Upgrade your fitness tracker use and up your geek cred by plugging into the new strategies for maximizing the high tech benefits from your personal exercise data.
Here are some tips on how to use your fitness tracker to get you results from the very first beep of your new digital friend.
Heart rates are hungry
Keeping tabs on your ticker beats crushes battery life so set it to monitor you during exercise, which is usually done as set times, or when you’re at rest, rather than every time you hit the water cooler.
How to use your fitness tracker to check your chill
Get the low down on how your body is coping during big events, like a new job or moving house, by scrutinizing your average resting heart rates. If it’s higher than usual the stress can weaken your immune system enough to make you ghost training session so a little R&R may be in order.
Fitness is your life story
Where possible link your tracker to the Saga app that turns your raw data into a storyline to which you can add all your social media handles. It’s the 2017 version of a diary that’ll give you a handle on what’s behind your performance ebbs and flows.
Test for accuracy
Clip it to your other arm, ankle or waist to see what readings you get over a set distance. Then count your steps over said distance for better accuracy and recalibrate your settings until the tech gets it right in the real world.
Interval train the right way
You want your heart rate to get up to 90-100% of your maximum heart rate during the work portion of an interval. Do the next sprint only once your rate has dropped by 20-30% so you’re refreshed enough to max out your intensity on the next sprint.
It’s useless if you’re not social
Having your friends and family compete with you is a failsafe for smashing through your targets and make you more accountable as people track your progress.
Use splits not steps
If want to improve your running speed then forget the steps and aim for better splits, which tell you how long you took to finish each mile or kilometer.
Create daily tick boxes
Make the effort to create micro targets for every day and week. It can be as simple as walking 20 more steps on the way to work than you did yesterday to make sure you’re always doing slightly better.
Focus on battery life
Take it off and the data gaps can make all your progress so demotivating that it becomes another bit of tat in that miscellaneous man-draw. Set up at two charging ports so you don’t slip into the habit of not wearing it.
Go figure
Configuration is critical so as you improve or digress, update your new details or results may vary to the point where the inaccuracies work against you.
For more articles on how to use your fitness tracker for best results, nutrition tips, interviews, and supplements, get TRAIN magazine direct into your inbox every month for free by signing up to our newsletter
