We’ve never reviewed a product before, but the MyZone MZ-3 has impressed us so much, we had to share!
If you decide to get one for yourself, you can get $50 off your own MyZone MZ-3 by visiting https://FRhurt.com/myzone (we receive no commission from this link; it’s just a redirect that inputs a generic coupon code).
And be sure to let us know if you do, so we can add you to our monthly Iron Squirrel Challenge! 🙂
Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #16
F: Hi, and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. We’re coming at you in our spare bedroom which doubles as our home gym. I’m sitting on my Fit-Desk, which is a bike-desk combination, we’ve got our assistant here who’s insisted on being a part of this. And, as soon as the camera rolls, of course, he’s out of here.
R: Bye, bye.
F: I don’t know about you, RaeLea, but—I do know about you, actually, that you hate working out about as much as I do.
R: I do! Surprise!
F: Yeah, but, we understand how important it is to be physically fit and to be a productive author and to live longer to bring stories to you. So, to that end, we came across a devise a couple months ago. It was in October, I think.
R: Pretty sure it was about three months ago. We kicked it around a little bit.
F: We are getting no kick-back from this, whatsoever.
R: Right.
F: Or anything like that. But, we’ve become such believers in it that we are going to tell you all about this device and, how it’s—Kind of, not to overstate it, but it’s kind of changed our lives and our view of working out.
R: It’s kind of made it more fun and I think for me, it’s helped push me to go that extra mile.
F: This device is called MyZone, MZ-3. She’s holding a box.
R: It comes in such a cool box.
F: It’s a bonus box. It’s $150, but if you watch until the end, we have a coupon code that you can save $50 off when you purchase one, if you decide. There’re other videos out there with people, if you just search for MyZone MZ3. There’s a ton of really good videos out there reviewing this and we’re not product reviewers. We’re just telling you about…
R: Our experience.
F: When you get it, if you want to show them.
R: It comes with, you’ve got the device itself, and it’ll clip onto your belt. A little bit challenging, sometimes, and on the back, there’s the two electrodes?
F: I don’t know what they’re called. But, basically, what it does is you wear it on your sternum. We’re both wearing ones right now.
R: Yeah!
F: It connects wirelessly, by Bluetooth, to your phone and it measures your heartrate. So, what’s the reason we like it? First of all, it’s the motivation. It motivates us to work out and try to work out every day. Because this is, on a very basic level, the MZ-3 is like a heartrate monitor. And, it’s 99.4% accurate to an EKG.
R: Pretty impressive.
F: Yeah, it is. So, it’s much more accurate than say, a Fitbit or any of those other, like Smart Watch type things. And, it’ll measure whether you’re sedentary or you’re working out aggressively. And, unlike those other devises, that are notorious for being less accurate the more you move around, ironically. You wear it, as a belt, right against your sternum.
R: You can adjust the width around, and it just clicks right in.
F: So, one size fits all.
R: And, it’s super easy.
F: We’ll go into, probably, more of the features of why we like it, rather than the device itself. But, just because it’s a lot of stuff out there about it and we’re trying not to get super long here. We wrote down some of the features so we don’t miss anything. First of all, it measures your heart rate. But, it takes your age into account. And, it measures your effort.
They call them MEPs, they’re MyZone Effort Points. At every 50%, you get one point per minute, 60% you get two points per minute, 70% is three points, then 80% and 90% are four points per minute. And, that’s based on effort, again. That’s kind of the beauty of this, that if you’re really out of shape, you’re getting a lot more points for doing a lot less.
R: I’m killing it!
F: The kind of the fun thing is that we tested it out the first day when we got it. We would do the exact same workout, the same amount of time, and she would earn two to three times the points that I would. On the surface, it seems like, “Well, that’s not fair.” But, it really is an equalizer, because someone who’s relatively fit can be a fair competitor to somebody who’s not as fit. We’ve got the full range of people. You could compete against an Olympic athlete and actually stand a chance of beating them in points. So, that’s one of the things. What’s another feature here.
We talked about the heart rate monitor. It’s water resistant.
R: But, not waterproof.
F: So, no swimming with it.
R: No showers.
F: One of the things we like about it is the real time feedback.
R: Right!
F: So, on your phone, it’ll show you what your heartrate is and what percentage that is against your maximum heartrate. That maximum heartrate, that 50, 60 percent rate we talked about earlier.
