Fitness

Suunto's new heart rate monitors - laboratory on a wrist

By Darren Quick

18:41 May 14, 2009 PDT

Elite athletes know that training smarter is much better than training harder, and to do that you need to know exactly what's happening in your body. Suunto has introduced its new Triathlon collection heart rate monitors which measure the time interval between heartbeats and its variations to produce seven different body parameters as well as analyze these readings to provide the information needed to maximize their training efforts. Read More

Gruber Assist electrifies just about any bicycle

By Darren Quick

01:41 May 5, 2009 PDT

There’s a few reasons why cycling has remained a popular form of transport for over a century. It’s cheap, keeps you fit, is environmentally friendly and it’s fun - usually. Unfortunately it can get a little less fun when you hit a steep hill or have neglected your fitness for a while. This is where electric assist devices such as the Gruber Assist can come in handy. It still lets you do most of the work, but helps to make the job that little bit easier. Whereas electric bikes such as the E+, the eneloop and the Gocycle require the purchase of a complete bike to get some electric assistance, the Gruber Assist can be retrofitted to practically any bicycle provided it has a seat tube with an inner diameter of 31.6mm. Read More

Fitness out of the box

By Jude Garvey

21:43 April 28, 2009 PDT

The Fitness Cube is an ultra-compact fitness solution for your home. Within seconds it transforms into a weights machine and all the exercise accessories are contained neatly within the cube. An eight-position resistance switch ensures you work out at your optimum fitness level and the supplied poster details the correct way to perform 30 different exercises. Read More

Bone-Conduction and Infrared FINIS AquaPulse Heart Rate Monitor for swimmers

By Mike Hanlon

18:34 April 21, 2009 PDT

We have already professed our love for the Finis Swimmers Snorkel, eulogized about the antidote to lap-grinding boredom known as the bone-conduction SwiMP3 underwater music player and now we're gonna do it all over again for the USD$140 AquaPulse heart rate monitor, a workout accessory for swimmers wishing to optimize their water-based exercise routine through heart rate training. Are we just raging fanboys? No, we do however rejoice in the logical and practical application of technology to enable new and better ways of doing things, and Finis will again deliver just that (in May). Read More

Garmin update Forerunner fitness watch range

By Jude Garvey

01:42 April 3, 2009 PDT

Garmin will release two updated Forerunner fitness watches this Summer, the 310XT and the 405CX. Both come equipped with the latest GPS technology and can be synced wirelessly to the user’s PC or Mac so workout data can be automatically downloaded. Performance information can be acquired by simply tapping the bezel, calorific consumption is calculated by the user's heart rate and the user can even challenge a virtual partner to a workout. Read More

Run while you ride on the elliptiGO bike

By Jude Garvey

17:55 September 25, 2008 PDT

The elliptiGO glide bike offers riders all the best elements of running and cycling in one machine. Whilst running is an excellent way to improve cardiovascular health and general fitness, many runners are plagued with back and leg injuries due to the high impact nature of the sport. Similarly, bike riders often suffer from shoulder and back injuries and saddle-soreness. When you ride the elliptiGO you use the same biomechanics of running but the impact is reduced and the upright position is a much more comfortable way to ride as well as providing greater visibility in traffic. Read More

Swinxs: a toy for active play

By Jude Garvey

03:46 May 22, 2008 PDT

The Swinxs is a unique games system which encourages children to move and run while they’re having fun. Designed for active indoor and outdoor play the Swinxs communicates, cheers players on, explains games, referees and keeps game scores with the help of RFID wristbands worn by each player. Read More

Wii Fit Reviewed

By Tim Hanlon

22:11 May 20, 2008 PDT

Making exercise fun is something that Nintendo has tried before. In 1986, they licensed Bandai's Family Trainer peripheral for the NES and launched it worldwide as the Power Pad. In the 90's, they created the Exertainment system - essentially an exercise bike with a SNES inside. Both products were capable of raising your heart rate, but offered little else in the way of improving your health or building good habits. Wii Fit sees Nintendo's honed skill in software and peripheral development come together for another crack at the holy grail of software - making exercise fun. Read More

Aquatic Fitness Systems' advanced swim spas

By Emily Clark

21:55 March 10, 2008 PDT

March 11, 2008 Aquatic Fitness Systems has taken a multi-faceted approach to the low impact benefits of training in the water by incorporating walking, running, stretching, rowing and strength training functionality into its line of luxury swim spas. Read More

