Unfortunately, I have neck and back issues. More precisely, my neck lacks it’s natural curvature, which develops all kids of muscle contracture and enough pain for several lifetimes. But enough on that.
Since I’m a bit overweight, I thought that I had to get back to being active… a lot of past preferred sports were obviously out of the question, namely Mountain Biking, Football, Gym with weight trainings, Body Combat, Body Pump… all of this is forbidden for me right now, since I cannot widthstand the vertical impacts and loads that all of these provide.
So, what to do? The best workouts for me right now are swimming and non-impact cardio, such as static bike and elliptical. I’ve bought myself an elliptical machine, and I’ve started regular workouts at home.
Now comes the issue that took me some time to figure out, and the reason of why I wrote this boring introduction.
I’m an engineer and my professional activity is related with logging data (environmental data, to be more precise). So, working out without logging my trainings was definetely not an option. So, how can I track my workout history and review my performance? I think that if one starts to see improvements this will keep him engaged and will help skipping out workouts… I know myself, I can get discouraged and I need to find ways to keep me motivated other than wanting to be healthier and look better.
This started my quest for the best/cheapest hardware+app combo for my home workouts.
Since I wanted to center my information in my phone (iOS environment), I’ve started to buy myself a Bluetooth Smart (BLTE or Bluetooth 4.0, whenever you want to call it) Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). You have several available from the most prestigious brands, but since I want to keep this on the cheap I went to AliExpress and ordered an CooSpo for <25€ which works like a charm.
Now, how to log data…this is where apps come into play. I’ve tried a lot of apps…more than I like to admit…and I think I have it more or less figured it out (at least for my needs).
- Garmin is awesome…their hardware is great and it’s definitely my favorite, though it’s expensive. First prize, but out of the question right now mostly due to the cost. Nevertheless the Garmin Connect app is great and I’m keeping it installed on my phone…
- Strava is good for challenging your friends in specific running/cycling workouts…for elliptical and logging home workouts it sucks big time.
- Withings I use for logging my weight and blood pressure, but it’s no good for workouts.
- Fitbit is good for daily tracking, for sports not so much.
- Adidas miCoach is great; I love the app and it’s definitely a great workout app environment…if you only want heart rate. If you want additional cadence sensors in your elliptical it’s not the way to go, as all the adidas sensors are more outdoor focused (GPS, foot pod, etc).
- Nike+ and Runtastic are mostly for running workouts.
- Endomondo supports several indoor activities but lacks bluetooth sensors support apart from HRM.
- ….yada yada bla bla bla etc etc…
- cutting to the chase: Wahoo Fitness is the solution!
It’s not the prettiest app, actually is quite basic and simple… and it has some issues since you can’t select exactly the data you want to show on the screen, but you have several screens to chose from…but the best asset and the reason why this is THE app is that it supports a lot of external BLTE sensors, not only HRM , and one can export workout to major apps (Garmin Connect included! wink wink 🙂 )
So, I’ve bought a CooSpo cadence sensor (~16€), attached it to my elliptical and now I can log not only the heart rate but also my cadence. Since there is no gearbox, there is a direct relationship between RPM and Km/h, which I have retrieved with simple math (basically had to figure out the perimeter of the “wheel” in order to relate RPM and Km/h).
I had a small installation glitch, though… I thought on using the magnets on the moving parts, and keep the sensors static, as I would normally have on a bike, but the RPM at low speeds were being overestimated by a factor of 2…this meant that <~40 RPM the sensor would get twice the RPM, and >~40 RPM it would give me the correct RPM.
I actually don’t know why that was happening, nevertheless I got it fixed by switching the sensors and the magnets position: stuck the magnets to the bike and zip-tied the sensors to the moving foot platform so that when the platform is moving down vertically, the sensors pass through the magnets and a new reading is made.
Hurray, problem solved! Now I have my workouts in my favorite fitness solution (Garmin Connect), but the workouts are done with the Wahoo app…. and the best of all, this cost me less than 50€ for both sensors (app is free).
Maybe a Garmin Fenix3 is in the horizon, but for now I have it covered. 🙂
I actually don’t know if all of this can be handy to anyone, but the fact is that I haven’t found much info about logging elliptical workouts.
One thing to keep in mind if you want to try this…Sometimes there are communication glitches with the BLTE. But maybe that’s because I also use a BT speaker when I workout.
Below some screenshots of a small training in Wahoo and in Garmin Connect.
Take care and be safe out there…
AGT
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