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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
In june I swapped out my older smartwatch (Samsung Gear S3) for a watch more dedicated to fitness, namely a Polar Vantage M3. The old watch battery drained in ~1 hour when disconnected from my phone, so you could barely go for a run without full battery, and I felt that I wanted to get away from the smart functions and just focus on the fitness aspect. I went with Polar partly out of nostalgia, my first GPS watch that I had ~15 years ago was a Polar, partly due to their data policy seeming the most sane, and partly because the Vantage M3 was in a good space with regards to features and price.
Polar has this FitSpark feature that suggests a workout every day which I thought I'd never look at, but it's been pretty good at nudging me to workout a bit more mindfully. It's either strength or mobility exercises, or a cardio exercise in certain heart rate zones. Back when I started running all those years ago, heart rate zones wasn't really anything we talked about, you kinda just ran for a set distance or time and didn't really think too much about it (of couse we did intervals, hill training etc but basically checked their pulse while working out).
But now I've read up a bit about heart rate zones and how you're supposed to balance your effort over time (which FitSpark helps with). It all started out pretty good, though running in zone 2 is a bit frustrating as it barely feels like running. And the last two weeks or so, my heart rate seems to have drifted, so effort that previously put me in zone 2 now puts me in zone 3! So when I'm supposed to do the long duration and low intensity workouts, I basically have to switch between barely jogging and walking to stay in the right zone. Which gets frustrating, and a bit boring, as I'm still in the old headspace of more effort = more speed = more good.
I should probably just trust the process and keep at it, but the regression in terms of what effort places me which heart rate zone is a bit disheartening (hehe), but hopefully the trend will turn soon. Exercising hasn't been this fun in a long time, but it's probably more due to it being nice to run during the summer than anything else.