Are you aware of any such monitors which have Mac compatible software?

FYI my background: I am a healthy 62 year old female 5 ft. tall and weigh 102-104 pound (varies) with a fitness score of 64 on the Landice L8.  I work out on the treadmill wearing rocker shoes (power walking up to 4.5 MPH), do weight training (free weights) and use your super tips for warming up.  My goal, improve fitness to my maximum ability.  Finding a way to track my workouts without having to guess what is really going on (splitting the difference between the Polar product and the Landice treadmill) would be so helpful.  I would switch from my Polar wrist model in a heart beat if I can find something which would allow me to track my progress on my computer.  I tried some of the iPhone apps but they are not set up for females at all.

Appreciate any assistance or suggestion you might have.

Best regards,

Trudy

Answer: Hi Trudy!
Thanks for the kind words
Although I’m not a big fan of HRMs and all the technical gadgets, I will say this:  I like the Suunto product line, especially their HRMs that come equipped with the “training effect” score:

http://www.suunto.com/en-us/Products/Training-Hr-Monitors/Suunto-t3d/Suunto-t3d-Black/

Pretty cool stuff.

In a nutshell:  You can monitor the “stress” of your workout very easily via the TE score.  By working at a specified % of your max HR for a specific amount of time, your TE score is estimated.  For instance, if you work @ 85% of max HR for 20 – 30 minutes, your TE score might come in at “4″ which would constitute a high stress training session.

You can use the TE score to then determine what you should do for the next couple of days training wise.

Keep in mind that the body can only handle 2 – 3 high stress training sessions per week before it starts struggling to keep up with the stress that’s being imposed upon it.

Effective training is nothing more than balancing adequate/appropriate doses of stress (hard training) with appropriate amounts of active (light training) and/or passive (complete rest) recovery.

Too much easy training = No stimulus for adaptation/improved fitness.

Too much hard training = You grow tired and weak due to the lack of recovery.

Correct balance of hard work:Easy training/recover = You grow fitter, FASTER!!!

I hope this helps.

Check out the Suunto product line; I think you’ll find it to be worthwhile!

Janda