ithlete for the iphone

Hello all,I've carried out a search for this and could only find one vaguely relevant post...Has anyone tried out the ithlete app available for the iphone? I understand the app itself costs about £6 and then the receiver is a further £30 ish.  You also need a HRM strap - which I already have.Anyway, the claim is that it helps you avoid overtraining by monitoring your heart rate and the variation. I have been told it's also good for analysing your workouts to see if you could have been working harder. I'm aware that this can also be done by knowing your body well and taking your pulse in the morning etc.

All of that aside, I'd be really interested in any reviews or feedback from you knowledgeable bunch. So if you have one or have tried it what do you think? Is it worth the money or just another fittness gimick?

Thanks

Hi Nikki,

I have been using the iTHLETE for about 14 months now.  When I first started using it I was trying to prove it wrong but I couldn't catch it out.  At that time I was recovering from a new PB at the London marathon and I found it guided me well through the summer and I ran a very good time at the Great South in the autumn.  It was very interesting watching my iTHLETE reading increasing as I tapered for the Great South.  After getting my 2.45 qualification for the Championship start at London I ended up getting swine flu and missed London in 2011.  In the space of around 3 weeks I went from a runner who was very comfortable running 20+mile training runs almost every week to somebody who couldn't run more than 2 miles.   I have been taking a long time to recover and am only now starting to race again.  The iTHLETE has guided me extremely well on my path to recovery.

I found that the iTHLETE doesn't lie and when you get a poor reading it is best to listen to what it is telling you.  I don't allways listen too well but I find I then give myself permission to cut my training short or change what was planned.  This morning I experienced the reverse.  I had a very good score and I increased the intensity over what was planned but more importantly I coped very well and felt very good doing it.  I'm probably quite good at understanding my body but I still use the iTHLETE.  The iTHLETE is definitely more sensative than recording your pulse in the morning and the APP is very easy to use with simple displays of data using graphs and colour codes.  From my experience I see it's greatest use in people new to running or people serious about improving.  Both these groups of people don't know where the edge is until they fall off.  The iTHLETE helps you see where the edge is.  For £36 (ie the cost of 1 or 2 races) you can hardly go wrong.

Henry

Thank you so much for you informative post. That's really helped me. My reason for being interested was also to try and seriously improve but safely. I missed London this year, but it was entirely self induced when I found the edge, fell off and ended up with an over training stress fracture. I have been doing lots of research and work towards knowing my body better to stop this happening again and thats when someone mentioned the ithlete to me.
I'm sorry to hear of your swine flu as that must have been incredibly frustrating, given that there was nothing you could do. I'm guessing you've been able to defer to this year so good luck with the training when it all starts again.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply. This is definitely something I think I want to try for myself now.

I used the ithlete every day when I was training hard last year. Like Henry says, it is pretty reliable. It always told me when I had a virus coming up, about a day or so before I felt any symptoms. I didn't always do what it told me to do (ie. I sometimes raced on amber or red days), but at least I understood why it didn't quite go well or I felt less comfortable running. There were also days when didn't think I felt good and, had it not been for the 'green' reading on ithlete, I might have canned the session. Generally, these sessions ended up being good ones.

I'm not really running at the minute due to a long-term injury and have put it on occasionally out of interest, to see what my reading is. It's a bit depressing as I now score 20 or more lower than I did this time last year, showing how unfit I've become! When I get back to training, I will definitely start using it properly again.

Hi guys. Thanks for this post/discussion. There are two ithlete apps. Could any of you explain what the difference between these apps is? The descriptions aren't very clear...

Hi Alex,  The Precision Pulse App is basically a heart rate monitor for your phone which you can use in everyday training.  The Ithlete Heart Rate Variability App is the one you use to measure how well recovered you are from your previous days training and it is this one that you use as a guide when planning your next sessions.  It has been some time since I posted my original reply but I am still using the Ithlete and I still find it is prety reliable.  Simon (the guy who invented it) has been very helpful and he helped me understand a series of unusual readings.  Sometimes it is only confirming how I feel but it's hard to say no to your training buddies and there are times when you should say no and rest.  The Ithlete helps you make the right decision.

FFS get real