Sportlyzer

Last week we asked our users’ opinion about Sportlyzer. Our aim was to find out who are our active users,  what are Sportlyzer’s main values for them, what is missed most and so on. Given below is a short overview of the results with some comments from Sportlyzer’s side.

Our clients are mostly 20-40 years old and besides their favourite endurance sports practice also ball games and gym. The most valuable features according to their opinion are:

Training advice. Further improvements are on process and more precise feedback and advice are on its way.

Weekly overview, the graph and split between sports (endurance, skill sports and strength training) and heart rate zones.

Goals. It’s nice to see that users have adapted it so well. Goal development (more personalized goals) is in our plans but it’s too soon to give out specific dates.

There are also 3 things that stood out in responses for question “what do you miss most”:

• Specific trainings for each day, more precise advice on the structure of training. It is our top priority and the work on this feature should start any day now. So, be patient – this is worth waiting for .

• Better integration with devices such as Garmin, Suunto, Polar and so on. Point taken. Our tech team is already working with the integrations.

• “Totals” (e.g. how many km/miles run during the season, last month’s total etc.). Indeed, it’s not possible to count totals yet, but it is in our to do list and we hope to add it to our new design as soon as possible.

The key point, why people come back to Sportlyzer was mostly similar to the to 3 features, but in addition to that, our Heart Rate zones system got quite a lot of votes. The fact that we’ve managed to educate users to train according to heart rate zones makes us very happy.

There were many other intersting suggestions and we’ve them added all into our roadmap. Thanks for your feedback and while we keep on working with improvements, you keep on giving valuable feedback. So, don’t forget to use Sportlyzer’s feedback feature and/or our forum.

Helen Kalberg Marketing Manager of Sportlyzer.com

It’s time to get back to you with new updates. Many cool things are still in progress and new ideas are piling up faster than we can process, but meanwhile we would like to give a short overview, what we have been up to within last few weeks.

Now you can compare your training plan and progress! Check out your profile page to see the graph. And, of course, don’t forget to peek how your friends are doing – you can see their graphs, too!

Our Forum is finally up! Forum.sportlyzer.com is waiting for your questions, ideas, feedback and any other interesting sports related stuff. It’s directly connected to Sportlyzer, so you don’t need a separate account or log in once you are already in Sportlyzer. How cool is that? You can also access our forum directly from Sportlyzer.com by clicking “Forum” in the footer.

New, updated Facebook share. Now you can share detailed workout/competition info and new cool icons to characterize different workouts. Give your friends an opportunity to see how are you doing and join you!

And last but not least – we updated Sportlyzer’s time zone logic. Your time zone will be now updated according to your location. However, we suggest checking your account’s time zone settings. Especially if you didn’t pay much attention to it on your first log in .

There are many other improvements done by our tech team to make your time in Sportlyzer more enjoyable but the list with all those smaller and bigger changes would take forever. We suggest you to use this time for working out instead. And, don’t forget to post your workout info to Sportlyzer and share in Facebook!

Helen Kalberg Marketing Manager of Sportlyzer.com

We are happy to announce that we give away Garmin heart rate monitor for the most inspiring sports challenge. Just follow this link here, click “Like” and post your personal sports challenge on Sportlyzer’s Facebook wall. It doesn’t matter if your personal challenge is to run a marathon or just jump higher – all the challenges are more than welcome!

- Five most inspiring challenges will be announced on the 30th of May.

- The winner is the challenge that gets the most likes by the 5th of May.

Check also our campaign page and participate!

Helen Kalberg Marketing Manager of Sportlyzer.com

There are many articles about how to stay safe when you go for a run or a bicycle ride after daylight. And yet, people don’t pay much attention to it, because “It doesn’t happen to me.”  But it may. So I decided to write about it in Sportlyzer’s blog, too. There are some simple but important things you should follow to stay safe in case you decide to exercise outdoors in the dark.

Be visible! Wear reflective and bright colors and carry a reliable flashlight – not only to see yourself but to be seen by others. Don’t expect drivers can see you.

Always run against the traffic. This way you will have a better view of the vechicles approaching.

Make sure you know the surroundings and/or inform someone about your plans. When you decide to exercise in a new place (e.g. you are on a business trip or you’ve chosen a new route), make sure you know in which kind of area you are exercising (avoid dark areas and side streets), and make sure you inform a friend/family member about your plans.  And of course, choose a well-lit route.

Carry an identification or make sure your name, phone number and blood type is written somewhere on your training clothes/shoes.

Don’t exercise alone. If possible, invite a friend or take your dog with you.

Leave your iPod or MP3 player at home. You can’t hear oncoming cars, dogs, or any other potential threat. Cutting of your sense of hearing leaves you at a disadvantage even in daylight but it’s especially dangerous in the dark.

