Gear

All the Gear; No Idea

Posted by Richard Morris on 13 August 2023
Posted in: Ash, Bowflex, Diary, equipment, Gear, Home Gym, Pain Cave, Personal Trainer, Running, Surrey, treadmill, Walking.

Our home gym here in Ash, Surrey continues to expand: we now have a Schwinn 800IC/IC8 for my virtual cycling with FulGaz and JRNY; we have a ForceUSA G3 All-In-One Gym Set coupled with a BodyMax 145kg Barbell and Weight Set; a ProForm Cardio HIIT L6 Trainer for herself to do her stair stepping; and now we’ve just added a Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill 56/Treadmill 22 (depending upon where in the world you are {metric/imperial}).

The Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill is their top of the range model and features a fabulous 22″/56cm screen for their JRNY app to run on and the deck can have an incline from -5% to +20% gradient and also folds to save a bit of space when not in use.

So yes, there’s no excuse for us not getting fitter and leaner.

Herself – despite being a qualified personal trainer – has also enlisted the help of another personal trainer who specialises in getting bodybuilding athletes ready for competition. Yes, Alison will soon be competing in some Bikini Class bodybuilding contests in 2024. Watch this space!

The plan then will be for her to start offering personal trainer services herself with a focus on women and particularly Mums/mature women who may not feel comfortable in a full-on gym situation.

Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill Folded Bowflex BFX56 Treadmill ForceUSA G3 All-In-One Trainer ProForm Cardio HIIT L6 Trainer Schwinn 800IC Bike Schwinn 800IC Bike Schwinn 800IC Bike and iPad

Schwinn 800IC/IC8

Posted by Richard Morris on 13 August 2023
Posted in: Fitness, FulGaz, Gear, JRNY, Schwinn. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

I forgot to do much more than mention that I was getting a Schwinn 800IC/IC8 as I started out last summer using a cheapo Amazon special exercise bike along with Apple Fitness+.

I looked at what Apple recommended/were using for their Fitness+ workouts and they were Schwinn bikes.  In the UK they’re supplied by – amongst others, I’m sure – Fitness Superstore and they had an offer on the Schwinn 800IC (formerly the IC8): already listed at half list price, they had an additional 10% off for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I pressed the button on one for delivery in early September 2022.

With the Schwinn’s arrival came physiotherapy, pain consultations and then experiments with Apple Fitness+, the first year’s free subscription to Bowflex’s JRNY app, and a trial of FulGaz.  The latter two are different from Fitness+ in that Apple are offering different duration classes only whereas the other two offer virtual rides using video of the actual routes.

In FulGaz’s case, they are adaptive workouts: speeding up or slowing down the videos to suit your pace/power which the app reads from the Schwinn.  They’re also linked to my Garmin fēnix 7S for my heart rate.

The other benefit of using FulGaz is that after each ride, it emails you a FIT file which you can import into Garmin Connect giving you the full details of the ride.  JRNY does not do this, sadly, but you can manually add further detail to Garmin Connect if you record a ride on JRNY and your Garmin fēnix 7S.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Schwinn, which has now done 2,800km…  I simply use an old iPad Air 2 to run FulGaz of JRNY and then after a workout, plug it back into the Schwinn’s USB port to charge it again.

Schwinn 800IC

Schwinn 800IC

Schwinn 800IC with a Tablet

FulGaz LEJOG Challenge

Posted by Richard Morris on 18 November 2022
Posted in: Diary, fēnix 7S, Fitness, FulGaz, Garmin, Gear, Schwinn. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 comment

If you’ve been checking in on this blog with my monthly workout stats and/or following my latest individual workout activities over here, then you’ll know that while I’m in the UK, I tend to just use our Schwinn 800IC static bike and I’m pretty much settling for FulGaz as my preferred workout program, given its “adaptive” video rides.

I’ve received an update from FulGaz today about the “LEJOG Challenge“: Land’s End to John O’Groats over 500km and 20 stages, most being over an hour and some like Hardknott Pass being a little bit ‘bumpy’ too…

Still, what could possibly go wrong?

October 2022 Stats

Posted by Richard Morris on 31 October 2022
Posted in: Diary, fat bastard, Fitness, Gear, statistics, Weight. Tagged: , .

We flew out to our place in Fuerteventura again on Saturday 1st October and after the weekend I started back with the real-world cycling on the Monday, having decided to up the ante a tad with my distances and to make sure I was following my consultant’s orders to do at least 30 minutes a day.

I’m still pleased with the result: 331.33km this month (including walking).

October 2022 Stats

In other news, we’ve gone a bit keto with our diets and the results are promising: I weighed 93.3kg on the Garmin Index S2 scales we have here at the start of the month and today I weigh 91kg (up 0.5kg from yesterday morning, which was a new low since the crash and muscle-wasting in July 2019).

September 2022 Stats

Posted by Richard Morris on 1 October 2022
Posted in: Apple Fitness+, Diary, fēnix 7S, Fitness, FulGaz, Garmin, Gear, JRNY, Weight. Tagged: .

With the Schwinn’s arrival came physiotherapy, pain consultations and then experiments with Apple Fitness+, the first year’s free subscription to Bowflex’s JRNY app, and a trial of FulGaz.  The latter two are different from Fitness+ in that Apple are offering different duration classes only whereas the other two offer virtual rides using video of the actual routes.

In FulGaz’s case, they are adaptive workouts: speeding up or slowing down the videos to suit your pace/power which the app reads from the Schwinn.  They’re also linked to my Garmin fēnix 7S for my heart rate.

