New! miCoach Strength & Flexibility Mobile App

noreply@community-micoach.adidas.com — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:33:41 GMT

Now you can take your strength and flexibility training with you! The miCoach Strength & Flexibility app—accessed from within the miCoach mobile app —coaches you through Strength & Flexibility workouts step by step with video instruction and coach’s comments to over 400 exercises. Use it at the gym, at home, or wherever your travels take you to help you reach your goals. You’ll build a body that’s stronger, leaner, fitter, and more resistant to injury. The best part: It’s free!

About the App

Access your Strength & Flexibility plan from the miCoach mobile app at anytime, anywhere.
Choose from plans to get fit, excel in your favorite sport, run efficiently, and more.
No time for a full plan? Customize your routine with single workouts like “Core Strength,” “Full-Body Blast,” or the popular “No Gym Workout.” Some single workouts are as quick as 5 minutes.
Workouts progress throughout your plan to help you improve and see fast results.
Adjust your training calendar simply by dragging workouts from one day to another.
Nearly 400 innovative movements (exercises and drills) available.
Video animations and coaching tips for all movements will help you do them right.
Recommended weights (intensity) for exercises and tracking help you see results.
Workouts are designed by the expert trainers at Core Performance.
Did we mention it’s free?!

About the Training

Depending on the plan you choose, miCoach Strength & Flexibility training offers a variety of benefits. There are plans to help you lose weight, get stronger, get fit, perform better in your sport, reduce injury risk, and run with better technique.
miCoach workouts train movements, rather than focusing on specific muscles, to strengthen commonly weak areas, improve posture and body composition, reduce injury risk, and restore muscle balance.
Each miCoach workout is comprised of one or more training components, such as Pillar Prep, Movement Prep, and Strength. Each training component has a distinct purpose in your workout, such as preparing your hips, torso, and shoulders for exercise (Pillar Prep).
Some workouts require gym equipment, while others feature only light equipment or no equipment at all. The equipment needed is noted in each workout. If you don’t have a piece of equipment, that shouldn’t limit your ability to perform the workout. You can almost always modify an exercise.
miCoach Strength & Flexibility plans will complement your cardio training by working on your strength, balance, flexibility, power and more.

To get started with Strength & Flexibility plans through the website, go to "Plans" and select Strength & Flexibility plan from the training category that interests you.

To download the app, click here for Android and click here for iPhone

Heart Rate Versus Pace: How to Choose

noreply@community-micoach.adidas.com — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:41:38 GMT

By Athletes' Performance

The zones are the building blocks for all cardio workouts with miCoach. Each zone represents a level of effort: Blue is easy, Green is medium, Yellow is hard, Red is maximal. During workouts, simply follow the coaching, such as “Speed up to Green Zone.”

You know Green is medium effort, but how does miCoach know you’re exercising at your medium effort? In order to coach you, miCoach either measures how fast you’re going (pace) or how fast your heart is beating (heart rate). No matter which coaching method you choose (they’re both great options!), your experience with miCoach and your results should be the same.

So how do you choose? Here’s a simple comparison of the two coaching methods.

Heart Rate

If you choose Heart Rate coaching, your zones will be expressed in heart rate ranges that are right for your body. Since your heart rate reflects how hard you’re working, this is a personal way to measure fitness. It’s versatile, too. Use Heart Rate coaching while running, biking, skating, or on cardio machines, for example.

Compatibility: miCoach Pacer (with Heart Rate Monitor)
How it works: miCoach listens to your heart—reading your heart rate from the Heart Rate Monitor—and then tells you when to speed up or slow down to stay within the correct zone.
Example: Your Blue Zone could be 128-145 beats per minute (BPM). If miCoach observes your heart rate is beating faster than 145, it would tell you to slow down to keep you in the zone.
Getting started: miCoach will provide default heart rate zones, but it’s best to start with an Assessment Workout. The data shows how your heart responds to various levels of effort (everyone’s heart responds to exercise differently), and is used to personalize your zones.
Other benefits: Heart Rate coaching takes into account how you’re feeling each day. If you feel stressed or tired, your heart beats a little faster. As a result, you can run a little slower than usual while remaining in the zone. This helps prevent overtraining on days when you could use a break. Conversely, if you feel great, your heart rate will remain lower and you’ll be able to go faster while staying in the zone. Heart Rate also accounts for challenging terrain. If it’s hilly, for instance, you won’t need to run as fast to remain in the zone.
Seeing results: Check your charts to see how your average speed per zone increases as your fitness improves. For instance, you may simply walk to stay in the Blue Zone at first, but as your fitness improves you may find that you’re able to jog in the Blue Zone.

Pace

If you choose to be coached by Pace, your zones will be expressed in pace ranges that reflect how fast you run. Pace coaching is a favorite among runners who like racing and keeping track of their times, since pace indicates how many minutes it takes to complete one mile (min/mi) or one kilometer (min/km). If you prefer to use speed as a unit, miCoach will show how far you go in one hour (miles per hour (mph) or kilometers per hour (km/h)). miCoach lets you pick your preferred unit in Settings. This has no impact on the coaching.

Compatibility: miCoach Pacer (with Stride Sensor), miCoach Mobile (with GPS)
How it works: miCoach collects your pace and tells you when to speed up or slow down. The coaching reacts to paces reported by your Stride Sensor (if you use miCoach Pacer) or GPS (if you use miCoach Mobile). Pace coaching requires that you run on a relatively flat surface—the pace zones have been designed with this in mind.
Example: Your Blue Zone could be 10:00-12:30 min/mi (or 6:13-7:46 min/km). If you prefer speed units, your Blue Zone could be 3.0-5.0 mph (or 4.8-8.1 km/h). If miCoach observes you’re running slower than 3.0 mph, it would tell you to speed up.
Getting started: miCoach will provide default pace zones, but it’s best to start with an Assessment Workout. The data shows how your pace changes at various levels of effort, which is used to personalize your zones.
Other benefits: By looking at your miCoach stats, you’ll soon learn what different paces feel like. If you like competing in races, having a sense of the numbers can help you gauge your race times. You’ll also learn how to stay within the zones while fine-tuning your speed depending on the terrain and how you feel that day.
See results: As you improve, you’ll be able to run at a faster pace with the same effort. Keep your pace zones up to date by retaking the Assessment Workout or adjusting your zones in Settings so that they’re personalized for your current fitness level. This will help you keep improving.

Can’t decide?

miCoach recommends starting with Heart Rate coaching if you use miCoach Pacer and Pace coaching if you use miCoach Mobile. Regardless of which method you choose, the training plans, workouts (including the Assessment Workout) and audible coaching remain the same. So you can’t go wrong. Try a method and see how it works for you. You can change coaching methods in Settings at any time—even in the middle of a plan—and you’ll stay on track to achieve your goals.

Still need help choosing? Visit the miCoach Forum to see which coaching method other community members prefer.

Blog Posts From en Tagged With micoach_mobile

New! miCoach Strength & Flexibility Mobile App

Heart Rate Versus Pace: How to Choose