Game Ready injury treatment system

By Emily Clark

15:38 March 6, 2008 PST

CoolSystems has released the next generation of its Game Ready injury treatment system combining form-fitting wraps, cold and intermittent compression, and adjustable pressure and temperature settings. The convenient system is designed to be used for treatment of musculoskeletal injuries and post-operative rehabilitation. Read More

FIRST unveils high-tech virtual home training system

By Emily Clark

15:54 March 5, 2008 PST

March 6, 2008 Planning to climb Everest? You may want to do some training first and this prototype Fitness@home virtual training system is just the ticket. New technology developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (FIRST) in Berlin transports the mountain training ground - or any other outdoor training scenario - straight into your lounge room. Read More

Tiny body sensor provides real-time athlete monitoring

By Emily Clark

14:37 September 13, 2007 PDT

September 14, 2007 Real-time athlete monitoring is now firmly entrenched as an essential tool for elite athletes, with a growing array of sports monitoring systems available for both top-level sportspeople and your average fitness fanatic. This new body sensor currently under development at Imperial College promises a new level of usability by virtue of its form – the cufflink sized device clips behind the ear so as not to impede performance and delivers extensive metrics on posture, stride length, step frequency, acceleration and the body's response to shock waves. Read More

Strap-free heartrate monitor fits like a glove

By Loz Blain

July 12, 2007 Heart rate monitors have become an almost ubiquitous tool in fitness training, allowing athletes to ensure they're operating in the right BPM range to maximize the effectiveness of their cardio training or weight loss programs. The chest-strap used to take heart rate readings isn't universally popular though, as many find it uncomfortable and annoying. Adidas tried to solve this by building the sensor into a tight training shirt, NuMetrex built the sensor into a sports bra for women - and now Beurer has come up with a new system that fits as half a glove and reads heart rate from your index finger. The PM 100 beltless heartrate monitor uses photoplethysmography to determine your heart rate - it's effectively a flexible, soft equivalent of the plastic finger clip you get in hospital. While it won't be perfect for sportspeople that need to use their hands, those involved in running or other pure cardio exercise will likely find it a comfortable and no-fuss way to keep a constant tab on their heart rate. Read More

Exercise under your desk while you work

By Loz Blain

June 18, 2007 The adverse effects of a sedentary, desk-bound lifestyle are well documented - weight gain, lack of energy, concentration issues and poor health result when we spend the larger proportion of the day not moving. Here's an interesting way to tackle the problem - the Webble is a cute little footrest you place under your desk and push around with your feet, exercising your lower body and stomach muscles through the day as you go. Read More

The Tanita Ironman BC554 - bathroom scales on steroids

By Loz Blain

June 4, 2007 Weighing yourself every morning only tells you a small part of your overall health and fitness picture. Is the extra weight you've gained in the last week muscle or fat? This innovative set of bathroom scales tells you your weight, body fat percentage, body water percentage, muscle mass, bone mass, basal metabolic rate and a bunch of other metrics to help you fine-tune your fitness training and better understand your body's composition. Read More

Developing a viable cure for office worker obesity

By Loz Blain

May 22, 2007 Sitting still at a desk all day - like you're probably doing right now - is making the average office worker fatter and less healthy than we've ever been before. Gym workouts and regular exercise are not the key to breaking out of this cycle - a new study suggests that it's the sitting down that's killing us, and that a simple change to spending 2-3 hours a day gently walking at around 1mph while we work could help obese office workers lose up to 30kg a year. Dr. James Levine devised the walk-at-work treadmill to test the effectiveness of getting office workers off their butts - with fantastic results. Read More

Bluetooth health monitoring lets you upload your vital stats to your doctor from home

By Loz Blain

May 9, 2007 Turning the health-care model upside down, a small Australian company is working on bluetooth technology that logs and transmits medical observation data to a central network through a mobile phone - so your doctor can call YOU when a problem is developing. Alive's bluetooth technology is already proving useful in the recovery of cardiac outpatients and the diagnosis of sleep apnea - and a range of products in development aim to make advancements in health monitoring for diabetics, mountaineers and athletes in training. Read More

Cooling glove invigorates overheated athletes - and also delivers training performance gains

