Finally, Garmin has now with the new Garmin Forerunner 405 succeded in putting their outstanding GPS technology into a nice looking sport watch. This watch, or GPS, is sleek enough to be worn while exercising as well as at work.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 sends your training data wirelessly to your computer and it has a touch bezel which makes the usage of this watch a lot easier as with its predecessors. There is no need to fumble with any buttons any more.

Like the Garmin Forerunner 205 or 305 this new Forerunner measures distance, speed, time, calories burned and heart rate. It has a highly sensitive GPS receiver which makes it possible to use it on trails in the wood or in the city where skyscrapers normally are a problem for GPS watches.

Interesting for runners is that it has an optional foot pod. That makes sure, that even when the sattelite reception is very bad, you won’t loose any valuable data. It also makes it possible to use it indoors, still measuring distance and speed.

The Forerunner 405 is available with or without a heart rate monitor and in two different colors.

All of Garmin’s new fitness devices (Garmin 405, Edge 605 and 705 and Forerunner 50 heart rate monitor) interface wirelessly with devices compatible with the “ANT + Sport” protocol. This includes devices from other manufacturers as well.

The Garmin 405 will automatically transfer your training data to your computer when the Forerunner is in range. Wireless.

For cyclists there is an optional speed and cadence bike sensor to measure how fast and how far you are going on the bike.

As of today, this is probably the most complete training watch there is.

Losing weight is one of the toughest endeavors of life. It requires rigorous discipline, will lpower and an understanding of what’s actually going on inside your body. If you really want to lose weight, you need to take the guess work out of your fitness regime with Polar F11 heart rate monitor. Though Polar has many heart rate monitors like Polar S725X, Polar F4 and many more, Polar F11 is the best amongst all Polar products.

If you want to burn fat then there are two options. You can either jog for every 10 minutes and then check your pulse rate to see if you are meeting your optimum heart rate. However, that will slow down your heart rate every time you stop. Hence, the next best method is to monitor your heart rate using Polar F11 heart rate monitor.
Though there are a variety of heart rate monitors in the market, Polar F11 has a number of features which make it one of the best heart rate monitors around. Here are some of the features of Polar F11 heart rate monitor:

1) Size and resolution: The Polar F11 heart rate monitor has a great and clear resolution. The screen is large hence you don’t need to squint to see the figures. A mere glance at the monitor will tell you your heart rate.

2) Accuracy: Polar F11 heart rate monitor is completely accurate and dependable. The accuracy and dependability of this heart rate monitor will ensure that you meet your weight loss and work out goals with optimum efficiency and accuracy.

3) Strength and Durability: As I’m sure you’ll agree, a heart rate monitor would be of little use to you if it weren’t durable enough to withstand the elements. After all, while some will only use it when the go walking, others want to use their even when scaling mountains.

4) Comfort: You don’t need a heart rate monitor which is not comfortable on your wrist and keeps troubling or distracting you, do you? Polar F11 is so light that you may even forget that it’s on your wrist.

5) Guidance System: Unique to the Polar F11 is a personal guidance system known as, “Polar Keep U Fit”. Essentially, this system helps you track your progress as you start closing in on your fitness goals.

6) Calories: In addition to measuring your heart rate, the Polar F11 has a built-in function for calculating the amount of calories being used, either on a per session basis, or over a period of multiple sessions.

7) Water resistance: Polar F11 has a water resistance feature which up to 100 feet.

No Interference: The Wear Link Code which is essentially a soft fabric transmitter prevents the heart rate monitor from picking up interference from other monitors and etc, should you be in a crowded area such as a gym.

9) Polar F11 has a two years warranty from the manufacturer as well.

Suggested reading:
Garmin Forerunner 405
Polar RS800CX Review
Polar RS400CX Review
Polar F11 Women’s Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Blue Glow, New Design)

The Polar RS400sd is the perfect heart rate monitor for runners that want to improve their perfomance through the use of science in their training.

The Polar RS400 has one of the largest displays on the market. It also can measure your running speed and distance to help you with your training.

The Polar RS400sd heart rate monitor measures heart rate, running speed, and distance. Of course it also calculates other things like calories burned, time in different heart rate zones and much more.

Here are some of the function of this heart rate monitor:

Batteries
Polar has finally made sure it is possible for you to change the batteries in this heart rate monitor. You don’t have to go to a watch store to have it done any more.

Polar OwnOptimizer
This is a function that only Polar heart rate monitors have. It makes it possible to monitor if you are over training or under training. The heart rate variability is used to calculate the index of the current training load.

Polar Running Index
This is a function only available in the new Polar RS series. The Running Index takes into account your running speed in comparison to your heart rate. Through reviewing your Running Index over a period of time you can see your increase in performance and fitness.

