Review iPhone Fitness App: lolo Treadmill Trainer – Day 2

This is the second in a series documenting my experience with the iPhone fitness app, lolo BeatBurn Treadmill/Outdoor Trainer.

Along with this fitness app commitment, I vowed to walk on my treadmill for at least one period when I watch a Penguins hockey game at home.  Today, my workout served that purpose as well. It isn’t necessary to hear the announcers during the game anyway, so I still listened to my own music and the lolo trainer. I started exercising at the beginning of the third period of the of the Devils vs. Penguins.

The lolo trainer, Brittany, welcomed me back and told me how proud she was of me because getting started is so difficult.  I find that to be especially true on the weekend.  It should be easier to work out on the weekend, since there is so much free time, but I found the little devil voice in my head telling me I earned time on the couch.  Then I reminded myself the little devil isn’t fat like I am, so I better do my workout.

The warm-up started a little faster but not too fast at 3.0 mph. Again, the workout progressed gradually through a series of moderate increases and decreases of pace and/or incline.  Sometimes I found the change in intensity less strenuous or easy than it appeared on the graph. I attribute that to my fitness level and acclimation to inclines, since I live in a city known for its hills.

The trainer said on Day 1 the workouts would get more difficult throughout the program in order to increase your fitness level, and this was more challenging than the first day.

Some of the toughest intervals were also the slowest at 2.0 mph at 12% incline. The fastest interval was 4.1 mph at 0% incline. A quick 15 second interval at 4.0 mph and 4% was short enough that I wasn’t in a panic about being able to do it. The hardest section was a “steady state” walk of six minutes at 3.5 mph and 5% incline. The hockey game served as a good distraction to the copious sweat and tightening calf muscles.

As always, a cool-down followed, and Brittany told me what a good job I did.  I made no adjustments throughout the workout, and it sufficiently challenged me.

I ran into one song, Tighten Up by The Black Keys, in my playlist that had a tempo change toward the end. At first, I found myself continuing to attempt walking to the beat, but my short, little legs just couldn’t manage it. That was no fault of the app, of course. It is not made to deal with tempo changes within a song but only adapts the overall tempo of the song to your steps per minute. I will likely remove that song from my playlist, because I’m overly gifted in clumsiness and being able to injure myself.

Since I walked through the coaching at the beginning and end of the workout, mine was a total of 51 minutes as opposed to the actual workout time of 49:27 minutes. Other differences were total actual miles of 2.59 versus the 2.34 reported by the app and 329.4 calories my treadmill said I burned versus the 381.98 the app says I did. As I said before, I subscribe to the belief that all devices over-report calories burned, so I don’t trust either of those numbers. What the numbers do say is this was a progression from the first workout, and I walked further and burned more calories.

The Penguins won handily over the Devils, and I beat my own little devil by moving my butt instead of letting it widen on the couch.