Myzone Experience

I’m very excited about the addition of the Myzone Heart Rate monitors to the gym based some of the experiences I’ve had with them so far! 

I’ve been wearing the Myzone for about 5 months now and it’s giving me a lot of insight into how my body reacts to workouts. For instance, whenever we start the workout my heart rate will jack up to 180 beats per minute the second we start moving!! 

For some this never happens and that's because of the type of training I’ve done for the majority of my fitness journey. As a former athlete,I primarily participated in short duration explosive sports like football and track. My body has been trained for short bursts of energy at a very high intensity. Transitioning from that into the workouts we do now with repeatable efforts that may be longer duration, I tend to fall off quickly the longer the workout goes on. 

Knowing how my body will respond to exercise and physically seeing what my heart rate is at with the Myzone lets me be a lot more mindful and have more intention in my workouts. 

Some days I know I want to push hard getting into the “RED” or 90-100% of my max heart rate. But I also know that if every single day I am pushing that hard and am near my max heart rate my body will eventually break and I’m going to end up injured.

With the Myzone I get instant feedback and can see if I am dipping into the “RED”. Then, I can immediately slow myself down to get to the “YELLOW” zone (80-90% max HR). 

With this awareness of my body there are some workouts where if I want to set my intention of not getting into the “RED” for that workout I have to check my ego and scale the workout back significantly depending on what we are doing for the day. 

Believe me it has been a big adjustment for me, it's been HARD not to look at SugarWOD and see what everyone else is doing and try to beat some people with whom I know I am competitive. 

Even though it's hard sometimes, I know that if I want to be working out and leading a healthy, long life I have to slow myself down and scale the workout so that my body can better recover and I can avoid injuries that are going to keep me from doing what I love!

Something fun that I have found with this HR chest strap is that for my age and what it initially set my max heart rate at is totally wrong, haha! The past couple weeks I have been setting new “records for myself” with how high I can get my heart rate during a workout! One workout I was able to get all the way to 198 which was 5 beats per minute above what it initially set my max at (193)!  While I also want to keep myself in check from overdoing it in my workouts all the time it was also fun to see how hard I could push myself and set new heights for myself!

The Myzone has been that ego check for me lately telling me right away that I either made a good decision or a bad one! 

If my intent was to take it easy and stay away from the “RED” and I decided to RX the workout, then the workout starts and I’m in the RED after the first 30s, I know I need to slow way down. Next time I need to check my ego and not go with the RX weight or scaling options even if I know I can complete the workout. 

Use the Myzone as a tool to help you better understand your body and help you set your intention for the workouts!  It is an amazing tool if you actually follow what it's telling you and listen to your body!