The MyZone Belt

by Molly Rausch, MS ATC, CPT, CES

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about what MyZone is and how to get the most out of your belt. With all the changes and incorporation of MyZone in the clubs from group fitness to personal workouts, knowing how to use this piece of equipment is even more important. The MyZone is a smart heart monitor you wear around your waist right below your chest or sports bra strap. What makes it smart? Well, it connects to your phone via Bluetooth and, the more you wear it, the more it adjusts to you. It records your lowest heart rate as your resting heart rate. To find your max heart rate, the MyZone app uses an equation and your age to predict a maximum heart rate. If your heart rises above your predicted max heart rate and you keep it there for 45 seconds, your MyZone belt will raise your max heart rate. This ensures your zones remain accurate.

Myzone channels your competitive side but giving you efforts points for minutes spent in different zones. The light grey zone is anything lower than 50% of your max heart rate and doesn’t give you any points. Dark grey, 50-59% of max heart rate, gives you 1 point for each minute. Blue zone gives you 2 points and is 60-69% of your max heart rate. Green is the next zone. It’s worth 3 points and is 70-79%. Yellow (80-89%) and red (90-100%) both give you 4 points per minute. The reason the yellow and red zone are the same is because these are both zones you can’t maintain for long periods of time. The goal is to reach 1300 my effort
points (MEP) in a month. The more months in a row you accomplish this, the higher metals you get. Fun fact: if you get 1300 effort points every month for FOUR years, you are awarded the “Hall of Fame” metal.

Tips for getting the most out of your MyZone:

One of the key tips when using your MyZone belt, is knowing what your training session goal is. Your heart rate response changes as your activity changes. A strength training session is not going to be a high MEP session. Strength-based workouts should be a majority in the blue or green zones. These workouts are more physically exhausting, but not necessarily high heart rate inducing. Cardio based workouts, on the other hand, do get you those higher heart rates. Know what your training session is meant to accomplish and let the MyZone help you stay on target.

The second tip is that the 1300 MEPs is set at that number for a reason. The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity every week for heart health. Doing the math for how many MEPs moderate activity gives you to follow the healthy heart guidelines, you will reach around 1300 MEPs every month.

The last tip is knowing your body. I mean two things specifically when I say this. The first is to pay attention to how hard the activity feels to see if the MyZone belt is accurate. If your MyZone is chilling in the red zone but you feel like you’re strolling along, the belt may need to be adjusted to match you. If you feel like you are pushing as hard as you can, but it never gets above green, the belt may need to be adjusted. Be in tune with your body.

The second part of knowing you body is knowing it adapts. Routines are great, but training the body the same way for weeks won’t help you progress. You need to keep pushing or stressing the body for it to continue to adapt. MyZone can be a good first indicator that a plateau may be happening, if you see that heart rate coast along. If it’s hard to hit the higher zones you should be with a particular workout, it may be time to change it up. Even a week of shaking things up may be enough to get over this bump and continue progression toward your goals.

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com or comment below!