What is MyZone? Will it help me on my fitness journey?
What is MyZone? Will it help me on my fitness journey?
As a Sports Scientist – actually having graduated in 1994!! – yes all those years ago, heart rate monitoring has been used as tool to monitor exercise intensity throughout all of my career – and in particular for endurance sports such as running and cycling. Training programmes were particularly designed to ensure athletes not only improved their overall performance – but also to minimise their risk of injury through overtraining. In this regard, please remember HIIT – or High Intensity Interval Training is not a new concept – we were using HR training zones in the 90s to ensure athletes were working at the right levels!!!
In the early 2000s – heart rate monitoring became increasingly popular in team sports – I remember going to a Polar HR monitoring workshop at Bolton FC in circa 2000/2001 – and now heart rate monitoring is used every day as a way of assessing physiological load in most sports.
Moving into the health & fitness world, Myzone works in the exactly same way and is an accurate effort tracking system that helps you see exactly how much effort you are putting into your workouts – by monitoring your heart rate, via either the chest strap or arm / wrist strap.
MYZONE provides a user with the data they need and comes equipped with a unique point system that encourages that user to put the right amount of effort into each exercise session. MEPs is an acronym for MYZONE Effort Points, and it’s the metric by which everything is measured in the fitness tracking system. MEPs are earned by exercising in the target heart rate zones over a period of time. The more effort you put into each workout, the more MEPs you earn – however, as I keep reminding everyone – every session does not need to be eye balls out – using the unique colour coding system, we can get people to work at the right exercise intensity for a particular session. It is about getting people to challenge their body’s different energy systems to maximise their overall performance!!!
So where can Myzone help!
Exercise adherence is incredibly important for our health and fitness. Since initial physiological adaptations to regular exercise can take several weeks or months, it’s the consistency that allows us to achieve our long-term goals.
Myzone understands this and has developed a reward system around consistency: Myzone Status. It’s pretty simple – The more people believe they’ll be successful as exercisers, the more likely they are to stick with exercise. Seeing improvements in fitness through assessments help keep exercisers motivated and we are less likely to continue an exercise programme if we set unrealistic, unattainable goals.
The Myzone Status addresses these insights by focusing on a realistic monthly goal, rewarding your consistency and showing your improvements on a regular basis.
Your Myzone Status is based on your continued achievement of the minimum physical activity recommendations set by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO recommends that healthy adults perform a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity cardiorespiratory exercise per week (and more for improved fitness benefits). This equates to 1,300 Myzone Effort Points (MEPs) per month, so Myzone has based your status level on achieving 1300 MEPs for a specific number of months (or 300 MEPs per week).
I hope this has provided a useful explanation / background to the introduction of Myzone to onePT – (1) to help member’s understand the importance of working at the right exercise intensity and (2) to assist with exercise adherence.
The voucher code for those wishing to purchase a MZ Switch (MyZone product) for the first time is
https://buy.myzone.org/?lang=enGB&voucher=ONEPTUK001-60
You will receive £60 off the normal retail price of £139.99!
Please note there is a £6 delivery charge.
For those who already have a MZ3 and would like to upgrade, please contact either John and I separately and we will send you a different code.
Please note when registering your new product – to link to the onePT MyZone Community, please use the ID ONEPTUK001
If anyone has any specific, questions – please do not hesitate to ask.
In movement health & wellbeing
John & Neil