Carry a cell phone or whistle in case you need help.

It’s not necessary to memorize the whole list or completely avoid exercising in the dark but it’s important to do it with some sense of caution. Common sense helps you to avoid most of the potential threats.

Mike Lyzer Virtual coach at Sportlyzer.com: Join now!

It is time to color Easter eggs and spend some quality time with your family!

Holiday weekends are usually full of plans and events with family and friends. Different plans pile up fast and workouts tend to be outnumbered in comparison with all the other plans. So, I just wanted to remind you to spare some time for exercising, too. It’s OK if you exercise just a little every day – for example 15 minutes light running a day, or 60 minutes extra walking in 3 days. It helps to keep you in shape and you can continue with your regular workout plan next week without any problems. And all those who are planning to have a bigger meal on Sunday, remember – you can eat more if you train more .

Enjoy your long weekend and see you next week!

Mike Lyzer Virtual coach at Sportlyzer.com: Join now!

Sportlyzer has been live about one month now. It has been a very interesting time for the whole team. Lots of challenges, feedback, ideas, bug fixes, improvements, more feedback, more challenges and so on. There are so many things going on at the same time that sometimes you miss the most important ones. Here’s something we should have done a few weeks ago, but better late than never: our weekly updates – check them out!

Users Guide is now in reach of just one click. No matter where you are in Sportlyzer, you can always find the blue “Users Guide” button on the right. Just click it whenever you have questions. If you have more time, check the Users Guide out anyway – you may find some cool features you haven’t tried yet.

Log in with different accounts. Logging in is so much more convenient now, when all your accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo) are connected to your name, so you can log in with any account you want!

Better support. We have improved our support system and some extra effort went into supporting the users of Internet Explorer 7 and 8.

Garmin .tcx file upload. File upload to workouts is smoother and besides Polar .hrm and .gpx files, you can also upload Garmin .tcx files.

New Goal page. Each goal has now its own page. Whenever you enter a goal (Boston Marathon for example), it gets a separate page that unites all the users who are going to the same event. You can share tips, ask advice or find new friends via similar goals! Click on the event on your profile to go to Goal page.

While we continue our work on improvements and new ideas, it’s time for you to try out these updates!

Log in and see you inside!

Helen Kalberg Marketing Manager of Sportlyzer.com

We have received quite a lot of questions about how to read the data in heart rate monitors and how to match this data with Sportlyzer’s workout entries. As every heart rate monitor is slightly different and manuals may not always answer to those questions, we decided to cover this topic with a blog post.

To know your time spent in each zone, you have to enter your aerobic and anaerobic threshold data into your heart rate monitor. In most cases you can enter them as heart rate limits, whereas Limit 1 is your aerobic threshold and Limit 2 your anaerobic threshold.  If you don’t know your heart rate limits, you can find them in Sportlyzer.  You can find them either on Workouts page, under the graph, or go to choose Test results from Welcome menu. Limit 1 equals to max value of Zone 1 (aerobic threshold) and Limit 2 equals to max value of Zone 2 (anaerobic threshold). Please keep in mind that in order to get accurate results, you have to enter your registration data correctly!

After setting your aerobic and anaerobic limits, your training intensity will be divided into three parts:

• Zone 1 – below Limit 1;
• Zone 2 – between Limit 1 and Limit 2 and;
• Zone 3 – higher than Limit 2.

If your heart rate monitor supports .gpx, .tcx or .hrm file type, you can upload the files manually to Sportlyzer. In case your heart rate monitor doesn’t support uploading file types or you are unable to connect your heart rate monitor with your computer, you have to edit the limits manually. Simply check your training time in each zone, usually referred as below zone (Z1), within zone (Z2) and above zone (Z3), and write your workout data accordingly to Sportlyzer. If your workout consisted of some low activity time period (e.g. between ballgames, between running sessions etc.), subtract this time from Zone 1 and add it as Zone 0. Some heart rate monitors do it automatically, so if there is a difference between your recorded total training time and time spent in zones add the missing time to Zone 0.

The explanations above should cover most of the heart rate monitors. However, if some of you still face difficulties while matching the data with Sportlyzer system, please let us know and we will try to find a solution.

Mike Lyzer Virtual coach at Sportlyzer.com: Join now!

“Tomorrow I will do it for sure.” Everyone has thoughts like that. Sometimes we have good reasons to postpone intended activities. However, people – especially those who set rather high standards to themselves and apply perfectionism in everything – often put off things they actually want or need to do. This is called procrastination – avoidance of doing tasks that are necessary. Besides, failing to do things on time (or to do things at all) is often accompanied by feelings of guilt, inadequacy, self-disgust and even depression.

Why’s that?

