Ben Burch on the missing link in the gym

If you run, ride or swim, you are never short of data. A watch on your wrist gives you pace, splits, heart rate, cadence and elevation for every session, and it has done for years. You know when you are fitter, when you are tired and exactly how today compared with last week.

Then you walk into the gym, and it all stops. Most people are left with a notebook, a rough memory of what they lifted last time and a guess at whether the session was any good.

That gap is the subject of a new article by ultrarunner Ben Burch, who finished Badwater 135 this summer and writes about his training at My Journey to Death Valley. He has been using REMAKER in his strength sessions for the last few months, and this is what he found.

We know everything about our running

Ben's starting point will be familiar to any endurance athlete. "We know everything about our running," he writes. "Then we walk into a gym and we have none of it."

Strength and conditioning has become a central part of his training rather than something squeezed in around the miles, and he wanted the same quality of feedback there that he gets on the road. This is where REMAKER started transforming his strength sessions:

• Setup is as easy as a run. Ben follows a programme written by his coaches on another platform. He is able to paste it straight into the REMAKER app, which picks up the exercises, sets, reps and weight.
• Feedback arrives during the session. REMAKER MOVE attaches to the bar, the body or a weight stack, and measures the velocity of every rep, with audio feedback through his headphones. The app gives real-time guidance for weight adjustments so that every rep is executed cleanly.
• The simple stuff counts too. Seeing what he lifted last time, for how many reps, and how his current performance compares to previous lifts is incredibly valuable.
• It keeps him turning up. Ben puts much of the benefit down to engagement. Having something working alongside him makes it easier to schedule a session, put it in the diary and show up.

For Ben, this feedback loop is exactly what has been missing from strength and conditioning.

To read the whole article, head to The missing link in the gym on My Journey to Death Valley.