Spring has officially arrived although in some areas there is not much of it to see yet. Nevertheless you have to plan ahead for the summer beach or pool season meaning: get in Shape now.

For a starter, running is the most easiest to do which makes you loose some pounds on the way and you can do it almost anywhere. What’s most important next to your motivation is to have the best outfit for running and a system to track your progress.

For the best outfit, the NuMetrex range of heart rate monitoring apparel which won recently the ShapeYou.com Sports, Health & Fitness GearAwards™ 2008 would be my advice.

The NuMetrex Heart Sensing Sports Bra and the Cardio Shirt for Men got the Top Gear medal while the Heart Sensing Racer Tank was awarded the Great Gear medal.

These awards for NuMetrex products is not a big surprise to me. Their fitness apparel with integrated textile sensors offer by far the best wearability comfort for heart rate sensing in sport apparel. Combined with the flexibility of NuMetrex’s system allowing to mix and match almost any existing sensor and wrist monitor makes the NuMetrex range the big winner.

If you are planning to get in shape, I suggest to look at the award winning Top Gear NuMetrex has on offer before you head off to your first run of this season.

The most visible use of Wearable Electronic technologies is in consumer products like clothing and bags. The value here is convenience, adding individuality or giving interactive decoration options.

But the potential of Wearable Electronic technologies go far beyond the fashion market. Take for example the health care and medical sector. Nobody likes to get sick or having health problems but this is a fact of our life.

Being in such situation puts already a great strain on a patients life quality. The need of measuring and monitoring body functions means being stationary or having the need to go the doctor or hospital for monitoring. Most of the time highly visible and uncomfortable devices has to be worn during the monitoring of body functions.

This might change soon as a newly formed consortium, comprising 18 research, academic, industrial and medical organizations from 9 different European countries and China, will work to improve the quality of life for coronary heart disease and heart failure patients.

The project name is ‘HeartCycle‘ and aims to create a ‘patient loop’ that gives patients continuous feedback on their state of health, their progress towards achieving health status milestones, plus motivational tips and suggestions for a healthy lifestyle and diet.

Monitoring each patient’s condition will be achieved using a combination of unobtrusive bio-sensors built into the patient’s clothing or bed sheet.

Sensing of an individual patient’s physical exertion, body orientation and ambient environment will provide additional information so that the system can put the monitoring data into context.

The HeartCycle project, for which Philips Research is acting as project coordinator, is one of the largest biomedical and health care research projects within the European Union (EU) and will run for four years.

More infos can be found on www.research.philips.com

NuMetrex offers the perfect Valentine gift under the tag line: Give From The Heart For The Heart.

Benefit one: NuMetrex will donate $5.00 to the American Heart Association for every red or razzleberry sports bra purchased during the month of February.

The American Heart Association, which organized the National Wear Red Day on February 1 to promote ongoing research and education about women and heart disease, dedicates their work on “Building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.”

Benefit two: If you buy one of Numetrex’s sports bras from now until February 10th as gift for yourself, your wife or girlfriend, you get 20% off when you use the coupon code HEART during checkout.

Benefit three: NuMetrix line of cardio sports apparel are incredible stylish, extremely comfortable thanks to the seamless integrated textile bio sensor and offers a wide range of different options to fit your personal needs and style.

The cardio bras come in many different colors but remember: RED is the color of the month and Valentines Day. Don’t forget to use (your) HEART during checkout.

Give your Dad/husband something much more fashionable and innovative than the usual tie for Father’s Day.

Numetrex™ started selling just in time for the ‘big daddy day’ the Cardio Shirt.

The Cardio Shirt eliminates the need for a separate heart rate monitoring chest strap – and makes you boys and dads great looking. It comes in two colors: Graphite or Blue Steel.

The NuMetrex cardio shirt is compatible with Polar® heart rate monitors and the Polar WearLink™ transmitter. More details on this great looking shirt on our previous post.

Go and make your Father (or husband) happy and keep him off the couch fit and buy the Cardio Shirt directly by Numetrex’s online shop. If you order before June 15 you get even a 20% discount which makes in only $ 47.15

Go and hurry up!

If you do not have a Polar system, Numetrex offers you different packages with the Cardio Shirt starting from the transmitter only up to the RS200 Polar system.

The Wearable Electronic Summer 2007 is getting beautiful and fashionable. After introducing almost 2 years ago the award winning Heart Rate Monitoring Sports Bra, NuMetrex™ is launching a new range of Cardio Shirts for the active Women and Men.

Girls, you never before looked as gorgeous on the running track as with the new Heart Sensing Racer Tank.

The sleeveless tank top features a shelf bra where the electronic sensing technology is integrated into the fabric to pick up your heart rate. A tiny transmitter snaps into a pocket in the shelf bra to send the signal to a compatible Polar heart rate watch.

The Heart Sensing Racer Tank is made of quick drying nylon Lycra with second-skin fit that offers medium support.

The NuMetrex™ Cardio Shirt for Men finally frees the boys from the cumbersome heart rate monitoring strap that looked always a little bit ‘funny’ – just my opinion.

The shirt is constructed of an advanced wicking fabric with special sensory fibers integrated directly into the garment. This allows men to wear a heart rate monitor without knowing it is there. The same tiny transmitter that is used in the women tank top is used for the Cardio Shirt and snaps into a pocket inside the shirt to send the signal to a compatible Polar heart rate watch.

Both active wear products using NuMetrex™ stretchable conductive textile yarns that are directly knitted into the fabric. They are very comfortable and caring to your skin. And of course, they are washable as any other sports garments.

The Cardio Shirt will be available by NuMetrex™ online store starting on May 29 for US$ 58.95 and the Heart Sensing Racer Tank a few weeks later on June 15 for US$ 55.95 (prices without the Polar link and watch).

Our buying advice: a MUST HAVE. Wearable Electronic was never as fashionable, functional and practical before.

There is no denying – the jogging season has started. Time to have a look to your jogging gear. Is it up-to-date or do you need to get something new to motivate you?

If you are ready to get an upgrade of your jogging outfit, why not try the Adidas-Polar Fusion apparel? This gives you a great opportunity to check out one of the most advanced Wearable Electronic products.

Adidas and Polar collaborated to create something special for the jogging enthusiasts: an individualized and objective feedback for runners who want to listen to their bodies and to train more effectively.

The integration simplifies the use and increases comfort, allowing the products to become part of the athlete. Included in the systems are the adidas adiStar Fusion range of apparel (sleeveless, short sleeve, and long sleeve shirts and bras), Polar’s RS800sd running heart rate monitor, which includes coded WearLink transmitter.

The system works via special fibres bonded on to the Adidas tops, working in conjunction with Polar’s WearLink coded transmitter to eliminate the need for a separate chest strap to monitor heart rate. Just snap the tiny Polar WearLink connector onto the adiStar Fusion apparel and go.

It collects ECG accurate heart rate readings from the textile sensors built into the shirt or bra and wirelessly sends the data to the Polar RS800sd wrist unit, which displays and records all information in real time. After the workout, all data can be downloaded onto a computer for full analysis.

And of course, the shirts and bras are fully washable, just snap off the Polar transmitter and up you go into the washing machine.

The adidas adiStar Fusion men’s retail for $ 62.99, the adiStar women’s Cardio Bra for $ 53.99 and the adiStart women’s Long Bra Top for $ 89.99.

The Polar RS 800sd, including the Polar WearLink transmitter and Polar s3 Stride Sensor (for a running shoe), retails for $ 469.95 by amazon.com

As always – we select randomly the online shopping sources just for your reference and convenience, we do not have connection to any of them. You might find cheaper or closer to you shops.