A trainer at your fingertips

	Tweet

Want to calculate your BMI, heart rate or caloric needs? With a fitness cellphone, all that is easily accessible.

We are all about our cellphones. We have them pasted to our ears or the palms of our hands, buy them pricey designer outfits and continually replace them with newer, sleeker models as if they were trophy spouses.

So, when I got word of a cellphone that could enhance my fitness routine, it didn’t seem that outrageous.

The camera flip phone, the result of a partnership between NEC and Fitness magazine, comes with a body mass index calculator, a target heart rate calculator, a list of calories burned for various exercises, and caloric needs based on height, age, weight and level of activity. Users can also access and download the magazine’s personal fitness planner, which offers customized workouts, meals, tips and recipes.

It’s not the most original of ideas — many people already use their personal desk assistants to monitor workouts, and some cardio equipment can even link up with PDAs to keep track of routines. But far more people have cellphones than PDAs.

The rub is that many gyms in L.A. have outlawed cellphones, fearing that some people might take unflattering or unclothed pictures of fellow members and post them on the Internet. The ban isn’t a total loss — most people wouldn’t consult their phone in the middle of a Spinning class anyway.

To see how useful the fitness phone is, I logged in and got my personalized workout after answering a series of questions, including goals (slimming down or gaining power — evidently one can’t do both), how much time per day and how many days a week I want to strength and cardio train, what kind of cardio I like to do (aerobics, basketball, elliptical trainer, tennis, etc.) and my weight. I was also asked whether I liked to do barbell squats, which I felt was getting a little too personal.

A question about preexisting limitations allowed me to check off chronic knee, back or shoulder pain — hardly enough to cover the gamut of problems people have. But a disclaimer says the question attempts to weed out some of the exercises that may be affected, not all, and that the workout may need “further modification.”

The plan I received isn’t incredibly innovative — on Tuesday, I’m expected to do an hour on the stair climber; on Wednesday, I’m supposed to do barbell chest presses, flat bench dumbbell flyes, close-grip pulldowns, bent-over barbell rows, hyperextensions, knee tucks and crunches. Oh, plus the elliptical trainer. If I’m at a loss as to how to do any of the strength exercises, clicking on them produces a description.

While it helps to have the weights outlined for me, and handy to have it on a cellphone, it’s nothing I couldn’t have gotten from a gazillion books or videos. I’ve also been exercising long enough that I tend to keep my workouts simple and in my head — today legs, tomorrow back, throw in some cardio.

So does Roberto Grande, a 28-year-old L.A. attorney who can be found at the Sports Club/LA at least five days a week. “Technically, it sounds really clever,” he says of the phone, “but would I jump onboard? Probably not.”

He might use it if he could link it somehow to his heart rate monitor or his MP3 player, which he does use during workouts. “But I’m not going to use it to get a recipe for chicken casserole,” he says. Nor would he pull it out during a business dinner and check how many calories he’s burned to see if he can indulge in cheesecake. “Not even in L.A. can you get away with that,” he says.

But maybe Grande isn’t the ideal user. Maybe it’s someone like Amy Baker, a 27-year-old L.A. graphic designer who just started working out at Body Builders Gym in Silver Lake.

She has a trainer, but on days when she’s left to her own devices, “I do find myself a little clueless when I’m walking around the gym,” she says. “So having your workout worked out, that’s cool. And getting your BMI, that’s awesome.”

“This phone is a way to give information and tools that will inspire you to go to the gym,” says Allison Douglass, Fitness magazine’s business development director.

She envisions new and veteran exercisers checking in with the phone while waiting in line, commuting, etc.

“Even if they’re not using the workout planner, they can be looking up recipes while they’re at the grocery store. If that inspires people to eat healthier, then it’s a success.”

The phone is $250 (less with rebates) and the personal fitness planner is free for the first 90 days, then $9.95 a month on top of the regular service plan. The BMI and other calculators come with the phone. (The NEC fitness phone is available at http://www.nechdm.com . Fitness magazine’s website can be found at http://www.fitnessmagazine.com.)

It’s the cellphone as “more of a lifestyle piece,” said Scott Spreen, assistant general manager of NEC’s wireless group. “We were looking for ways to better connect with the consumer, and this is moving beyond the phone as something to play games on.”

The fitness phone’s only been available for a couple of weeks, so it’s too soon to tell how it will be received.

Something of a precedent exists in interactive and informational online fitness and diet sites, which offer users a variety of options for monitoring their progress. The most effective, according to research studies, are the sites offering feedback and motivation via e-mail or phone.

Dr. Thomas Wadden, who has done some of those studies, is cautiously optimistic about the phone’s possibilities. Still, the director of the Weight and Eating Disorders program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine says there are limitations.

“Potentially, these devices are motivating,” he says. “For someone who sets a goal, this will tell you if you reached it, and there’s definitely good information.”

But information goes only so far, Wadden points out. Information may not stop you from gorging on French fries or skipping your workout for a week.

“For most people, that isn’t sufficient for weight loss. You have to have motivation to continue on a daily or weekly basis.”

The phone’s novelty factor, he adds, may propel some to stick with a program at first, but it may wear off after time.

In the future, NEC and Fitness magazine may add some interactive features such as text messages that give users extra inspiration to work out and eat right. Even if they don’t, Wadden has a great idea for another techno-type device.

“Maybe we’ll get into our cars,” he says, “and there will be a scale built into the seat. And if you weigh too much, the car won’t start.”

RELATED STORIES:
First Early-Detection Blood Test for Parkinson’s Shows Promise   New Tests Provide Clues to Fetal Health   Magnetic resonance imaging with side effects   Cuts, Scrapes & Punctures   Hormone brain natriuretic peptide can predict pulmonary hypertension   Chest pain not from heart?   New treatment for aortic aneurysm triggers debate   China Issues SARS Alert as Winter Approaches   Emergency care should use trauma as example   After-hours care affects emergency department use in Leduc   Men likelier than women to have bowel cancer test   Fast-acting insulin helps with diabetes emergency

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]