Performance | Tanita Community

Fine tune your fitness regime on the move with the RD-901 from Tanita

Posted on March 5, 2015 by ashleyharris22

ghg Transform the way you monitor your health and fitness with the launch of the RD-901 from Tanita. This world first, professional grade body composition monitor with Bluetooth technology has been designed for home use to deliver an array of highly accurate and informative readings.

Tanita’s professional grade InnerScan Dual BIA technology has been incorporated into the new RD-901. This unique technology ensures the highest level of accuracy for fast and reliable body composition readings, enabling you to truly understand the impact ofyour diet and fitness regime, from the comfort of your own home.

The RD-901 offers the very best in body composition monitoring, by instantly delivering ten measurements, using a colour coded results analysis system to make you aware of your health status. Results are clearly shown on the monitor’s LCD display and can be transmitted instantaneously via low energy Bluetooth to the Tanita Health Planet app, where you can analyse and evaluate your vital statistics on the go using your iPhone. Readings include weight, body fat percentage, hydration levels, muscle mass, bone mass, physique rating, metabolic age and basal metabolic rate, which can help you to gain a solid understanding of your body, from the inside out.

The free Health Planet app is compatible with Apple iPhone (4S or higher) and links directly to the RD-901 to help you set health and fitness goals and monitor progress and changes to your body composition over time with easy to read tables and graphs. This information is highly useful in helping to fine tune training regimes for enhanced performance, or those simply looking to improve health and wellbeing.

The RD-901 is easy to operate and features four user, colour-coded auto-recognition, so that you can just step on to the scale without inputting your details each time. For added functionality the monitor also colour codes each key measurement to show your body status, with green indicating a healthy reading, yellow showing a borderline reading and red alerting you that attention is needed. Measurements are then automatically uploaded to your personal profile on the app, and can be recorded onto the memory in the scales.

Available in black or white, the RD-901’s ultra slim, modern design also incorporates toughened safety glass to support a weight capacity of up to 200kg.

The Tanita RD-901 is available on our website for £159.99. To find out more or get your own, click here.

Speed Up Secrets from The Tanita Team

Posted on April 23, 2014 by ashleyharris22

Calling all runners! Whether you’re a new jogger or a seasoned performer, our ‘speed up secrets’ will help you get to the finish line in record time:

1) Perfect your technique: They key to running at any speed is to perfect your running technique. That means keeping the upper body tall yet relaxed, striking the ground with the mid-foot landing under the hip, and swinging the arms forward and back (not side to side!) at low 90-degree angles.
2) Stretch it out: There’s no proof that stretching regularly prevents injury, but expert runners stretch regularly to increase flexibility for better strides.

3) Alternate your pace: Interval training – alternating periods of high and low intensity exercise – is a great way to increase speed and endurance, and is also great for calorie burning too! An interval run pushes your body’s tolerance for lactic acid build up by continuing to work you out without allowing time to refresh or cool down completely in between different intervals. After a short warm up, try running at a fairly fast pace for 1 to 2 minutes, then walk or jog slowly for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Eventually, your body will become more accustomed to operating at the higher exercise threshold, and you’ll be able to push yourself to run faster.

4) Warm up and cool down: These may be the parts of your training that you tend to skip, but a thorough warm up and cool down are essential not only to avoid injury, but also to help enhance performance. Prepare for faster running with a thorough warm-up. Walk for two to five minutes at first to get the blood flowing. Then, run half a mile using more frequent walk breaks than you usually use. After your workout, don’t stop. Jog slowly, using as many walk breaks as you need for the next 10 minutes, and then walk for three to five minutes. You’re done!

5) Choose your goals wisely: Avoid the risk of injury by setting yourself realistic targets and goals. Once you’ve achieved them, you can set yourself new ones!

So as the sun comes out and you feel motivated once more to start running, make sure you’re doing it the right way to ensure peak performance and no injuries!

Winter-Proof your Workout

Posted on November 4, 2013 by ashleyharris22

The nights may be drawing in, but that doesn’t mean your workout has to go into hibernation. This week we will be sharing our winter workout tips to ensure you keep up the good work!

Winter- Proof Your Diet

When the weather is cold, it’s important to pay careful attention to your diet so that you’re fuelling your workouts correctly. You don’t need extra energy when you exercise in cold weather, but it’s important to remember that you’ll burn extra calories when your body temperature drops, so you need to fuel up accordingly.

Failing to drink enough fluids is a major mistake that people often make in the winter. As well as losing fluids through sweat, you’ll also lose it via the water vapour that gets exhaled when you breathe out. Additionally, the cold weather blunts the thirst mechanism so despite training hard you may not feel like you need to drink, even though your body needs it to perform. With this in mind, always take a bottle of water with you when exercising.

