The T-shirt that measures your workout - perhaps?
So when you’re at the gym, what tells you when you’re really stretching your performance, going for the burn, pushing the envelope? Well, according to Jon Gilman, who’s a personal trainer, it’s a T-shirt that measures how much you sweat.
His Perspirometer is a T-shirt with a triangle printed on the front, with the point downwards. The widest part of the triangle measures a ‘light workout’, the next level down is a ‘good workout’ and the bottom, narrowest part of the triangle leading to the point is a ‘great workout’. Just below the point is ‘shower time’! The T-shirt is a bit of fun, but shouldn’t be used as a genuine measure of fitness for several reasons:
-
Sweat is partly genetic – you might be a person who just doesn’t generate large volumes of fluid: that doesn’t mean you’re not pushing your body to the limits
-
Sweat is also a learned response – fitter people who hydrate regularly, sweat more than unfit people or those who are fit and don’t drink as much fluid: in other words, your body learns to manage on the fluid you give it
-
Women sweat differently to men – both different amounts and in a different pattern, so this T-shirt doesn’t measure women’s fitness in any way.
Add comment May 23rd, 2008