2009-06-24
Fitness Logs Available for Members
U.S. Masters Swimming has released a new online service that is available exclusively for our members. Members may now track their swimming and other fitness activities via our new online Fitness Logs (FLOGs) tool. With this exciting new online service, you can log a wide variety of fitness activities such as swim workouts, running, weights and yoga on your flog calendar and track your weekly, monthly and annual totals online.
Members who are participating in the popular "Go The Distance" fitness event will also enjoy the convenience of having the data from their flog automatically included in the monthly event reports
How to Set Up Your FLOG
1) Your login to the My USMS area is controlled by an account that you can create from our Discussion Forums. If you do not already have a Discussion Forums account, you'll first need to create one. This account is how we identify you in any usms.org service that requires a login. It's free for anyone to create, but you'll need to create it yourself (it's not automatic with your USMS membership).
2) Once you have set up your Discussion Forums account, go to the My USMS area and log in using that account information. If this is your first visit to My USMS, you will also need to enter your current membership information in order to link your login account to your membership.
3) From the main My USMS page, follow the link to My Fitness Log. If this is your first visit to your FLOG, you'll be prompted to set up some details about how you'd like to view your flog and whether you'd like to allow others to view your flog. Don't worry - you can always come back to this page later via the Preferences link on the left if you change your mind about some settings.
4) That's It! You are now ready to flog! You should now see your monthly or weekly calendar (depending on your preferences). To add an entry, click on the day number in any calendar day shown. You'll be asked to provide the type of flog entry you want to log and then will be brought to a form where you can enter the details for that type of entry. You may enter any level of detail you want to provide in the details box. For instance, you may wish to enter your entire workout details or how you felt in this workout for a swim workout that you are flogging. Of course, if you're not interested in logging all that detail, you can just leave the details block empty.
5) It's that easy! All entries that you have flogged will appear on your calendar. You can always edit an existing entry by clicking on it in your calendar view, and you can use the calendar navigation links to view prior weeks or months activities.
6) The ability to view other member's flog entries is coming soon. Your entries will only be viewable to others if you have opted to allow this in your preferences.
If you are currently participating in the Go The Distance fitness event or have participated at any time in the past 3 years of the event, your monthly totals for your swim distance up through May of 2009 are already entered in your flog. They are entered as a single flog entry on the 1st of each month. Feel free to update that data if you like by deleting the single large entry and entering your details for each day of the month instead if you are so inclined. If you have a lot of detailed daily workout data from the past available in spreadsheet format and would like to get that data into your flog, contact webmaster Jim Matysek to see if we can work that out for you.If you are not yet participating in the Go The Distance event, why not join the fun? Just follow the Events link on the left side of any flog page and click to join the event. You can withdraw from the event at any time also if you choose to do so.
