Enough of long texts! Today we start a series of articles about exercising all visualized as infographics. The series starts with the basics of training physiology and moves on to training according to heart rate. Our first infographic explains why exercising raises your heart rate, makes you gasp air and how it improves your physical fitness. Read more ►

Teams of 3 have to complete 3 times Ironman Triathlon distance within 3 weeks. It’s the team effort that counts – the split and order of distances and activities doesn’t matter. Team members’ workouts will be summarized and the challenge winner is the team with the best total time.

Each team has to complete the following distances:

o Swimming: 7,2 miles/ 11,58km;

o Cycling: 336 miles/ 540,75km;

o Running: 78,6 miles/ 126,585km.

Start: Monday – July 18^th,

Finish: August 7th.

Do not hesitate! Register now at hello@sportlyzer.com and get the taste of an Ironman’s competition! (Team name and participants’ names required.)

Read about the prize and rules and/or join with the Facebook event.

Sportlyzer’s very first challenge was concentrating on finding the most inspiring sports challenge. We were very happy to see that the Garmin Forerunner 405cx certainly found the right owner – Judith is an outstanding example of the inspiration we were looking for. But better read yourself and see if she inspires you, too! Read more ►

About a month ago we published an article about how to match your Suunto HR monitor with Sportlyzer. Now it’s also possible to upload Suunto HR monitor files via Sportlyzer‘s workout entry.

You can’t yet upload files directly from your Suunto heart rate monitor (but we are working on it!).  For successful upload you need to the data in Excel file (.xlsx) which you can export from Suunto’s online community movescount.com.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!