Debbie is a working mom, wife, hockey player and our 2015 Member Spotlight Winner. She has been a Member of The Motion Room for over 2 years and we are very excited to be awarding her with $500 Motion Room Dollars to use for herself or for a friend.

Last year we introduced the Polar Smart Coaching system to our Members. Whether it’s assessing your day-to-day fitness, monitoring daily activity, working out at the right intensity during Personal Co-Training or the 4 Series Programs, Smart Coaching offers a choice of unique, easy-to-use features, personalized to your needs and designed for maximum enjoyment and motivation when training.

TMR Member Spotlight Winner Debbie jumped on board with TMR + Polar and hasn’t looked back!

When the Polar Loop and heart rate system came to TMR and I realized this is my chance to take my fitness to the next level.

The Polar Loop was something that I started back in December and I it changed how I worked out completed. I used to work out based on how I feel. Did I push myself? It was a lot of guess work, and now I’ve taken the guess work out and I’m looking at the science! I met with the trainers and they explained to me, for example with Hockey, what my average heart rate is when I’m playing hockey. So now when I come to workout at The Motion Room I try to maintain my heart rate at that same level so I can be fit enough to do it for an hour when I play.

It’s really helped me to see how to do things better, how to work harder during class to keep my heart rate up, and how I’ve been able to maintain a higher heart rate even when doing strength training, which is something completely new to me! I always assumed doing strength training during Personal Co-Training wasn’t going to make a difference with my heart rate, but actually the form of an exercise and how you do an exercise will change your heart rate. It amazes me how much information you can get from the Polar Loop and the heart rate monitor. So that’s been a big change for me in terms of how I work out and how I see the benefits and apply the beneifts to the things I do outside the gym.

The best thing for me is that my kids see what I do every day and they just think that’s what every mommy does – gets up in the morning, goes to the gym. They check my Polar Loop when I get home to see if I met my goal , and both of them just think its great every day that I come home and I’ve met my goal on my Polar Loop.

The Polar loop has been great, it allows me to compete against myself. I can compare workout to workout to see if I’ve had better results. I come in and compete against myself (total calories burned and average heart rate), I see if I can beat that the next time and that has improved how I do things. Instead of going to a class and waiting for the next exercise, I’ll use active rest to keep my heart rate up.

Overall it’s become easier to come to TMR and get the most out of my workouts. When I bring my Polar Loop to hockey I find that I do a better job and push myself more because at the end I want to be able to go home and look at what I’ve achieve and see that I’ve burned more calories from the last time I played, or compare how my heart rate differs when I play women’s hockey vs. men’s hockey and then take the information I get from the polar loop and go over it with the trainers to see how I can do things differently at TMR. Or when I show up they just tell me, ‘this is what you have to do to get your performance up with hockey,’ because they have seen that information. It’s been a huge advantage for me!