Winter- Proof Your Warm Up

When it comes to doing your winter warm-up, you need to double the time you would usually spend on it during the hotter months. Your joints are surrounded by a substance called synovial fluid, the warmer the synovial fluid is, the better it is at lubricating your joints; protecting them and your muscles from injury. During the winter months, this fluid is colder and more viscous, so you need to spend longer heating it up.

Winter- Proof Your Run

Running in the winter often means pounding the pavements in the dark. Try lifting your knees high with every step as this will minimise the likelihood of stumbling on uneven surfaces, which can be hard to spot in low light. Try landing on the balls of your feet rather than your heel – this will help you to maintain your balance too, plus research shows this style of running means you’re less likely to damage your joints.

Winter- Proof Your Cycle

If you’re heading out in the cold on your bike, try standing up and pedaling from time to time to help get your circulation going. This relieves the pressure on your bottom as having your weight constantly bearing down on it can constrict the blood vessels, which restricts blood flow to the lower body, making your legs and feet cold.

Always remember, if you are heading outside to exercise this winter stay safe and visible by sticking to well-lit areas, reflective clothing and why not even head out with a friend?

Tanita Takes Part In Leisure Industry Week 2013

Posted on September 23, 2013 by ashleyharris22

This week marks the annual return of the UK’s biggest leisure trade show, Leisure Industry Week (LIW). The Tanita team will be out in force showcasing the latest developments in technology from our ever expanding range of products; the MC780, MC980 and SC240 body composition monitors.

Taking place on 24^th – 26^th September at Birmingham’s NEC Centre, LIW brings together brands from all sectors of the leisure industry, offering everyone from Health Club owners to Hotels to Personal Trainers the chance to preview the latest and greatest innovations in leisure equipment and accessories.

Tanita are proud to be showcasing our bestselling and new in-depth analysers including:

The MC780, a brand new Segmental Multi Frequency Body Composition Analyser, working across three frequencies to take a multitude of accurate readings from your body
The SC240, the world’s first lightweight, high capacity composition monitor which is medically approved. Highly portable, it offers in-depth readings on the go, with further features available when connected to software via USB.
The MC980 Multi Frequency Body Composition Analyser, which offers total body composition readings, segmental readings for specific areas of the body and automatic data storage through non-invasive, and easy-to-use, methods of analysis.

Visitors to our stand will also be given the chance to enter a fantastic competition in association with Boditrax, helping professionals from the fitness, weight loss, and medical sectors create and manage personal profiles for clients online or via the Boditrax App. Used in conjunction with Tanita body composition monitors, clients can reach their fitness goals so they become fitter, healthier and happier.The lucky winner of this competition will take away a year’s licence with Boditrax, as well as a Tanita SC240 portable body composition analyser to help track your clients progress throughout the year.

Attending LIW? Make sure you visit our stand, H233. We can’t wait to see you all there!

If you can’t make the show this year, you can also keep up to date with our LIW activities via our Facebook and Twitter pages.

The Pre-Exercise Shake

Posted on July 25, 2013 by ashleyharris22

It can be difficult to know what to eat before a workout to naturally boost your energy, improve stamina and aid recovery. If you’ve got an exercise session planned today, why not try our pre-exercise shake to help you make the most of your workout:

Ingredients:

1 large banana, cut into chunks

The athlete’s favourite; bananas are compact and full of nutrients whilst also being a good source of easily digestible carbohydrates, which are converted into energy by the body. It is also thought that the high levels of potassium in bananas may help you to avoid cramping during exercise.

1 tsp honey

An unsung hero, those in the know swear by honey as one of the best foods to eat pre-exercise. Natural and just as effective as an energy gel, honey is a simple carbohydrate made up mostly of unrefined sugars, which are easily absorbed by the body and prop up energy stores.

1 tbsp flaked almonds

Almonds provide an energy boost in the form of natural, monounsaturated fats, giving your body another source of energy to draw upon when the going gets tough – particularly important for endurance exercise.

30g tofu

150ml Pomegranate juice

125ml Soya Milk

Ice Cubes

Method:

Put pomegranate juice and soya milk in a blender with 2 ice cubes. Blend until the ice has broken down.
Add banana, tofu and honey. Blend until smooth. Pour into a chilled glass and garnish with flaked almonds.

Guest Blog- Kerry McCarthy, Runners World

Posted on July 17, 2013 by ashleyharris22

This week’s blog is from Kerry McCarthy, a senior writer at Runner’s World UK. Kerry has recently taken on the mammoth challenge of running 12 marathons in 12 days to raise money for Hope HIV.

To aid his training, Kerry used the Tanita BC-545N to monitor the changes in his body composition refine his training regime. We were lucky enough to catch up with Kerry and find out more about his and race experience:

Can you tell us a little bit more about your 12 in 12 challenge?

