Forum posts to 'Training tips'

Re: ithlete and periodisation

moderator — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:35:09 +0000

Hi Mick

Thanks for the feedback, and I totally agree with you! 3 days in a row of aerobic training for me and I never felt better!

I think a lot of people are put off by the 'no pain no gain' mantra so they think it can't be doing them any good. To make things worse, Maffetone aerobic training feels really easy at first, and, contrary to many things in life, it gets harder as you continue. That's because your heart stroke volume increases and you get more work done per beat, so 140 bpm becomes capable of delivering a lot of blood, oxygen & nutrients around your body.

Sorry to hear about the HRM app crashing - it should not, especially if you are using the latest 1.15 version. I recommend starting your music first on the ipod touch 2G, since it does not support background tasks, then fire up the HRM app and press the top sleep button to switch off the display when you want to save power. I just checked the Apple developer portal, and there are too few crash reports for them to notify. But if it happens consistently, could you please let me know the sequence of events in an email to ithlete.support@myithlete.com?
I want to make this a great tool for all users!

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Re: ithlete and periodisation

Mick — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:02:39 +0000

Reporting back - very pleased! The Maffetone aerobic training is making a big difference to my ultra prep. Back running once, even twice a day, and loving it. Occasionally overdoing it but the HRV picks it up straightaway. The combination of the HRV monitoring and easy aerobic base-building is a breath of fresh air for my training; all that scientific research is much appreciated! And after 3 months of this MAF work I'll see if the cramps have been licked, on a 100km'er.
PS Couldn't get the HRM app to work properly with my ipod touch v2 though, so got a Polar HRM. Seems to crash out when the music is playing and doesn't record any data. Tried without music on but still a problem.

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Re: ithlete and periodisation

Mick — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:35:34 +0000

Awesome, thanks Simon!

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Re: ithlete and periodisation

moderator — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:21:12 +0000

Hi Mick

That's great feedback - thank you so much also for writing a review.

To try & answer your points:

1. You can take a screenshot of any app at any time just by holding down the Lock button on the top and the Home button simultaneously. You will see the screen flash white and the image is added to your device's photo library, from where it can be emailed or synced with your PC or Mac.

2. To add extra information and make notes, use the export feature on the Edit screen (I assume you are on v1.2 of the app) to send a .csv file to yourself. The date & time of each entry will appear as columns when you open the file with Excel, Numbers, etc, as well as the HRV, HR and the training recommendation letter. I recently did an FAQ on what these mean http://www.myithlete.com/how-do-i-use-the-export-file/. You can just add as many extra columns as you need - for instance I use one for TRIMP (training load expressed as duration x intensity), and one for how I feel overall as well as a couple of notes on the actual training I did.

I hope you find a solution for the cramps, and when you do, please be sure to post back.

Very glad you are finding ithlete useful!

Simon.

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Re: ithlete and periodisation

Mick — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:39:53 +0000

I'm getting interesting trends which I'd like to show - how do you grab the screenshot from the iPod /iPhone to display the graphs? Or is that an upcoming feature? I'd also like to be able to input into each days measurement a training note eg hills/intervals/race/longrun plus time etc so I can see the correlation without having to compare dates from Attackpoint.org (our online orienteering training log). It wouldn't matter if this was a mac/pc application to show the graphs and training; even now after only 3 weeks I see fabtastic data in teher and after a few years it will be mind boggingly useful! Especially with training summary attached!

I've also just written a review for NZ Orienteering magazine as I'm impressed by the app and hardware.

The big problem I have is not with cardiovascular fitness but with cramps and muscle tightness, after long long runs (I've done a few ultras but the cramps have put a stop to them). The HRV definitely plunges after the long long runs and is very useful to show when I've recovered. I would dearly love to be able to run ultras again so I will have to find ways to train for them and will try fast hiking perhaps and see how that works with HRV and multi-days.

Thanks for a great system.

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