The Secret Fitness Data You’re Not Utilizing

The iThlete app helps you to track your heart rate. Photo Credit: iThlete

Heart Rate Data: There’s An App For That

If you’re like me, you spend the first few minutes after the alarm goes off in bed, checking your phone for new e-mails and Facebook messages before finally mustering up the energy to drag yourself to pool. iThlete has found a way to capitalize on that time by making it easy for an athlete to take her morning heart rate data using her phone.

All you need to do is put on a heart rate strap in the morning, touch a button on your phone screen, and let the app do the rest of the work. It takes your heart rate data, compares it to previous days and weeks, and alerts you when there’s an anomaly in your heart rate for that day. If you want, you can even export the data to share with a coach or health care provider!

It’s a pretty cool app, and easy to use—just plug in the small receiver ($60 on the iThlete site) and download the app to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch ($10 in the iTunes store). If you already own a heart rate strap to use with a wristwatch heart rate monitor or GPS device, you don’t need to buy anything else.

Whether you go the old-school route of pen-and-paper or take a high-tech route, heart rate data can be a tool that can get you to the start line healthy, happy and safe.

Have you ever been overtrained? What were your symptoms? Have you used heart rate data to prevent it from happening again? —Susan