Polar OwnIndex
Polar has found out that resting heart rate tests can calculate your approximate VO2 max. They have done a lot of tests on different persons to validate and design this test. The Polar rs400sd includes a possibility to view the fitness trend graphically.

Polar OwnZone
Polar OwnZone is a function that let’s you calculate your own training zone intensities automatically. The training zone will generally be about 65 – 85 % of Max HR.

Polar OwnCal
This is the well known calorie expenditure calculation that almost all Polar heart rate monitors have.

Difference to RS800
The main differences to the RS800 are stride length, running cadence and altimeter. These functions are all found in the rs800 but not in the rs400.

Suggested post:
Garmin Forerunner 405

Are you serious about running or about your Ironman training?
The Polar RS800CX will help you plan, monitor and analyse everything about your training. It is one of the most hightech hrms there is today. It helps you train at the right intensity. You can choose between heart rate or running speed as measurement of intensity.

The RS800 CX measures heart rate, running speed, cadence, distance and average stride length. Of course it also calculates other things like calories burned, time in different heart rate zones and much more.
It also gives you the possibility to check your fitness level through some tests. The tests should be taken at rest. I have tried the fitness tests myself many times, and I have also compared them to fitness tests done in the laboratory. The tests done with the RS800CX are very exact in comparison to the lab-tests. Error rate of a few percent only.

Another interesting function of the RS800CX is that it can tell you if you are resting enough. It will tell you if you should increase or decrease your training or if it’s already optimal.

Suggested reading:
Garmin Forerunner 405
Polar RS800CX Run Heart Rate Monitor Watch with S3 Stride Sensor W.I.N.D.
Polar RS800CX Multi Sport Heart Rate Monitor Watch with G3 GPS Sensor W.I.N.D.

Tight hips is a very common problem today. This results in back pain and other problems. Practising yoga can help you make your hips more flexible.

Yoga today is a very good web site, showing a lot of different yoga postures and they also have done a video about hip openers. I really recommend taking a look at this video and I even more recommend doing the postures. This will guaranteed give you a better position on the bike and will also help you with your running technique.

Today I will show you 7 standing yoga postures (asanas) that help runners, cyclists and triathletes to stretch their leg muscles.

If you are doing a lot of running or cycling, it is also probable that you have stiff legs. This stiffness in the legs, ranging from the foot up to the gluteus maximus, can be the cause of different problems as for instance the iliotibial band syndrome. Other problems that can arise from stiff leg muscles are back problems. Please refer to my post about iliotibial band problems for more information about that specific problem.

If you haven’t got any yoga experience or if you have just started with yoga, these asanas are a great start for getting more flexible leg muscles.
I have chosen to write the english name as well as the sanskrit name to make it easier for you to find videos or pictures of the postures on the web. I recommend looking at youtube for instructions on how to do the bends.

When your legs are more flexible, they can perform with less resistance. It will be possible to run or cycle more efficient. It will also help you to avoid overuse injuries as iliotibial band syndrome.
I have noticed that when I started doing yoga or stretching, I didn’t get any knee pains anymore. At first I was very stiff and couldn’t really get into the postures without it hurting a bit, but after a few weeks I noticed big improvements. Just take it easy with the postures. Don’t overdo it. Let it take it’s time. You will gain flexibility and when you do it carefully, you won’t get injured during the training.

The postures (asanas) that I suggest for the beginning are the following seven:

1. Standing forward bend (Uttanasana): This is an excellent pose to extend your hamstrings. It will stretch your gluteus maximus, medius and minimus as well as your spinal muscles too. Precaution is to be made by people with back injury. These people should approach this bend very cautiously. It is important to let gravity do the work, don’t push your body into the pose. If your hamstrings are very tight, bend your knees. That will make the stretch better.

2. Warrior I (Virabhadrasana I): Warrior I is a very good posture to stretch you hip flexors, which is a weak point in many runners and cyclists. It increases flexibility in the hips, back and front groins.

3. Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II): As in Warrior I this posture stretches the hip joints and opens the groins and it also stretches the inner thigh muscles.

4. Side Angle Pose (Parsvakonasana): This is a good following pose of Warrior II. It stretches the back side of the legs and opens the groin. At the same time it also stretches the upper body.

5. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana): This is a follow up of the Warrior I pose. Works the side body and the hips.

6. Intense side stretch (Parsvottanasana): This is another very good stretch for your hamstrings and it will also increase the flexibility in your gluteus maximus. This posture is more intense in the hamstrings than the standing forward bend.

