the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

When the Discovery Channel decided to televise New Zealand's grueling tenth annual Southern Traverse race, it was in for more than your typical adventure race cover- age. The 226-mile race also served as a field lab for monitoring extreme athletes under extreme conditions. Eco-Challenge film produc- er Angus Yates of Catch and Release Communications outfitted four specia lly selected athletes, dubbed "The Science Team," with the lat- est in highly miniaturized wireless biofeedback sensing gear. The equipment, which weighs less than three pounds, pro- vided precise data on each racer's physical status every 15 seconds in the roughly 100 hours of extreme competition. The gear's developer, Massachusetts-based FitSense Technology Inc., has provided monitor- ing equipment for Mount Everest climbers and outfitted astronaut John Glenn on his recent space jaunt. Another innovation is ingestible elec- tronics: a miniaturized heat sensor encased in a pill that is swallowed . It broadcasts internal body temperature to a miniaturized processing hub worn on the belt like a beeper. The Science Team's participants were no slouches. Ian Adamson, 36, has broken world marathon kayak records. Robyn Benincasa, 34, a professional firefighter, was a national judo champ in 1998. John Jacoby, 34, holds several marathon kayak record s. Mike Kloser, 40, was a 1988 world champion cross-country moun- tain bike champion. The sens ing equipment showed that the ath- letes, who had unusually low resting heartbeats (30 to 50 per minute), were able to maintain a steady 120 to 140 heart rate even when racing up inclines, furiously pedaling mountain bikes or pad- dling kayaks through rapids. Sleep deprivation provided even more vital data. Many of the contestants got by with less than two hours sleep, often only 15 minutes at a time, but were still able to func- tion physically and psychologically. "This kind of monitoring has been in the lab for a long time, but it didn't translate into the field," says FitSense President, Sam Joffe. "This is in real time and under extreme conditions." The major advantage, Joffe adds, is that with accurate monitoring, a trainer can tailor exercise routines to a specific individual. "Training tends to be generic," explains Joffe, "but we all have strong points and weak points. This lets the trainer identify what they are, and pile on the pressure where the athlete can take it." Higher core body heat and an elevated heart rate in Robyn Benincasa, for example, pointed to a recent lung infection . The best part is that most of FitSense's miniaturized equip- ment is now available to the publ ic. "This used to be mostly restricted to NASA and the military," says Joffe. "Now it is a consumer item, and the cost is often around a few hundred dollars."-Derek Paterson

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