider will likely be able to pump out more watts, but due to the extra resistance going uphill, a lighter rider could very well have a more favorable w/kg profile.) These of course also tie into some of the mentioned devices, such as the Garmin 705, which can pick up the wireless signals from power-measurement devices, and you can track elevation, GPS, heart rate and much more as well. It makes for some interesting feedback post-ride. I've been training and racing with power for nearly three years, it's pretty amazing. Check out devices from PowerTap or SRM, good software is from Trainingpeaks called WKO+, and if you really want to get into the subject, check out the Wattage Googlegroup.
Also, doing research on what Olympians log helped me increase my performance. For example, as I mentioned I kept failing AF PT tests (maxed out sit ups, pushups, but my 35" waist meant I needed to run a 12:30 1/5 mile. I could do it at home but not "away" at military drill, 5 hours north) and I was getting frustrated. I'd run a 12:30 at home, and then 5 days later run a 16:00 at Vandeberg AFB. Then I noticed in one Olympic training log they logged such things as "Hours slept". I found hours slept had erratic impact on energy levels (one day I could get 4 hours sleep and feel fine, another time, "lag"), but had a very large, relationship to performance (regardless of "perceived energy level" before the run). This is where I learned very clearly, that logging is highly beneficial. The irony is I'm logging three places (on line, paper workout logs, and iPhone GPS "MotionX" app) and yet I am just about kicked out of the Air Force for not being physically fit, yet able to do triathlons in respectable times.
So back on topic, this peaked my interest because I've been wanting to find something to consolidate all of my training logs. I've got my P-90X (paper and on-line) training logs, my iPhone logged run times, and excel spreadsheet with triathlon training schedule. It's a bit much. Although interesting, I haven't really seen anything that replaces those yet.
To go into another topic, I did start losing weight when I stopped playing Halo3 until 2am every night and started getting 8 hours of sleep. Yes, my diet and training had a large degree of impact, but I think you set yourself up for success or failure with your sleep habits. Much more than most people recognize or practice.
Rasmus Lerdorf wrote a couple of blog entries about using the iPod Nike+. Your run information is stored as an XML file on your iPod, so he put together a PHP5 class to play with his run data.
Blog entry:
http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/43-100-Runs.html
PHP code:
http://lerdorf.com/php/nikeplus.phps
His run summary shows up in his Twitter feed as well.
This is probably outside the price range of most folks, but BodyMedia makes a research version.
And before you complain, yes research versions of such equipment are almost always more expensive than consumer versions. This has to do with the added technical support ("we want people to do [insert crazy unusual thing] while using your device, will it work?") and typical "hey, that's odd data, can you explain it?" types of follow-up. When you're doing research, this level of support and debugging has a definite, non-zero value.
I use a Polar heart rate monitor. It stores my last 50 workouts which is helpful for me to see how dedicated I have been each week. It requires additional hardware to download it to a computer which I don't have, so I can't say much about that. What I do love about this the most is that the workout machines at 24 hour fitness (and even most machines at hotels) will detect the heart rate monitor and display the results on the machine's digital readout. This is extremely useful when doing fixed heart rate training. The machine will automatically adjust to keep you at a target heart rate and you don't have to hold the grips for it to get your heart rate.
A IR LED and IR sensor with simple amp into a cheap a2d.
A deep red works too but it is really measuring blood oxygen which is out of phase with heartbeat.
The Garmin Training Center app uses a sqlite database to store the results, which I use to do some further munging, using some of the code from here as a base.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
I use the free exercise log on FitLink. Decent exercise database and a run mapper tool as well. Social features, but no device integration yet unfortunately.
I personally monitor my bike rides using a Garmin 305. It tracks my location via GPS, my altitude by a barometric altimeter and my heart rate and pedal speed (cadence) wirelessly. I pull the logfiles off the Garmin unit using a cool open source program called gpsbabel, which interfaces with many devices and can translate to pretty much any known log format for GPS logs. What you do with the data from here is a little overwhelming, as there are several desktop applications as well as online applications. I personally save all my logfiles in a backed up directory, then upload them to a website I am working on. The site, http://ridewithgps.com/ allows me to track all my activities on maps with interactive graphs. I have a yearly/monthly/weekly view of my activities, with accumulated miles/elevation climbed/calories burned etc. We calculate average watts expended during some exercise, which is how we calculate calories total. It is really cool being able to watch my athletic abilities improve over time, which is one of the motivating factors for using this setup. It is much more interesting to ride my bike 100 miles a week when I can see everything it is doing for me in one spot. Additionally, the reverse can be done with this website: I can map out a ride on a google map, then send it to my Garmin 305. This allows me to get turn-by-turn directions as well as a map to follow on my ride, which is very helpful for riding a new route! Finally, all the data on your profile is easily exportable and transferable. If you find a new service that serves you better, you are not locked in. This is critical to my sense of security when using any program, so I wanted to make sure no one else felt frustrated if they wanted to move to something else.