7. Wide stance forward bend (Prasarita Padottanasana): This posture is sometimes also called wide-legged forward fold and is related to the standing forward bend. The difference is that the feet are wide apart in this posture. This posture is also a very good stretch for your hamstring and the gluteus maximus.

In every of these 7 postures remain for five deep breaths in position. If you do these poses regularly they will give you much more flexibility in your legs and they will open your groin and hips. I recommend doing them at least 3 times a week. When you have done them for about 2 months we can go to the next level.

If you get more interested in yoga and want to learn more poses, please read my review of The athlete’s guide to yoga or have a look at the books and dvds I have collected for you.

The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga – A Personalized Practice for Strength, Flexibility, and Focus featuring Sage Rountree Endurance Films, 120 min, 2008

This is the companion DVD to the excellent book The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga by Sage Rountree. Sage Rountree is an endurance athlete, racing triathlons up to half-Ironman, and a registered yoga teacher. In this DVD she presents 20 different yoga sequences which will help you becoming a better triathlete.

With the DVD you have the possibility to choose from three preset sequences — Strength, Flexibility and Focus, or you can develop a customized routine selecting up to 12 of the following sequences:

• Centering
• The breath in space
• The breath in time
• Six moves of the spine
• Half salutations and lunges
• Standing balance flow
• Arm balance
• Sun salutations
• Moon salutations
• Lunge series
• Static core work
• Dynamic core work
• Shoulder strap series
• Camel pose
• IT band flow
• Pigeon pose flow
• Hamstring strap series
• Restorative poses
• Corpse pose
• Closing

All postures, asanas, are demonstrated at three levels of intensity. The explanations are straightforward with enough detail to ensure that you can perform the asanas safely at home.
The DVD also has a section for the frequent problem areas of endurance athletes. These are:

Building core strength, Stretching the shoulders, Opening the hips and Encouraging recovery.

The target group for this DVD is athletes, including triathletes, that want to increase their strength and flexibility to reduce chance of injury and recover faster. Above all it’s well suited for athletes that have no possibility joining a yoga class. Since the postures are very well explained, this is a good start even for beginners of yoga. And of course it can also be used by athletes merely wanting to discover some new stretching routines.

The DVD is very well made and offers a good start in the world of yoga. It is especially well suited for endurance athletes and also has suggestions for solving some of the frequent problems in endurance athletes, e.g. the IT band problem. For those people, especially interesting is the sequence Opening the hips.

If you want more information about the postures in this DVD and about yoga in general, I sincerely recommend buying the companion book The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga.

The DVD and the book can also be bought here:

Iliotibial band syndrome, or Iliotibial band friction syndrome as it is also called, is one of the most frequent overuse knee problems in athletes. Especially runners and cyclists suffer from this problem.
In my earlier post knee pain it band syndrome treatment prevention I described what ITBS is, how to treat it and how to prevent it. In 8 yoga poses for removing or preventing knee pain it band I showed some Yoga postures that work good if you are suffering from Iliotibial band syndrome.
In this post I direct you to a few products that can help you to recover and prevent IT band problems. I hope to be able to help you with these posts and those product directions. If you have any other suggestions or information, please tell me and I will include this information in the blog as well.

Here is a list of some books that I find useful for getting more information about ITBS. There are also some books that help preventing it.

DVD:

Other products:

One of the most common knee problems by athletes is the Iliotibial band syndrome, also known as IT-Band syndrome. This is a well known complication by runners and cyclists. The IT-Band is a thick band of tissues running from the pelvis, along the hip, down the outside of the thigh, around the outside of the knee, and to the tibia. If you have this problem you will feel pain on the outside of the knee. It is common, that you get the problems when you are running and later you might also have the same problems walking.

To prevent this, there are a few IT band Yoga-poses available. If you don’t want to do yoga, you can still use these poses simply for stretching. That’s really what you need to prevent problems with the IT-Band.
If you want an explanation of the poses below, you can find most of them on Youtube. Or you can also find them explained in The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga: An Integrated Approach to Strength, Flexibility, and Focus.

The following poses are known to be good for preventing IT-Band problems:

• Square
• Cow face forward fold
  
• Pigeon
• Outer hamstring twist
• Outer thigh twist
• Half lord of the fishes twist
• Cross-legged reclining twist
• Frog legged pose

For more reading about Yoga and Triathlon please visit The triathletes 9 reasons for doing Yoga or Yoga and Triathlon.

You also might want to take a look at this podcast from Sage Rountree.  She shows you how to do some very efficient exercises to prevent you from getting an IT band problem. Here you can find a review of her Yoga DVD the athlete’s guide to yoga.

Here is an article with more information about ITBS and here is a link to a post showing some products for ITBS.