R: It really motivates you in pushing that – if you’re at 68%, you want to push that little extra to get yourself into the 70%. I’ve really found that to be a huge motivator for me to do a little bit more.
F: And, that gamification of knowing that you’re getting more points if you get up to the 80%. It’s hard to get up to 80% and stay there because 80% of your max heartrate, so it’s kind of fun too, because it forces you to, like, “Ah, come on, if I can do one more minute, I can get four more points.”
R: It also lets you know if you have 58 points and you want to push yourself that little extra to get …
F: Make a nice round number…
R: Right!
F: It’s always just pushing you, the real time feedback. And, you can set up challenges with friends. That’s what we’re hoping for with this, is that if this is something that you’re into, too, and you decide to get it, and at the end of the video we’ve got the coupon code, then email us and we’ll include you as part of our monthly challenges. We’re calling them the Iron Squirrel Challenges. And, right now, there’s just a handful of us, family and friends. As more people get on, let us know. It’s more fun when you have that social accountability.
This also has some built-in workouts to do. Which, we haven’t done too much with, but if you’re interested in high-intensity interval training or fitness tests, it has that built in where it has a timer and it tells you, “OK, now you’re supposed to be at 70%”. And, then you kick it up again and now drop it. It kind of does that.
There’s several pro’s that we’ve talked about. One of them was the social accountability, being able to have group challenges and a leader board to see how you are. For whatever amount of time. Which, we’re doing month to month, but you can do any span of time.
R: And, it’s updated throughout the day.
F: It’s fun to say, “Oh, no. I’m falling behind. I need to kick it up a notch.” There’s the challenge there. The real-time feedback, we’ve talked about and leveling the field as it measures effort. Not your fitness level, it measures your effort you’re putting in.
But, there are a few cons, not too many. In two months of using this, we’ve found that one little nagging thing that keeps coming up is that it tends to disconnect from time to time. It’s Bluetooth, so I don’t know if there’s interference, or whatever, that it’ll disconnect from your phone. It’s an easy solution, you just restart your app and it’ll load itself up again. If it does disconnect, it’s not that big of a deal, because the module actually stores the information for up to 13 – 16 hours, I think it says. So, as long as you connect once a day, or how ever long, to upload your data. It gets uploaded to your account, so you can measure, keep track of all that.
R: Which it does mean that you do have to check in periodically, throughout the day.
F: At least once a day, if you’re wearing it all day long, like we are. You don’t have to do that, we’re doing it as a challenge to ourselves to see how much activity we can do throughout the day.
R: I just wanted to see how sedentary I am throughout the course of the day.
F: And try not to be so sedentary.
R: Yes, exactly.
F: That’s one aspect of it. But, you don’t have to. I think the classic intention of it is for workouts. If you’re going to do a workout, you put it on before hand and take it off after. You could have weeks’ worth of data before you have to update it.
The app itself is not that intuitive. That’s another con that we’re not super thrilled with. You have to poke around before you figure out where everything’s at. And, the website’s not that much better, in that regard. But, once you figure it out, it works pretty well.
R: Right.
F: Overall, I’d say we’ve been, after two months of using the Myzone MZ-3…
R: Huge fan.
F: It’s made us more active. It’s forced us to get our heartrates up there. And, in two months’ time, we’ve noticed the difference, too. It’s like leveling up in a game where it becomes more difficult to hit those lower…
R: Higher levels…
F: The lower levels.
R: It’s more difficult to get into those lower levels that I’ve been at. I have to workout more to get into those…
F: That’s what I’m saying, yeah. It’s difficult to get into the higher levels. Not lower levels. What are you talking about, 60%?
R: Well, I guess. We’re saying the same thing, just not.
F: We’ll go to couple’s therapy to sort this out. So, she’s wrong, basically. Alright. Since we’re getting a little long, we’re going to summarize by saying that if you are interested in this, then you can go to FRhurt.com/myzone. And, you’ll get $50 off, it’s normally $150, you can get it for $100. And, that’s again, FRhurt.com/myzone. We get no kickback, whatsoever. It’s just the satisfaction of getting friends and family and our fans a little more interested in fitness. If you do, please contact us when yours comes in and you get it registered you can connect with us then join our Iron Squirrel Challenge. You, too, can be an Iron Squirrel.
R: Oh!
F: Everybody wants to be an Iron Squirrel.
R: Yes.