Gymboss Max Vs Gymboss Interval Timer Review |

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Quite a while back now I wrote a post about the Gymboss interval timer, which is a great little timer for doing your workouts with. You can clip it onto your belt or put it in your pocket and have it set to either beep loud, beep at a lower tone or vibrate.

People have been searching for this term on my search box on my blog. So it seemed like a good idea to write a review of both of these devices side-by-side so you have an idea of which one may be suitable for you.

Gymboss max

It comes in two colours black soft coat and yellow soft coat. This is the ultimate timer for fitness enthusiasts I would say without a doubt.

It is slightly smaller than the standard model. And has a different layout on the front of the timer, there are three buttons, which are as follows an arrow pointing up, one, which has MS on it and a arrow pointing downwards. The middle button is for mode select and also turns the timer on when the timer is on. You will have a few options using the up and down buttons.

You can scroll to number one, which says interval or scroll down again, and you can go into intervals if you go down another level, you will come to complex intervals after this is the stopwatch function and below that is the option to turn the timer off.

When you select any particular function, and press the MS button this will take you into the programme for setting it up. Once you are there. It is just a matter of using the up and down buttons, to select the time to what you need.

Once you have done that and press the MS button again, this will take you back to the menu. We’re you can recall programme, or you have a choice of saving it. You can save five different times.

If you go into intervals from the main menu. It’s just a repeat of the above process setting the two times two your own needs. This is where it is slightly different to the normal timer to do this on the other one you have to do manually turn the second interval time on or off, whereas on this model you don’t.

Below the intervals setting is complex intervals, which gives even greater functionality to this particular timer as with the other settings. It’s merely a case of scrolling through using the up and down buttons and setting it as you need it.

All in all, you can store up to 15 different programmes. Within each mode, that is five for the interval, intervals and complex intervals. And you can have up to 25 different intervals, which should more than satisfy any fitness enthusiast I would have thought.

This functionality would be very useful for a personal trainer, who has different clients or somebody whom does lots of types of exercises. Such as kettlebell training, HIIT, tabata etc.

One difference of this timer compared to the other is its bleep is a bit quieter. So wouldn’t be ideal in a noisy environment but the buzzer. However, is more powerful. So you would be able to feel it far easier.

Here are the specifications for the Gymboss Max.

Up to 25 different intervals
Repeat groups up to 99 times
Save up to 15 programs
LCD Backlit screen
Alarm by beep, vibration or both
Alarm duration of 1, 2, 5, 9 seconds
Belt clip
Water and shock resistant
1 year warranty

Here is a video of the Gymboss max showing basic functions

Gymboss standard

This first timer, which is the basic model comes in four colours. You can have black, grey, pink, and green.

Intervals

You can set this timer for doing single intervals or dual intervals, which is quite handy because you might not want to be doing intervals or just sets of exercises, which could be anything from resistance training with weights or basic exercises. It doesn’t matter, and setting it up is quite straightforward.

To enter the set up on the Gymboss normal timer first you need to turn it on. By pressing the next key press and hold it down to a few seconds, and then it will come on. This this will bring you to the main screen. You will see various things, but this is what you will see when you first put a battery in.

On the far right-hand side, you will see four digits, they will say 01:00 this is your first interval timer. Next to that it says Man, this is the setting for doing manual intervals, the timer is set as you have it now. If you press the button on the right which is the start button. It will count down for a minute and bleep twice.

This means that the interval, has finished, slightly down to the left. You can see some writing that says Alm this is the alarm time and can be set for three different times. These are one second, five seconds and 10 seconds at the bottom left of the screen. You will see something that says BH this means the buzzer is set too high.

If you press the next and change buttons at the same time. This will take you into the setup mode. If you press the change button, whilst in this mode. You will see that you can toggle the bottom timer on and off.

If you press the next button again, you will start to see the first digit on the first interval at the top flashing this is to allow you to change the first interval time. Subsequent presses will take you to the bottom interval, and the process is the same again for changing the relevant digits.

Once you have done that it displays Man in the window, or if you press the next button. It will say auto, press it again and it will say BH this will alter the buzzer setting, then its just a matter of using the change button to get the setting you want and this applies to everything.

Differences between the modes

Manual mode

When you are in manual mode and set the timer for 30 seconds say it will count down 30 seconds and tbeep, and your time up. This is ideal for doing just straightforward exercises where you want to time yourself for just one period of exercise e.g. five minutes.

Automatic mode

When you set the timer in automatic mode and set a time for 30 seconds. You will see on the far left and site two 00’s

these will increment as each 30 second interval finishes, the great thing about this is it won’t stop until you press the start button for a few seconds. So you can just set it going. Do your exercises, and listen for the beeps.

Automatic count down mode

In this mode, we can set the amount of times that we want the timer to do a certain amount of periods of time. So using 30 seconds as an example, we set it up so it says 05 in the box on the left-hand side. And this will give us five 30 second intervals.

We can also use this by toggling the second interval, which we did earlier on. So now using 30 seconds again, we have 30 seconds in the first interval and 30 seconds in the second interval, which will count down five times in between each interval.

It will beep so you know when to change whether it be a rest period or an interval at a higher pace.

Stopwatch

If you want to, you can use the timer as a stopwatch it bleeps. When you start it and stop it manually. There is no other functionality. To get into the stopwatch mode from the main screen, press and hold the change button for three seconds. This will put the timer into stopwatch mode on the newer version of the timer. You hold the next button and then quickly press the change button. This will then put you into the stopwatch mode.

The great thing about this timer is you can use it for almost anything, whether it’s walking, interval training, running cycling just about anything you can think of.

And that is it the features of the Gymboss standard model are as follows :