By Loz Blain

May 9, 2007 While traditional body cooling systems such as ice vests, wet towels and misting fans may feel like they're working to the benefit of the user, they're actually quite ineffective at reducing the body's core temperature, as they work against the body's natural insulation and heat retention systems. Through extensive research into mammalian heat regulation systems, AVAcore has developed a simple, portable device that effects heat exchange to the body core extremely quickly. You don't necessarily feel cooler, you just feel completely refreshed and less fatigued - and the system is producing some remarkable and unexpected results for athletes. Read More

The amazing InnerScan Segmental Body Composition Monitor

By Mike Hanlon

March 2, 2007 We’ve written about Tanita’s Innerscan previously, but the newly released Tanita BC-545 is such a leap forward in technology that it deserves more than just a mention. The BC-545 is designed to assess the impact of your training routine on different parts of your body. It is able to give individual body composition readings for five body segments (each arm, each leg and the trunk area). The measurements are taken quickly and accurately by standing on the 4 footplates and by pulling the hand electrodes that are housed in the base using retractable connecting cables. The monitor then sends a safe low signal from the hand and footplate electrodes through the body. The resistance to the measurement (known as Bio-electrical Impedance Analysis or BIA) is then fed into researched equations to provide your personalized body composition readings. As the device includes a calendar function, it can track the changes over time for you, so you can create comparison graphs showing a history for each segment of the body and for each of the body composition readings, so that you can see your progress, day by day, week by week and month by month over a three year period. The backlit buttons and animated illustrations are clear and user-friendly, and the scales come with batteries included and a three year guarantee. Needless to say, because the device sends electrical signals through the body, it is highly inadvisable to use this device if you have a heart pacemaker. Read More

The CelluBike burns cellulite and detoxifies the body while you work out

By Mike Hanlon

January 29, 2007 The CelluBike integrates cardio-vascular exercise with modern infrared technology to assist in weight loss and the reduction of cellulite. The CelluBike developers claim the infrared energy penetrates the body to warm and soften the hardened cellulite, then flushes it away through the increased cardio activity and accelerated metabolic processes. In addition to aiding in flushing cellulite from the body, infrared helps in ridding toxins from the body that are stored in the fatty tissue. This means the multiple-technology bike has many applications in the health, rehabilitation, wellness and medical professions, as it facilitates a deep cleansing treatment for the body, aiding detoxification of narcotic drugs and hormones, heavy metals, hydrocarbon residues, alcohol, nicotine, sodium and cholesterol. To its biggest market, the Cellubike looks like a more natural, less invasive alternative to liposuction with exceedingly bright prospects. In some of those other industries, it looks even more promising. Whatsmore, the monitor that tracks and displays your progress is also an entertainment centre to help you while away the hours. Read More

The step2play and CyberBike promise exercise for overweight children

By Mike Hanlon

November 18, 2006 Civilisation has a problem - the number of obese children (Ages 6 to 11) in America has more than doubled, and the number of obese adolescents (Ages 12 to 19) has more than tripled in the last 30 years with both representing more than 15 percent of their respective age group populations. Whatsmore, the number of overweight children represents another 15 percent and growing, so the recent development of a novel way of incorporating exercise into the health regime of children bears some thought. A British children’s fitness specialist has developed Step2Play, a step exercise machine that links directly to a child’s Playstation. A rate of exercise can be set at the start of the child’s game and then as long as the child maintains a constant rate of exercise as they play their video game, the game’s controller will remain active. If the child stops, the game pauses and the controller stops working. Two players can use different steppers and controllers to play two-player games. There is also another product named CyberBike which is designed for children as young as four and achieves a similar result. Read More

