When I walked into the gym in February and saw all of the multi-coloured tiles on the screen above the treadmills and the various posters around the gym, I was curious as to how MyZone could actually help my training as I already attending the gym fairly regularly, along with having weekly PT sessions with Barry.

When Barry explained the concept it appealed to me for a number of reasons; 1) If I could see what everyone else was doing I knew it would tap into my competitive nature and keep me motivated. 2) I liked the idea of being able to scientifically gauge your training performance rather than judging it by how long I had spent on the treadmill or how knackered I felt. 3) Within my family there is a long line of hereditary heart conditions, therefore being able to fully monitor and track how my heart performs during training could only be a good thing.

After I had got my head around how the MyZone Effort Points (MEPs) worked, from the very first session when I sat on the Watt Bike watching my phone like a hawk to see how quickly I could make the screen change colour, it instantly started to change the way I trained as my rest periods changed from a period of time, to when my heart rate dropped to a certain percentage that I needed to get going again before I dropped out of that zone.

Also, as I thought it would, it really tapped into my competitive streak too; I ‘followed’ other people from the gym, who to be fair I haven’t got a clue who they were but was intrigued to gauge how I was performing against others, and to be honest I have no idea who you are RachelR or Soneya, but you’re a constant source of frustration as I can never get close to knocking you off top spot! I can cope with Barry being top; after all it’s his job and he does a good job of keeping me motivated by telling me if I’m not working hard enough when he checks in on my performance.

After a couple of weeks, I also managed to convince my best mate to get one too as I liked the sound of setting challenges for us to compete against – big mistake! At the time my mate was pretty unfit which meant he got into the yellow and red zones way too easily, and basically destroyed me in the first couple of challenges because I just couldn’t compete with the points he was racking up. But now he’s got himself back into shape (helped massively by MyZone as he’s competitive too) it’s more of a level playing field and we amusingly watch each other’s stats like a hawk on the big screen as we train, or peer down at each others’ phones during the spin class to see if we need to push just that little but harder to keep up!

But overall the real benefit to me has been the ability to monitor the performance of my heart, which thankfully is pretty good, backed up by the fact that I can not only monitor how my heart is performing, but also how quickly it recovers during rest periods.

The reason this is so important to me is because on my Dad’s side of the family there is a long line of serious heart conditions. My Grandad had a fatal heart attack at 57, so did my Uncle at the same age, and yep, you guessed it, so did my Dad at 57. Thankfully though my Dad’s wasn’t fatal, just 3 very near misses, all in 2003, and he is now fitted with an internal defibrillator (the big shock pads you see on casualty) that will help him if God forbid he suffered another. As you can imagine when I get to 57 I might just go and lie down for a year!

The main reason though that my Dad was fortunate enough to survive was due to how fit he is and how active he keeps himself, ironically his first heart attack was in a gym despite always keeping in good shape! As a result, my own fitness and condition is something that I pay close attention to which MyZone is perfect for.

 

My reasons for liking MyZone so much are varied, but I personally have found that it has helped push my training on to the next level, I even managed to pair it up with my Garmin watch when I went out for a run the other day which was a bonus, plus trying to get ahead of my mate in our monthly challenge ensures I get my backside to the gym as often as possible, and most importantly is keeping the old ticker in shape.

Use discount code PURUK001 at www.buy.myzone.org and get £50 of your belt order.