Monitoring home fitness workouts

emdunn0715
emdunn0715 Posts: 11 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi All,

Just looking for some advice, I hope some of you can help.

I am mainly exercising at home (as my husband works long hours and I cannot leave the children) using an exercise bike and have just started streaming videos online of the Les mills classes I used to enjoy at the gym. My goal is to improve my general fitness my weight is within the healthy range but I would like to monitor my progress but not really sure what to monitor?

RPM? Distance? Time? Maximum HR? Heart rate recovery over what period?

What do you all think? What monitoring do you do?

Replies

  • Natalie2950
    Natalie2950 Posts: 116 Member
    I'm in exactly the same position and love Les Mills classes. I have just got a fitness tracker but have used MFP for the last five years on and off to log my calorie burn. The fitness tracker is logging slightly lower than MFP.
    I log minutes for Les Mills. They are all stored on the exercise list, just type in Les Mills and select the program you have done. I am burning about 25 calories less according to my HRM. Bike - sorry, no idea. Feel free to friend request. I'm in maintenance.
  • SarahSloth342634
    SarahSloth342634 Posts: 90 Member
    Get a Fitbit HR! I'm like you have to watch kids, other half at work. I love excersising at home, and gym when I can. Fitbit monitors heart rate, how many flights of stairs you climb, calories burned in a 24 Hr period (but inputting your stats online) miles walked...it's great!
  • emdunn0715
    emdunn0715 Posts: 11 Member
    Thanks for your replies. They are helpful points but not quite what I was looking for perhaps I phrased the question poorly.

    The exercise bike monitors my HR. I am wondering what is the most useful thing to look at to monitor my progress. As time is limited I do a fixed amount of time each session - currently 15min but will increase as I progress. For the few weeks I have been doing it, I have been recording all of the bits of pieces I mentioned and settings on the bike. RPM is all over the place, distance is variable as it will depend on the setting ( I am trying to increase the difficulty), HR is all over the place but the HR recovery seems to be improving ( 2 and 5min post workout) - therefore is that the most useful marker in the improvement of my fitness or am I just seeing what I want to see?
  • 20yearsyounger
    20yearsyounger Posts: 1,630 Member
    emdunn0715 wrote: »
    Thanks for your replies. They are helpful points but not quite what I was looking for perhaps I phrased the question poorly.

    The exercise bike monitors my HR. I am wondering what is the most useful thing to look at to monitor my progress. As time is limited I do a fixed amount of time each session - currently 15min but will increase as I progress. For the few weeks I have been doing it, I have been recording all of the bits of pieces I mentioned and settings on the bike. RPM is all over the place, distance is variable as it will depend on the setting ( I am trying to increase the difficulty), HR is all over the place but the HR recovery seems to be improving ( 2 and 5min post workout) - therefore is that the most useful marker in the improvement of my fitness or am I just seeing what I want to see?

    Does your bike provide calories burned as well? does it give you an average HR for your ride, average RPM? As you are not interested in weightloss, your markers will be different from many people. You want something that will show you an improvement when you increase resistance, distance, or time.
  • emdunn0715
    emdunn0715 Posts: 11 Member
    Hi 20 years, thanks for your reply.

    I am happy with my weight it is in the ideal range - I want to improve my fitness and have chosen the bike because I can do it at home and in the summer we can go on bike rides as a family.

    At the moment I am keeping the time the same and increasing the resistance as it becomes easier.

    I think the bike will probably tell me the number of calories burned, not sure about averages I keep meaning to dig out the manual again.
  • 20yearsyounger
    20yearsyounger Posts: 1,630 Member
    emdunn0715 wrote: »
    Hi 20 years, thanks for your reply.

    I am happy with my weight it is in the ideal range - I want to improve my fitness and have chosen the bike because I can do it at home and in the summer we can go on bike rides as a family.

    At the moment I am keeping the time the same and increasing the resistance as it becomes easier.

    I think the bike will probably tell me the number of calories burned, not sure about averages I keep meaning to dig out the manual again.

    The reason I mentioned the calories burned is because it sounds like you are changing a number of variables within the 15 minute range (like time and/or speed). The calories burned should (and I say should because I don't know your bike) take changes to both of those into consideration. If you can keep a measure like calories/hr burned the same and continue to increase the time (I know that is a bit difficult with young kids), then you will also be increasing your fitness. There are many ways to do it. This is just an example. It really all depends on what you can measure that shows you values not just for the moment in time, but for your entire workout.
  • wdunnett1
    wdunnett1 Posts: 1,669 Member
    Athlean x Zero program. Best home bodyweight program out there hands down
  • sheermomentum
    sheermomentum Posts: 827 Member
    I monitor the miles per hour as shown on my exercise bike, treadmill, or tracking app if outdoors. I have serious doubts as to the accuracy of my home equipment, but at least I think I can assume its consistent over time. So I just try to go a little bit faster than I did before, and when I go a little bit faster, then I turn up the resistance and try to maintain the same speed. I've no idea how you might monitor that kind of progress in a class-type program, but if you enjoy it, I'd say don't bother. Just do it until it gets easy or boring, then do something else.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    emdunn0715 wrote: »
    Thanks for your replies. They are helpful points but not quite what I was looking for perhaps I phrased the question poorly.

    The exercise bike monitors my HR. I am wondering what is the most useful thing to look at to monitor my progress. As time is limited I do a fixed amount of time each session - currently 15min but will increase as I progress. For the few weeks I have been doing it, I have been recording all of the bits of pieces I mentioned and settings on the bike. RPM is all over the place, distance is variable as it will depend on the setting ( I am trying to increase the difficulty), HR is all over the place but the HR recovery seems to be improving ( 2 and 5min post workout) - therefore is that the most useful marker in the improvement of my fitness or am I just seeing what I want to see?

    Resting Heart Rate and HR recovery will give you an indication of fitness improvements over time.

    Other than that it's around how long you can sustain a given level of effort or give yourself a regular fitness test, and measure improvement; cycle for a period and measure your distance or something.
  • emdunn0715
    emdunn0715 Posts: 11 Member
    They are all useful points - Thanks so much for all your help.

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