#mioglobal

DAVE, The BMX Racer

Click here to follow Dave’s workout plan

In his own words: 

The app is simple and user-friendly. I synced the Mio Fuse without any hiccups, set up my target zones, and the tracking began.

The Mio Fuse allows me to track my sleep (side note: I never had a sleep tracking device and my interest was piqued). I tried it and saw that I was only getting a few hours of sleep at night. It also gave me my resting heart rate (see below) while sleeping — which is good. From this, as well as my heart rate and stress level the following day, I was able to glean that I needed to be going to bed earlier.

First set of workouts:

The first set of workouts were on rollers. Bicycle rollers are a great way to stay on your bike during the frigid east coast winter months. It also works your core as you have to balance yourself on the bike. There are two ways to log a workout. One was to go into the app and select the “Begin A workout” button, the other is to just start working out. I assume it detects an activity which would switch the device into tracking mode.

Second set of workouts:

In the initial set up, I increased my target zone. The target zones are broken down in the profile settings screen by color, which I never really paid attention to until this roller session.

While on the rollers, and after the brief warm up, I would spin/roll out, which is a term where in the rider would go faster than the gear ratio on the bike, and looked down at the MioFUSE and noticed the LED was flashing red. Red indicates that I was in my max targeted heart rate zone. I stayed at that speed for a while, then slowed to a relaxing pace and noticed the LED switched to blue. Then I would spin back up (BMX is a series of stops and starts). When you stop you don’t come to a dead stop, but when you start you try to get up to a full sprint as quickly as possible. 

A typical lap time is within a 30-40 second time frame all done on 4 straights. So that is what I emulate on the rollers and my workouts. Stop-start (full sprint)-stop-start (full sprint)-stop-start (full sprint)-stop-start (full sprint).

JUSTIN, The Casual Chemist

Click here to follow Justin’s workout plan

In his own words:

Testing the Mio Global Fuse has been a bittersweet experience. I’ve been wearing it nonstop now for about 3 weeks, and in that time, I’ve gotten to know the hardware and multiple software options that pair with the app.

My first day with the band was so exciting, and I couldn’t wait to get back home to workout. It was a bit tough to figure out how to get the heart rate tracking started in preparation for my workout tracking started on the band because the touch-sensitive areas on the band weren’t immediately clear to me. Once I got the band recording my heart rate, I was excited to see what I could learn during my workout. Seeing my heart rate fluctuate so evenly and predictably through cycles of lifting (100-130 bpm) and rest (80-90 bpm) was not only amusing, but enlightening. 

I started to think that maybe instead of waiting a generic 90 seconds between sets, I could just to monitor my body’s progress using heart rate. Instead of waiting that 90 seconds, I could wait until the reading dips back below 90 bpm.

On most sets, these two things consistently occur at just about the same time. However, if I’m lifting a weight that is much more challenging to me on that particular day, maybe it will take my heart two or three minutes before returning to that 80-90 bpm rest range.

I was surprised and a bit disappointed that my heart rate didn’t get up much higher during my sets. But I’m only doing 5 reps at a time, so it’s fair that my heart rate wouldn’t  have time to climb much higher than 130 bpm.

Another benefit of rocking the Mio Fuse is that I’ve been increasing my workout frequency. I was working out 1.5 days/week before I started wearing the band, and now that I have it, I’ve bumped it up to the 3 days per week prescribed by my training program, so I’d say that is a huge win for me!

I’ve gone on one run with the Mio Fuse and the heart rate data I collected was even more enlightening than the heart rate data from my weightlifting sessions (see below). 

While running, I was able to reach a much more elevated heart rate, and thus understood at which point in my run I was really struggling, and perhaps when I fell into a rhythm or slowed my pace necessarily to stop my heart from beating out of my chest. 

If I can run at a similar pace for the same distance in the future (after months of training) maybe I can decrease both my resting heart rate and the heart rate at which I’m comfortable running. In contrast, the heart rate at which I have to slow down will climb through this training.

As far as wrist-worn heart rate monitors go, the Mio Fuse appears to be in a league of its own. At a physical the other day, I turned on the heart rate tracking on the band at the same time that my doctor was checking my pulse with a blood pressure cuff, and the values given by the band stayed within 1 beat per minute of the information provided from the digital blood pressure cuff.

(psst: Read more about Justin’s running experience with Mio Global & Pear here) 

So far, the experience with the Mio Fuse has been great. I hope I can stay on the consistent workout grind, and maybe even see some small changes in my resting heart rate and running heart rates!