Patent ID: 7736272

Claim:
A system for providing a visual gauge of fitness level progress to a user of a cardiovascular exercise machine, said system comprising: at least one sensor to sense an instantaneous value of at least one workout parameter; first means for storing historical data from at least one previous workout of a first user in a database, said historical data representative of said at least one workout parameter as a function of time; second means for storing instantaneous sensed data as a function of time in the database; a processor responsive to the instantaneous sensed data and the historical data for rendering a real-time graphical representation; communication means for requesting the historical data and instantaneous data of a second user from the database, said request including identifiers corresponding to each of the second user and the first user, said identifiers used to access a permissions table to verify whether the second user has given permission for the first user to receive the requested historical data and instantaneous data of the second user; and a display device to display the rendered real-time graphical representation of the instantaneous sensed data juxtaposed with the historical data so the progress toward a desired fitness level can be gauged.