USMS has finally released it's new fitness logs (FLOGs), available to members. This is indeed a big change.
Unfortunately, for me, this is not easily adaptable to my needs. I have developed and kept my own personal fitness log over the last 15 years, tailored to my own special needs, and don't see how the new FLOGs at USMS can duplicate that effort without some major changes.
The principal example is what I do for exercise. There are a substantial number of available categories but two of my main ones are missing (rowing and cross-country skiing). I realize that I can put these in as 'other' but, because two exercises are mixed together, it is not so easy to look at results over the long haul. Further, as the years have gone by, I have added additional categories and would like to be able to do the same with the FLOGs.
Two other fitness categories that I use are Maximum Heart Rate (supposed to decay with age, as you know, but does it really?) and blood pressure. Neither of these are available in the USMS FLOGs.
I think that, to make the new FLOGs useful for everyone, they need to be individually configurable. I don't do pilates or yoga so, if those categories could be replaced, for me, by cross-country skiing and rowing that would take care of the exercise part. Having the ability to add other fitness measures would also help.
What I'm suggesting is the ability to have interactive programmable code for the entry input panel. Since I haven't programmed for years in HTML (and never in Java), I'm not sure how doable this is.
The final problem is merging records from past years. My fitness log is Excel based and the ability to import these data would be very valuable. I probably would not choose to hand-type the thousands of entries. That means that I cannot easily compare multiple years graphically or in table form. Somehow, this defeats the purpose of my chain of fitness records.
If these problems can be overcome I would anticipate transferring my logs over to USMS. If they cannot be dealt with, then definitely not.
One really nice feature of the FLOGs is having the data in one place and not having personally to deal with the archiving. USMS is certainly on the right track here, its just that the Devil is in the details. One of my thoughts is that this would give great incentive to many more people to keep fitness logs. In the long run this will produce a database of absolutely invaluable information to see how fit people age and what they have to do as they age to keep fit. A couple of years ago, I issued a challenge on these Discussion Forums for people to post summaries of their yearly fitness records. There was not a single response, even though many people looked at the thread. It was discouraging to me to think that not many people consider this important. Hopefully, the new FLOGs would 'right' that situation.
And while we're asking for pie in the sky, I'd like to include heart rate stats as well. I wear a monitor and can tell exactly what kind of workout I've had by looking at HR results. I am recording this in the comments, but it would be useful to have it in one place so I can look for trends and indicators.
I would like to track (in order of importance to me):
-- yards of "quality" work
-- yards of kicking
-- yards of strokes vs freestyle
Chris, good idea.
I've toyed around with doing this myself, but with the additional attention needed, I've never gotten around to making it happen. I'm already having trouble trying to remember what I just did last night in the pool.
I REALLY dig the FLOG, it is a great tool that any swimmer can use! Tools like this add value to membership and are not just for competitive swimmers. Kudos to the team that developed the FLOG!
My only suggestion for improvement may be a logging tool for health statistics. Lets say you do some tests and want to track the results. This could include:
Weight
Resting heart rate
Lean body mass
Blood pressure
etc.
Over time, you could enter your numbers to see how your training is impacting your health. Maybe some of our medical professionals and/or trainers could come up with a list of useful metrics that could be included in a future iteration.
Great stuff!
After having used the FLOG for a few weeks, I do like them a lot. And you can't beat the name!
However (and I hope Jim is listening), I do have one suggestion to make it a better training journal. Right now you can enter total time and total yards for a swim practice, and these things get added up in various ways (eg by week, month, year).
I wish that one could partition up the swimming yards in meaningful ways (and what is considered meaningful may indeed depend on the individual). For myself, for example, I would like to track (in order of importance to me):
-- yards of "quality" work
-- yards of kicking
-- yards of strokes vs freestyle
Others might be interested in other ways of partitioning. During report generation, I also would like these things calculated as subtotals and also as fractions of the total yardage (eg, "In July 2009, 11% of total yardage was quality, 35% was stroke, 25% was kicking").
Since the individual is responsible for manually entering his/her total yardage and time, these things could just be additional fields and their labels could be user-defined. Making it look pretty would probably be the most challenging aspect.
As a minor matter, calculating average time/distance per workout would be a nice addition to reports.
But I would have to say that interfacing the FLOG to the BLOG (which I know is in the works) is probably a higher priority for me.
I like the flog and I'm using it. I am really glad it makes information retrieval easier for the gtd people; I love that program, the numbers continue growing and the work behind it must too!
I have not been able to get the comment area to work. I don't know what else I could do to make it work. Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?
Chris, good idea.
I've toyed around with doing this myself, but with the additional attention needed, I've never gotten around to making it happen. I'm already having trouble trying to remember what I just did last night in the pool.
I try to write down on a notepad or get what I did onto my flog or blog within several hours after my workout. If I don't do that, I get into big trouble remembering.
Ilike the new FLOGS SYSTEM. THEY are easy to keep track of what ever excerise yuo do . Since I am Lazy. I say KUDOS to the new FLOGS SYSTEMS. DOM in AZ.:bed:
Started using the FLOG a week or so ago. Nice to have multiple sports to choose from. Given that it offers yards and meters shouldn't it also offer kilometers as well as miles?
Sorry to be anal here, but hey, I'm sort of used to testing software... A few more bits of feedback on the FLOGs:
The switch to week view should switch to the current week not the first week of the current month (but see below for an interesting side effect...)
If I switch to week view it takes me to the week which contains the first day of the month. If I then switch back to month view it takes me to the month in which the first day of that week resides. That's an interesting way to page back month-by-month. ;) (Until you hit a month where the 1st falls on a Sunday I suppose.)
If I enter a workout I think it should give me the opportunity to enter another workout instead of returning me to the calendar view. When I'm done I can click a link to return to the overview.
Mary's spreadsheet is still awesome - it's nice to be able to customize it. It also has those comparative charts. I hope the USMS folks keep it as an option.
Bicycling.com has a training log very similar to the FLOG. It goes into a little more detail for swim workouts including: time of day, quality of workout, effort, your weight, heart rate, & temperature (if you swim outside). I like this a little more than the FLOG because I do triathlons as well. I do use the FLOG though for the GTD event.
