Dontʼ trust your treadmill or your wrist top heart rate monitor when it comes to distances walking or running or calories burned. Both are enormously inaccurate. Dr. Emma Ross warns of the dangers for exercisers like pregnant women and those with high blood pressure because they could be working out at too high an effort according to the Brunel University, UK physiologist. The error, according to experts, is often higher than 20%.

According to Sally Edwards, Heart Zones USA CEO, the companies that exaggerate these numbers by creating formulaʼs intentionally that over estimate caloric expenditure are probably doing so as an insidious form of advertising. Wouldnʼt you buy the heart rate monitor or treadmill that burns more calories?

The reasons that calories burned is so inaccurate is twofold. First, the formula that calculates the calories assumes that everyone is the same. That formula is typically calculated using your age, weight, and gender. When a 5ʼ5" woman who weighs 150 pounds and is 20% fat is measured next to a woman the same height, age, and weight but is 35% fat the former burns more calories because she is more efficient. But the monitor will say that both women burned the exact same number of calories. Test this yourself. Run on a treadmill with your wrist top monitor and compare the results with what your treadmill displays at the end of the workout. In a 60-minute workout the error could be 250-500 calories. Thatʼs just not accurate enough. So, donʼt rely on calories burned in your monitor - it doesnʼt work.

If you aren't someone who swears, you might consider modifying behavior because recent research shows that swearing can increase your pain tolerance.

According to a study published in NeuroReport, a U.K. journal specializing in neuroscience, participants were able to keep their hand immersed in a tub of ice cold water for longer when they repeated a swear word of their choice rather than uttering a commonplace word. Most participants choose two popular swear words beginning with a "f" and "s". Researchers are unclear why swear words increase pain tolerance but they suspect that swearing triggers the "fight or flight" response -- known to increase pain tolerance because of the adrenaline released into the bloodstream.

Researchers also noted that participants' heart rate increased significantly when repeating swear words, as opposed to only marginally when repeating non- swear words. And yet, it is known that meditation which lowers heart rate and slows breathing also increases pain tolerance. They attributed the participants' ability to tolerate pain with their ability to slow down their heart rate. In light of this information, wear your heart rate monitor next time you are meditating or swearing and test out these findings.

Want to know if you are getting fitter. Then do this 10-15 minute workout in the sport of your choice and measure your two thresholds. The Low and High Threshold field test is one of the best field test to measure the low or first threshold biomarker, T1. Using a little math, you can estimate your second threshold heart rate number called T2 from this same field test. This is one of 9 different fitness assessments that you can take if you purchase the packet of workout cards from our online store called "Fitness Tests" for only $9.95 in the Heart Zones store. Each of the tests uses a heart rate monitor to assess your current cardio-fitness level.