I slept really well last night. I guess 2 hours in the pool is good for me. Despite my achiness and swollen knee from yesterday’s lifeguard training, I felt like a spin class would feel good.
I’m pretty aware of my bad knee during class. So, I usually don’t stand quite as much as the class and I usually pass on the jumps. Today, I knew that I was going to just spin. The only standing that I did was when I needed a temporary change in position.
I’ve been wearing my Go Zone pedometer for about 5 weeks now. The first couple of weeks, I didn’t get any active minutes. I did activities like spinning, walking and the elliptical. At some point, I read that we needed 135 steps a minute for active minutes. Wow, that’s fast! I have lots of endurance, but speed was never a strength. So, the pedometer registers fast paced activities and not continuous movement. I was a bit bummed.
I experimented on the elliptical. Usually, I try to do intervals between 90 and 120 strides per minute. I vary the resistance and get a good workout. I pushed myself to do 135-140 strides per minute and was able to verify that my Go Zone pedometer in fact did measure active minutes. Prior to that experiment, I thought it might be broken.
During one spin class, without paying much attention, I ended up with 16 active minutes. I was glad, but it took a full hour.
Today, since I was concentrating just on spinning, I was able to get 31 active minutes on my pedometer. It took the entire hour long class. Since our spin bikes don’t have computers, I have no idea how many RPMs I was doing to have it register. I was happy to get over 30, since 30 active minutes is worth more HealthMiles that 7,000 steps which is my norm. I’m happy that it’s possible, but I am still frustrated that the pedometers and program don’t seem to be interval friendly. Intervals are good for you!
I’m hoping to do a couple more experiments. I’ve heard that you need to walk about 4 MPH for the pedometer to register active minutes. I usually walk about 2.5 MPH. I’m hoping to do some intervals where I get to 4 MPH for 2-3 minutes at a time. I really want to know how fast I need to be walking for it to register. This experiment will probably have to wait until my knee is back to normal. Treadmill walking wouldn’t be good for it this week.
In our fitness center, we have a couple of fancy spin bikes. I am going to do my next warm up workout on one of them. I plan to ride a steady 80 RPM, 90 RPM etc. so I can figure out my spinning speed for active minutes.
I’m also wondering if it matter where on my hip that I wear the pedometer. Being overweight, I’m not sure if the pedometer picks up steps correctly. I’m not sure how to test that one.
As I expressed in my last post, I’m not really impressed with the program thus far. I think it’s a lot of busy work for “up to $300”. But, I also think that extra walking is good for me, so I’ll play along.