25 friends and I spent 2012 doing various challenges (one each per month) raising money for HopeHIV, a UK-based charity that helps kids whose lives have been affected by AIDS or HIV in sub-saharan Africa. There have been ultramarathons, bog snorkeling, triathlons, paddling over waterfalls on a lido, half ironmans, 1,200 press ups by one person in a single day, 12 Krispy Kreme donuts eaten by one person in 12 minutes, dragon boat races, one person running back and forth over the same bridge for 12 hours straight, 24 hour football matches…so many things!

What training were you doing to get yourself ready for such a tough challenge?

Under the advice of the personal trainers I used in preparation of the challenge, I didn’t run at all for two months in advance! Their view was that I had already committed so many distance runner crimes (trotting out long slow runs again and again without any strength or cross-training or proper recovery in between sessions) that I had ruined my body.

They also believed that since my aerobic system was fine I just needed to concentrate on making my body strong enough to take the pounding of what was ahead; running 42,000 steps every day with 2-3 times my body weight sending shockwaves through my joints with every step. So I spent ages in the gym doing lunges, squats, chin ups, kettlebells, skipping and all sorts. I was extremely nervous about turning up on day one having not run for ages when my team-mates had spent months running 80+ miles a week, but it worked!

I started fine, running for 4.5 hours on day one but got slower and slower each day, with day five taking me nearly eight hours! But on day six I woke up and something had adapted in my body. I knocked two hours off the previous day’s time and got faster each day until the end. It’s amazing what the human body can achieve when it works out what you’re doing to it.

Tell us about your race days

Over the 12 days I ran 315 miles, plus an extra eight due to getting lost a few times! I burned 48,000 calories, lost 12lbs in weight, endured temperatures of -5, rain that would have made Noah put down his tools and go home in despair, tried to map-read on the run through strange towns while allowing for the fact that Google maps sometimes said ‘left’ when it actually meant ‘right’. How I laughed! I ran alongside massive lorries on A-roads with no pavements, had many hours of elbow-digging-into-bum sports massages and daily ice baths. I waded through long stretches of thigh-high river water on flooded sections of the Thames towpath, suffered blisters, black toenails, cuts, scrapes, muscle tears/pulls/strains, ligament damage pain, pain and more pain and also had to hear rapier-witted teenagers the length of the country shouting ‘Run Forrest, Run!’

How did you use the Tanita BC-545N as part of your training?

My training wasn’t just a case of losing weight: I needed to strip away fat and put on lean muscle – but not too much as I didn’t want to carry the extra weight around. Over the two months I was training with my PTs I lost 3% body fat and put on 3kg of lean muscle which I was able to track with the Tanita scales. They were a pretty handy tool and much more accurate than most other similar products on the market due to the hand held sensors. This means the electrical signal that passes through your body to measure your body composition travels through your whole body instead of just your lower body as it would do if you were just using the more common foot sensor scales.

We’re sure you’ll all agree that Kerry has done a magnificent job for Hope HIV and if you’d like to find out about his future challenges follow him on Twitter @RWKerry or to find more about Kerry’s 12 in 12 challenge visit his website.

Guest Blog – Simon Bradeley

Posted on June 27, 2013 by levzek23

This week, we hear from Former Guinness World Record Holder and personal trainer Simon Bradeley, who explains why body composition monitoring helps to keep him motivated and understand his body better.

When you sign up for your first challenge the last thing you think about is your current body composition, or even appreciate what a difference your body composition can make to your results. But you’d be surprised!

Benchmarks and reference points are important with any form of training or diet. Monitoring body composition is one of the most useful ways of measuring the success of your plan and the effectiveness of your training; motivating you to continue your excellent progress, and helping you to understand the changes your body is undergoing.

I’m actually a bit of a technology and data addict, and I measure my own body composition weekly with my trusty Tanita BC-1000. I have around three years worth of date stored on my PC and on the Garmin Connect software, which is a fantastic way of tracking my long-term progress. This is especially helpful when I am preparing for a particular event or goal. It always amazes me the regular patterns that my body composition undergoes throughout the year. My body fat will always increase by around 10% during the festive period and through to January, but then decreases as I step up my training in Spring.

Body composition monitoring caters for the individual, so it is important to understand what shape and condition you are in currently, to allow you to set yourself targets and see how your condition compares to recommended healthy levels of body fat and body water.

So it’s time to set yourself some goals, and let body composition monitoring help you reach them.

Guest Blog- Extreme Cyclist Jacob Zurl

Posted on June 12, 2013 by ashleyharris22

Here at Tanita, we pride ourselves on creating precision scales and body composition monitors that are renowned for being the most accurate on the market. For this reason, many elite athletes from around the world use Tanita products to aid and improve their training. This week, we put the spotlight on Jacob Zurl, the world’s youngest extreme cyclist, to find out how using a Tanita monitor allows him to tailor his training.