Imagine: you prefer mango to papaya, and pineapple to mango. If you had a choice between these three, you would probably pick pineapple – it is the best. Procrastination has a similar logic: we start to think that a point of time in the future is better than now (I’ll be less tired, less busy, in a better mood etc.). In this way we start to hope that tomorrow is a better time for exercising or going to the gym, or visiting a doctor.

Why is it so easy to do something that ultimately backfires?

People postpone (or actually skip – they just don’t call it skipping) one workout because no single workout is responsible for attaining the goal. Thus, it is not a big deal to start tomorrow. The same way people don’t stop smoking because no single cigarette can be blamed for lung cancer. So, they plan to quit next week. And this way we slowly postpone important events in our lives.

Is there hope for procrastinators?

Yes, there is. The solution is in deliberate and detailed planning. This is one of the reasons why Sportlyzer was created – it helps you to create a specific plan and a set precise starting time for every single workout. Just having a goal and an intention to achieve your goal is not enough. The most important thing is to have an implication plan – a specific planning strategy.

Join now and see you at workout planning!

Mike Lyzer Virtual coach at Sportlyzer.com: Join now!

Sportlyzer launched a virtual trainer that focuses on training advice – a required supplement to numerous exercise tracking applications and devices. Sportlyzer is providing a virtual trainer that uses complex algorithms to compose and modify workout plans and give training advice based on a user’s previous workouts and current training schedule. Just as well as a real trainer. This major step is the result of months of hard work and development – yet it is just the beginning of the next generation virtual trainer.

Sportlyzer’s uniqueness is based on 2 core features:

• Relevant training advice delivered by the virtual trainer
• Uniquely tailored training plans which adapt to changes.

The virtual trainer is supported by social networking which enables users to do numerous training related things. Hereby we would like to give a short overview about the possibilities in the public beta.

Workout log.
Adding and editing workouts is made easy. Workouts can be added either manually or from a heart rate monitor (Polar .hrm and .gpx are currently supported types). It is also possible to add multiple workouts to the same day.

Goal setting and individual workout plans.
Based on physical characteristics, goals and previous workout history, Sportlyzer’s algorithms tailor a unique workout plan for each user. Workout plans are flexible to changes and are therefore modified after every change in scheduled workouts.

Training advice from the virtual trainer.
Virtual trainer gives training advice based on individual workout plan and data from previous workouts: suggests training loads and warns if user’s training load is too high or too low. As common in newer sports practices, the training advice is concentrated on heart rate zones and minutes instead of kilometers/miles. Explanations are available for the beginners and to those who are new to this system.

Workout community and shared training routes.
One of the most common reasons why people skip workouts is lack of people to train with. “Community” and “Join a friend” tools in Sportlyzer enable users to share workouts and join friends’ trainings with just one click. Besides trainings, it is also possible to track your favourite routes on map and “borrow” interesting training routes from your friends.

Sportlyzer’s team is working with further improvements. Until then, everyone is welcome to join, try and give us feedback, so we could tailor our virtual trainer according to our users’ needs.

Helen Kalberg Marketing Manager of Sportlyzer.com

In two previous posts (part 1, part 2) you got to know a little bit more about our co-founders and sport scientists. This time it’s turn to introduce to you our tech and design team – guys that make ideas of our co-founders and knowledge of our scientists into something we will all be able to use.

Say “Hi” to Kalmer, Indrek and Hanno.

Kalmer Rautam – our user interface designer. Prior joining Sportlyzer, Kalmer was a user interface designer at Helmes, one of the leading software development consulting firms in Estonia. His educational background says he is a system administrator. However, only his friends’ computers have seen this side of his skills. Instead, he knows everything about user interface, usability and modern web technologies. In addition – whatever questions you may have about what is going on in startup world – Kalmer is your guy to give the answers.

Hanno Vene – one of the two guys who is responsible for building the technical part behind the user interface. He has a master’s degree in Information Technology and this is exactly what he is good at. Currently, considering the weather conditions, Hanno’s main sport is snow shoveling but when there is no snow left for shoveling, he likes to keep in shape with regular exercises and cycling. He also has a background in floorball.

Indrek Altpere – our senior software engineer. Prior joining Sportlyzer, Indrek was a software developer (back-end) at Playtech, one of the world’s leading gaming software development company. Besides computer science, he has been always interested in math, physics and chemistry. And yet, in university he decided to study computer science. Indrek started his first job on the first year of his studies and the rest you can already guess – it went as it normally goes with many of computer scientists – he terminated his studies to work more. And then a bit more. And so on … To balance all the sports junkies on our team, he mostly doesn’t do any sports, but the rest of the team has already noticed Indrek’s growing interest in wall climbing. Indrek has an impressive collection of exotic animals at home – many different lizard species, turtles and so on.

And last but not least, the next team member blog post will introduce you our marketing team.

Mike Lyzer Virtual coach at Sportlyzer.com: Join now!