The Bodywall improves health for all age groups

By Mike Hanlon

The Bodywall is one of the most adaptable inventions we’ve ever seen. Designed as a way to assist athletes to stretch effectively, the high adhesion gloves and shoes and high-tech wall surface offer spiderman-like capabilities. So it’s a gym, a ready made game and new form of physical education and wil be undoubtedly incorporated into the training regime of every elite athlete on the planet. But its chameleon-like character solves different problems in different markets. As in the parable of the seven blind men and the elephant, each person experiences and perceives the Bodywall in a different way. The original concept was to use a combination of the wall and gravity to challenge the entire body – improving proprioception, building muscle, joint, ligament and tendon strength, maintaining flexibility, reducing injury, rehabilitating injuries and facilitating full stretching of almost every muscle in the body for the very young and the very old, and everyone in between. Bodywall can be used either privately or very publicly, and can be manufactured for an audience of one, with the manufacturers offering a personal service, accepting four-colour, high resolution digital imaging. For an individual training for their own life goals, the Bodywall’s massive surface is an ideal place to decorate with personal messages to absorb while stretching – a great place to focus energies, emblazon a life purpose or a “go get ‘em” motivational mantra. It can function as a personal billboard for athletes and on a team scale, it offers a mobile sponsor wall that can be set up quickly at any training venue, in the change rooms or beside the pitch, court or track. In a world obsessed with sport, it’s a new high-association, visual advertising medium for sponsors. Whichever way you look at this invention, it ticks ALL the boxes. Read More

OSIM releases US$600 horseback riding exercise machine

By Mike Hanlon

August 15, 2006 Singapore’s Osim is in the business of making a range of high quality exercise and health related machinery and it certainly didn’t take the company long to come out with a rival for the Panasonic Joba which has been under development for several years and captivated Gizmag's female readers when we first wrote about it in early 2005 because it’s a perfect machine for maintaining a trim figure. The OSIM iGallop appears to work in exactly the same way as the Joba, working on the body’s core to shape and tone the tummy, hips, seat and thighs. It’s a zero impact exercise machine, and works the body by requiring multidirectional movements to maintain balance, with this constant balancing engaging certain muscle groups, and helping to improve balance, coordination and posture. The new iGallop starts shipping today at Brookstone, and the really good news is that it comes in at US$600, waaay less than Panasonic’s US$2000. Read More

Nike+iPod

By Mike Hanlon

May 24, 2006 Nike and Apple have announced a partnership designed to bring the worlds of sport and music together with the launch of innovative Nike+iPod products. The first product developed through this partnership is the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, a wireless system that allows Nike+ footwear to record time, distance, calories burned and pace with info displayed on the iPod nano screen and real-time audio feedback through headphones. The new Nike+ Air Zoom Moire is the first footwear designed to talk to the iPod and Nike plans to make its other footwear styles Nike+ ready too. It’s simple and in our opinion gives you scant info you can’t get better another way – it’s just an in-shoe sensor and a receiver that attaches to the iPod. While we think the first product is a bit lame, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when Apple, the most consistently innovative company of the last 25 years, and Nike combine technologies with the reach of both companies. With two such innovative parents, we suspect some interesting children will be spawned. Our educated guesses at what they would logically be evaluating as potential products might include new capabilities such as a heart rate monitor to make the 24 hour a day calorie counter more accurate and to enable other useful data to be monitored, GPS functionality for additional info on position and speed and so we can be notified when we’re passing points of interest and hear a podcast about them should we choose, a blood oxygenation and lactose monitor for people who run really long distances, … oh, and maybe a cool Nike cap with a little heads up display incorporated so we can watch video podcasts without headbutting a lamppost. Read More

New Invention “Powers” TVs with exercise.

By Mike Hanlon

January 31, 2006 We’re not sure if this is a good idea, or akin to signing up for a tour of duty with a society of flagellant monks. The EnterTrainer Cardio-TV-Trainer is a wireless device that converts any exercise machine and TV, video game or stereo into an interactive workout system. The EnterTrainer combines a wireless heart monitor and a universal remote control and maintains the correct volume for the device you wish to watch/play/listen to when your heart is working in the target zone you have set. Too low or too high and the volume is lowered until you get your heart pumping in the right zone again. At US99 it’s not all that expensive compared to most wrist-worn heart rate monitors but then again, they can be used to monitor your heart rate anywhere whereas this is location-specific. For some people, the Entertrainer will be very useful, but most will probably find it a little one-dimensional and we figure it’ll get used for a while and unhooked so you can use the game console, telly or stereo in its normal mode … and maybe never get hooked up again. The company is also set to release an “iTrainer” Cardio Training Headphones for use with iPods. In our mind, the idea behind compelling and usable exer-tainment devices is to enrol and reward the participant, not to punish. But if you have an overweight child who watches too much telly, it might be ideal. See what we mean … oh no, not another wicked thought. Read More