The other benefit of using FulGaz is that after each ride, it emails you a FIT file which you can import into Garmin Connect giving you the full details of the ride.  JRNY does not do this, sadly.

So hitting the Schwinn every has been beneficial for me, but also for my weight which has been coming down slowly, thereby improving the load on my knee.

Here’s my stats for the 399km – mainly virtual/indoor – in September 2022:

September 2022 Statistics

August 2022 Stats

Posted by Richard Morris on 1 September 2022
Posted in: Apple Fitness+, Diary, Fitness, Gear, Peloton, Schwinn, Walking, Weight. Tagged: .

We were still out in Corralejo for the first half of August 2022.

Back in London, it was a case of hammering the cheapo indoor bike, thinking we’d buy a Peloton bike when we move to Surrey and have a bigger garage and separate gym.  The Amazon special was OK, but I couldn’t stand up on it despite the Apple Fitness+ trainers suggesting I could.

And then a couple of things happened: a news article about Peloton’s losses being “an existential threat” made us think about whether a Peloton would be a good idea after all. They’re very expensive and rely on a paid subscription to Peloton if you want to do the guided rides (which I had really enjoyed in Big Sur).  If they went bust, the screen would effectively be useless and the purpose of the really expensive bike would go with them.

I looked at what Apple recommended/were using for their Fitness+ workouts and they were Schwinn bikes.  In the UK they’re supplied by – amongst others, I’m sure – Fitness Superstore and they had an offer on the Schwinn 800IC (formerly the IC8): already listed at half list price, they had an additional 10% off for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I pressed the button on one for delivery in early September.

Here are the stats for my 266km in August 2022:

August 2022 Stats

June 2022 Stats

Posted by Richard Morris on 1 July 2022
Posted in: Apple Fitness+, Diary, Fitness, Gear, Hiking, holiday, Running, statistics, Walking. Tagged: .

Back in June 2022, I was walking for fitness but was having a lot of pain in my bad knee, the one that I’d seen a consultant about back in 2012 who said I should stop running … before I ran the Berlin Marathon and a couple of half-marathons.

I had been recommended cycling, so was trying to introduce more of this into my training and then went to the USA in early June to do the Pacific Coast Highway. While we were there, I tried a Peloton fitness bike in a really expensive hotel we stayed at in Big Sur and started looking into buying one, just before seeing my consultant again.

He again recommended some weight loss and half an hour every day on a bicycle, with a recommendation for a cheap static bike.  That got me into finally using Apple Fitness+ and 30 minute rides.

So, here are my stats for June 2022.

June 2022 Stats

Garmin fēnix 7S

Posted by Richard Morris on 9 February 2022
Posted in: Apple Watch, fēnix 7S, Forerunner 735XT, Garmin, Gear, scales. Tagged: .

I’ve been using a Garmin fēnix 3 Sapphire for quite a while now; it’s a big, chunky lump of a fitness watch but then it is feature-packed and suitable for many forms of exercise.  I also have an Apple Watch Series 4 which works really well, but doesn’t measure blood oxygen levels like my wife’s latest one does.

I pair it with a heart rate monitor that clips to a strap you wear around your chest and then shower and dry it after exercising. We bought my wife a Garmin Forerunner 735XT a few years back and that has heart rate measuring built in (like the Apple Watch).

Now that we’re splitting our time between the UK and Fuerteventura I’m having to cart the Garmin back and forth, so I decided to leave it there where I work out more and use the Apple Watch in the UK. That’s not perfect because I then have to manually add each one to Garmin Connect.

So for my 60th birthday, Alison has bought me the new Garmin fēnix 7S, choosing the smaller S model so it’s not as chunky and large, especially as it encourages you to wear it 24/7 to monitor heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep tracking, etc.  It’s early days yet but the results are fascinating. I expect over the next few weeks it should get to know me properly and calibrate all its reports around me.

Garmin fēnix 7S

100km Done plus Gore Wear Windstopper C5 Trail Pants

Posted by Richard Morris on 16 April 2019
Posted in: Diary, Gear. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

So the Nine Streets turned over the 100km mark since buying it on my way home from work last night.

Very impressed with it so far and loving all the extra quality touches like the decent light set, the mudguards and of course the fabulous paint job.

There’s also something very satisfying about being first away from the lights compared to all the other bikes: something to do with the lack of inertia on the small wheels.

I carry my suit in the Henty Wingman and wear one of my running jackets – currently a Virgin London Marathon training jacket – and on my legs, it’s a pair of “Gore Wear C5 Windstopper 2 in 1 Trail Pants“. These are water resistant as they’re from Gore and very comfortable.

Intriguingly, they say they are:

“A lightweight and windproof 2in1 pant that can be converted between trail-ready baggy shorts or a full length pant when the weather takes a turn for the worse.”

Except I can’t find a way of actually converting them to shorts, other than by – presumably – cutting the bottom bits off or rolling the legs up inside or outside.

I’ve asked on their Facebook page: let’s see if we get a response.

Back on Track?

Posted by Richard Morris on 11 April 2019
Posted in: Diary, Gear, Syndicated. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

Lots of travel – business and pleasure, but mainly business – has curtailed my being in the office on days when cycling in and home could be an option.

Since the last update, Evans Cycles have indeed replaced the Wingman’s dry bag under warranty – which was nice – and I’ve been ‘forced’ by others using the various hotel gym’s treadmills to do some cycling (both recumbent and upright) whilst waiting for the treadmills to be freed up to do some running.

I’ve also picked up a slow puncture in the front tyre which means that I have to pump it up every few days; maybe this weekend I might find time to repair/replace the inner tube?

In the meantime, here’s today’s commutes: