Archive for August, 2009

1 hour on elliptical trainer:

Weight: 197 (196.8)
Time: 1:00:02
In Zone: 53:38
Avg HR: 167
Peak HR: 182
Min HR: 131
Tot Cal: 1348 (445)
Recovery: 45 (174-129)

1 hour on elliptical trainer:

Weight: 197 (197.6)
Time: 0:59:57
In Zone: 53:42
Avg HR: 164
Peak HR: 177
Min HR: 93
Tot Cal: 1308 (429)
Recovery: 46 (170-124)

Spent about 1 1/2 hours on yard work. Mowed front and back, and weeded around the deck and removed all the spider webs I could.

Spent 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer:

Weight: 198 (196.6)
Time: 20:02
In Zone: 18:46
Avg HR: 173
Peak HR: 184
Min HR: 111
Tot Cal: 478 (202)
Recovery: 49 (179-130)

1 hour on the elliptical

Weight: 198 (199.0)
Time: 1:00:02
In Zone: 54:22 (I changed my zone setting)
Avg HR: 172
Peak HR: 186
Min HR: 85
Tot Cal: 1422 (475)
Recovery: 44 (173-129)

1 hour elliptical trainer

Weight: 200 (198.8)
Time: 1:00:01
In Zone: 13:34
Avg HR: 176
Peak HR: 192
Min HR: 109
Tot Cal: 1489 (503)
Recovery: 44 (189-145)

I pushed hard today, hence the short period of time in zone. I also discovered a new maximum heart rate.

1 hour on the elliptical trainer:

Weight: 202 (200.4)
Time: 1:00:02
In Zone: 31:28
Avg HR: 166
Peak HR: 184
Min HR: 99
Tot Cal: 1356 (503)
Recovery: 52 (184-132)

Aug 16: No elliptical, but went down to Terry and Jacky’s and swam in their pool. Probably a good 2 hours or more of leisurely swimming, which is about 1000+ calories. However, our food intake more than made up for all that exercise Venison kabobs and cake are yummy.

Aug 17: Taking a break today, no heavy exercise. I did 13 1/2 minutes on the elliptical as a “wake me up” morning thing. Otherwise, giving my body a chance to recover from the output yesterday and to deal with my sunburn. However, for that 13 1/2 minute workout, here’s the data:

Weight: 200 (201.0)
Time: 13:46
In Zone: 11:34
Avg HR: 153
Peak HR: 171
Min HR: 84
Tot Cal: 271 (128)
Recovery: 56 (169-113)

Started off by mowing lawn. Did all three sections (front, back, septic). Went much faster this time since it wasn’t overgrown:

Weight: 202 (200.4)
Time: 1:07:07
In Zone: 38:52
Avg HR: 146
Peak HR: 166
Min HR: 99
Tot Cal: 1232 (N/A)
Recovery: 30 (153-123)

Then did 1 hour on the elliptical a while later:

Weight: 200 (200.4)
Time: 1:00:04
In Zone: 13:10
Avg HR: 166
Peak HR: 181
Min HR: 99
Tot Cal: 1357 (426)
Recovery: 44 (181-137)

60 minutes on elliptical trainer

Weight: 202 (200.6)
Time: 1:00:02
In Zone: 18:30
Avg HR: 162
Peak HR: 177
Min HR: 99
Tot Cal: 1317 (451)
Recovery: 41 (170-129)

The heart rate monitor was occasionally missing beats due to poor placement on my chest, so the numbers are actually lower than they should be.

I took yesterday off to give my body a chance to rebuild.  It seemed like it was getting harder just to do the same exercise, which is what happens if you over train, and that’s something easy to do when you start out in poor physical condition like I am.

So, after a day off, I got back on the elliptical trainer, but this time I upped my pace a bit in an effort to promote actual progression of my abilities.  Instead of maintaining a 40-42 rpm pace, I kept a 44-45 pace.  It made a huge difference in the workout.

Weight: 202 (202.2)
Time: 1:00:05
In Zone: 07:48 (pushing the workout took me right out of my zone)
Avg HR: 169
Peak HR: 185
Min HR: 87
Tot Cal: 1411 (453)
Recovery: 40 (181-141)

Side note: I bought an iPhone app to help me track calories burned vs. consumed, and it logs exercise, but not in the detail I want to keep, so I’ll keep my exercise logs here too.

Mowed back yard, but didn’t wear the heart monitor. Was roughly 1 hour to mow that jungle.

Did 1 hour on the elliptical trainer.

Weight: 201 (201.2)
Time: 1:00:09
In Zone: — (bad data, I accidentally hit the split button on the watch)
Avg HR: 156
Peak HR: 178
Min HR: 91
Tot Cal: 1232 (360)
Recovery: — (bad data, I hit the split button during the recovery timeout and it reset the recovery timeout)

Spent 60 minutes on elliptical trainer.

Data:

Weight: 201 (201.8)
Time: 1:00:07
In Zone: 05:26
Avg HR: 159
Peak HR: 178
Min HR: 90
Tot Cal: 1284 (360)
Recovery Rate: 33 (151-118)

Since this is the first posting with data, there are a few things to note.

First, the weight. You have to enter your weight into the watch for it to calculate your calorie burn. The first number is what the watch has entered. In parenthesis is what my scale actually read last time I got on it. For consistency sake, I weigh myself in the morning, immediately after getting up and going pee, and before getting dressed for the day.

My time “In Zone” represents how much time I spent with my heart rate in the desired exercise range. However, I don’t really know what my max heart rate is (the tests the booklet suggested said 180 or so, but I don’t buy it because when it’s at 175+ I feel taxed, but not 99% taxed). I had selected Zone 3, which is the primary zone for people not really trying to train for some sort of event. With my Max HR of 180, Zone 3 is supposed to be 126 to 144. But I’m so out of shape that I could probably go past that standing in line at McDonalds. Plus, I was obviously able to sustain a higher rate for a full hour, so I *really* don’t trust my current Max HR setting. If someone knows a reliable way to get your Max HR without actually inducing a heart attack, I’d love to hear it.

Also, the Total Calories number seems extremely high. However, it’s supposedly calculated based upon your weight and your heart rate. If that’s true, then it represents your entire metabolic calorie burn during the period of time you are measuring, not just the calorie burn related to the exercise. On the other hand, the number in parenthesis is what the elliptical trainer says I burned. However, it merely measures how much energy you put into its electrical generator. That excludes any energy you spent holding your body in the proper position to even make the thing move, and trust me, given that you can’t hardly ever straighten your legs fully and it feels like you are almost running in a minor squat, the energy required just to hold your body in that position is not trivial. I’m going to keep both numbers and just assume the truth is somewhere in between them.

I think I may try wearing the heart monitor for 12 hours or so during my normal daily work and see what it comes up with then. If it says somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 for a 12 hour period sans exercise, then I might believe its calculated number is correct. Otherwise, I would say it’s calculation isn’t working properly for my body.

Wore heart rate monitor during mowing. Found that it is indeed good aerobic exercise since I let the grass get tall, I use a self propelled mower (although with lots of vacuum cleaner style back and forth instead of just always letting it roll forward), and I go at a good clip. Did 1:40 mowing. Only got the front yard and septic field done

Spent 20 minutes on elliptical trainer.

Spent 48 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Was prior to heart rate monitor, so no data.

I finally fixed the eliptical trainer that Chris gave us so it’s usable now. As such, I’ve started working out on it. I’m going to keep a log of those here. I also bought a heart rate monitor so I could keep better tabs on how hard I was exercising. I’ll be putting those records in here since the monitor only keeps the last record, so if I don’t write it down somewhere, it gets lost. I’ll be tagging all of these posts as exercise, feel free to filter them out if you wish.