I support bluetooth heart rate monitors open source here:
http://code.google.com/p/zephyropen/
Can stream into google via atom, or ftp the reports.
Brad
I would be curious to know how much an insurance company is billed for physician time and data analysis service when a patient wears a Holter monitor for a few days. Wouldn't it be nice if we could own our own medical instruments and the data they generated?
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Your hunch was right. It's one and a half miles (1.5m) in 12:30 (Twelve minutes, 30 seconds). It's too late for me to stay in the Air Force. Honestly, the irony is I do the equiv to at least 2 sprint marathons a week, and yet according to the Air Force, "I'm not physically fit." My run time, waist and pushups/situps tell them that. *rolleyes* We used to have the "tape and measure" saving grace but they nixed that. Now it's BMI, or Body Mass Index. They take a function of your height and divide by weight (H^2/W ?). So, no matter how muscular, unmuscular, body type, etc, I'm "not fit" according to the BMI until I, as a 5' 10" male, until I weight UNDER 169 pounds. So my soon-to-be-ex commander who's fat as hell and shaped like a pear (not a small pear) is "more fit" according to the AF because he can run for 12 minutes faster than me. Nevermind he looks like crap in uniform. Sorry if that sounds bitter, but it's pretty close. Pacing is an excellent idea. I tried training less miles per week (scaling back from 20-25 miles down to about 8 miles) and sprinting a lot more (all out sprint 100 yards, jog 100, repeat) but that just resulted in extremely painful injuries: plantar fascitis (ultrasound showed over 150% swelling) and my Nikes caused sinus tarsitis to flare up bad. However, I didn't get a pacer. When I ran with my wife, I started dropping times. I should have ran with her for my PT test. It's partially being stubborn and partially conceeding too late that it's what needed to happen. I wanted to do it mano-e-mano, or whatever. I wanted to pass and I wanted it to be all me. Possibly part of my anger should be at that bit of vanity, but it's still primarly aimed at a misguided PT test from the AF. The other irony is if you take my scores and extrapolate out, I pass the Army and Navy tests. Meaning, take my overall pace for 1.5 miles, stretch to 2 miles, use those scores with my situp/push up, I pass.
Plyometrics is part of my current training. I've also incorporated Yoga at least once a week with a well rounded workout (cardio and strength). Then, I'm following a Triathlon training schedule for endurance training. So, as an example, yesterday was 30 minutes running, and 45 minutes swimming. Today is 50 minute bicycle, tomorrow will be 40 minutes running, and Thursday is a "brick". I'll swim for 30 minutes and then immediately bike for 40 minutes. For strength/cardio, yesterday was Legs/Back/Abs (core), today is Yoga for 1 hour 40 minutes, tomorrow is a "rest day", and then Chest/Tri/Abs (core) on Thursday.
I have a lower model Garmin, so I'm not sure what is logs. I used it to just track my pace as I ran and overall speed/time. Now, the iPhone app MotionX logs: Name (you can name the track), notes, elapsed time, average pace (m/min), Distance, and max pace.
So I'm logging the above with my iPhone. Then I have P-90X strength/cardio logs on paper and on-line. The paper logs the number of reps and weight for strength training. The on-line log just logs the workout itself (e.g. Legs & Back on Monday, Yoga on Tuesday, etc). I use an excel spreadsheet from Triathlon Club of San Diego (TCSD) to track my "Beginners Training Guide for a Sprint Triathlon". It logs the exercise per day and the duration. So for yesterday, the Column read "Day 1", on the "Week 3: Run," and "Week 3: Swim" lines. The datafield for run was "30" (for 30 minutes) and swim was around 30 or 40.
I have a cheap $20 Reebok heartrate monitor that I use just to personally watch my training zone on Cardio training days. I'm to the point now I can tell without it where I am and how quickly I'll
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