Do you use a heart rate monitor when you train? I guess at most big box gyms the majority of people don't. I mean when you consider that most people don't have a training journal to record their workouts they probably aren't going to go to the trouble and expense of investing in a heart rate monitor. But for those that do have and use a heart rate monitor I'm curious as to what they monitor? Again if I had to guess what number most people check first when they complete a training session I would say it's the calories consumed. And this is kind of amusing because: A. This is simply a rough estimation of correlating calories burned with elevated heart rate. If this is all it took to get lean we could probably just watch marathon horror movies every day to spike our heart rates repeatedly, burn tons of calories, and get lean. B. The estimation is just that. It uses an average and includes the calories burned while at rest. In other words if my body uses 50 calories at rest and 110 calories to go for a hike than the hike only burned 60 calories. But the display on my heart rate monitor would show 110 calories and perhaps give me a false impression of how effective a particular training session was. But other than tracking the calories consumed a heart rate monitor can tell us the duration of our exercise, our average heart rate and our maximal heart rate. Now you can always pick up models with other functions that include lap functions, GPS, elevation and other things but at minimum you'll get heart rate data. So why would I want a heart rate monitor anyway? Can't I simply stop and check my pulse every now-and-again? To answer...

Recently we've incorporated a couple of new technologies at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. This supports our goal for you which is to get you better results in less time. And by incorporating these technologies we know that we will be able to help you recover from your injury, lose more weight and compete at a higher level.So what are these new technologies?They are Bioforce HRV units and Polar Heart Rate monitors. And I know what you're thinking. There's nothing new about heart rate monitors. And you'd be right. But how many of the people who know the benefits of training with a heart monitor actually use one? Very few. It's kind of like back when people owned VCRs but nobody ever programmed it and instead it flashed 12:00.So we've made a bulk order with Polar to be able to supply all of our clients with heart rate monitors.And the heart rate monitors came about as a result of a need to be able to use the Bioforce HRV units. So what exactly is a Bioforce HRV?Well HRV stands for heart rate variability and is a measure of magnitude of change between heart beats. This was developed by the Russians in the 60s when they would send cosmonauts into space and needed a way be able to monitor their health. Some of the only data coming back from space was heart rate data which the scientists were able to break apart and determine that there is valuable information contained within the heart beat.When there is a lot of variability between heart beats we could say an individual is fit or well rested and recovered. On the other hand if the variability between heart beats was minimal this could be indicative of someone in poor shape or someone who needs a rest day.This is not the same as simply measuring the pulse of...

Hi there: I hope you had a great Hallowe'en weekend. It's such a great time of year to be able to let loose and be a kid again for a night. And possibly the next morning if you promise to wear your costume the following Saturday AM for a stairs workout. Looking back this probably wasn't the smartest thing I've decided to do but I did it and hopefully it lightened the mood for those that came out for the workout and helped them work a little harder. Below you can see a picture of Wonder Woman, Les Grossman and Kat Von D.I've got some video footage from the Saturday morning workout and will try to work that into a future post.Switching gears here a little bit I want to let you of a device I'm testing out. It's called a BodyBugg and it measures you caloric expenditure. You wear it around your left arm and it records how many calories you expend during day.Now some people will be thinking 'I have a heart rate monitor that tracks my calories so how is this any different?'True, a heart rate monitor provides an estimation on calories burned but it isn't very accurate. Basically the caloric measurement from a heart rate monitor correlates to how many calories would typically be burned at a particular heart rate.So first of all we realize this is an estimation and therefore is not a totally accurate method of tracking your calories. But secondly your heart rate monitor has no way of detecting whether an increased heart rate is due to physical exertion or a hightened emotional state. For example if you wore your heart rate monitor to a scary movie you might get a number of spikes during the frightening scenes of the movie. And your heart rate monitor would...