Jacob Zurl turned professional in 2010 and since then he has been taking part in long distance cycling events and races and has even broken a world record!

He currently holds the world record for cycling the most vertical meters in 48 hours, which saw him cycle 28,789 meters in really tough weather conditions – take a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkZb2pbym7A

Jacob has been training hard for two events this year and, as with all sporting disciplines, maintaining the optimal body condition is key to his success. Every extra pound carried adds 15-20 seconds onto every mile of a climb, so cyclists need to strike the right balance with their weight. You need to be heavy enough to power uphill but not too heavy to slow you down.

It is essential to be strong, not skinny so the proportion between muscle and fat also needs to be fine tuned. Fat plays a key role in immune-system function. Energy levels will suffer without enough fat but on the flipside, becoming too lean will lead you to burn muscle which will see your power plummet. The idea is to find the perfect balance to help you ride strong and be healthy.

Jacob uses a Tanita BC-1000 to monitor his body composition, using the detailed readings to tailor his training plan to either strip fat or build muscle as needed.

Jacob’s 2013 season started at the beginning of June with the Glocknerman, which is a 1,015 km race with 16,000 vertical meters. Jacob came fourth in the race in 2011 and placed second this year with an overall time of 37 hours and 3 minutes.

August sees him start the Race Around Austria which is a 2,200km race with 28,000 vertical meters to scale.

We wish Jacob all the best for this year and make sure to keep up with his progress by liking his fan page on Facebook.

Guest Blog – Andy Keates, Professional Boxer

Posted on April 11, 2013 by levzek23

In this week’s guest blog, professional boxer Andy Keates tells us about how his dedication to training and nutrition has been the key to his success.

Vital Statistics

Weight: 63KG

Body Fat: 6.2%

Muscle Mass: 56.4

Hydration Baseline: 67%

Training schedule: 2-3 hours per day, 5 days per week.

About:

Being a professional boxer you have to remain motivated and have great determination to be the best you can be both physically and mentally.

The key to my success so far in my boxing career is hard training. Ever since I was young I have had the ability and commitment to push myself hard in training sessions. I have also been able to focus myself to stay committed and train week in week out. This is where a lot of athletes struggle as you can get distracted in life by other things. Seeing friends and socialising can be really distracting, but in order to succeed you have to forgo your social life and commit to the training and job at hand.

Training consists of many areas of development; stamina, power, technique and balance all play a vital part in a well-rounded training schedule. A typical session can consist of three minute intervals sessions that include sparring, speed and strength work. Most sessions will last around 2-3 hours per day.

You have to be 100% focussed and alert during training, especially when sparring as you can get caught or injured, which can have serious effects short term and on training plans.

Nutrition:

It is really important to get the right balance with my diet. I always ensure I get optimum volumes of protein in to my body to aid recovery and development, using protein shakes daily when training.

My nutrition plan has to be balanced to ensure optimum replenishment of essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, proteins and essential salts which can be lost when training at high intensity!

Monitoring hydration levels is incredibly important to me as it indicates when I need to replenish vital fluids that I lose throughout training. Body composition monitoring also ensures that my body is growing and developing at optimal levels.

I use a Tanita Body composition monitor to regularly monitor my total body water and to measure my body fat and muscle mass levels. It becomes really obvious when my body is in peak condition. I track my body fat and muscle levels throughout the year, so my coach and I now understand when my body is ready.

Anyone wanting to try boxing should know it is a great calorie and fat burner and uses most of the muscles in your body. Punching a punch bag for four two-minute rounds can burn off around 700 calories per hour.

Follow Andy Keates on Twitter https://twitter.com/Andykeatesboxer

Tanita presents my.tanita.eu

Posted on March 20, 2013 by ashleyharris22

Here at Tanita, we’ve been working incredibly hard to develop an online software programme that allows you to keep a diary of all your fitness activities and track changes to your body composition, all in one place.

Compatible with one of our best selling body composition monitors, the BC-601, users can store their body composition measurements on the SD card provided and then upload their data to their my.tanita.eu profile.

On my.tanita.eu, users can analyse all of their measurements on easy-to-understand graphs to assess the effectiveness of their training programme over time, and modify it where necessary to maximise performance.

my.tanita.eu is also compatible with most heart rate monitors including Garmin, Polar and Suunto devices, so all data that they record, from maximum heart rate to calories burned, can also be uploaded to your profile.

The advanced software can store and analyse additional health data, such as resting heart rate and lactate levels and allows you to personalise your sports diary to include a wide variety of activities ranging from archery to Zumba.

As if that wasn’t enough, my.tanita.eu also allows users to upload and share training information via Facebook and Twitter; so you can challenge your friends or team mates and add a competitive edge to your training.

It’s so simple to register, upload your data and begin using my.tanita.eu, sign up here!