If you’re trying to live an active lifestyle and you haven’t already tried wearing one yourself, then you’ve most likely seen gym-goers, joggers, hikers, or cyclists already wearing them. Fitness trackers are popping up everywhere and it turns out there’s a very good reason for it. In fact, there are several. Fitness trackers are revolutionising attempts to get fit the world over, and here’s how it could end up revolutionising your own health kick, as well.
They work anywhere
Because they’re wearable, fitness trackers are good for just about anywhere. No longer do you have to rely on a personal trainer at a gym to keep track of your workout or to offer you the motivation to keep going. If you prefer exercising at home, running at the beach, or just seeing where your next jog takes you, your fitness device is going to be right there with you. There are fitness trackers that work underwater, as well, so even swimmers are having the option to rely on them. That kind of convenience and access to vital data no matter where you are mean that a lot more people who don’t have the money for the gym or are a little uncomfortable with working out in such a public environment can still have a better workout.
They do away with bias
Fitness trackers use nothing but cold hard metrics to give you the skinny on how much you’ve been exercising and how close you are to your goals. Unless there’s a malfunction, they will never give you an incorrect reading of how many calories you’ve burned, how long you’ve been going, or any of the other metrics they help you measure. They won’t fudge the numbers to make you feel like you’ve done more than you have. That bias, though it might seem small, is a natural reaction for a lot of people getting into exercise. It’s a shortcut to feel like they’ve made progress when they haven’t. If you want to really improve your health, you have to be honest with yourself and your fitness tracker is going to be honest with you every step of the way.
They’re good motivators
The research agrees that when it comes to exercise, there’s little better for your motivation than setting goals. Many fitness trackers come with programs that allow you to set goals as you go. They let you know when you’ve reached that last goal, help you look at the stats to see how far you’ve come, and then they set the next goal. The feeling of progress, of pushing further month-after-month, can give you a real adrenaline boost and a shot of endorphins, increasing the very physical sense of achievement you get from exercise. In the long-term, it makes you a lot more likely to stick to it and to ever keep improving.
There’s tons of support for them
There are some worries that fitness trackers are just the latest in a long line of fitness fads. However, the fact that some of the most popular ones have been around for over a decade should show that’s not the case. If you have an issue with your fitness tracker, depending on how popular the model is, you aren’t going to find yourself without support. You can view a guide here that helps you fix many of the issues common with Fitbit, which is the most popular fitness tracker on the market right now. So, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re wasting your money on a device that isn’t likely to be very useful in a couple years’ time. While technology will keep improving fitness trackers, the core functions of the devices remain the same and there’s plenty of help to keep them in good condition for longer.
They help you stay on track
Most importantly, they help you better inform your workout. A lot of people getting into exercise will find a workout that works for them and just keep repeating it ad nauseum. The physical activity always helps, but the results you see from it will start to drop off as time goes on. You need to keep raising the bar incrementally, and the progress tracking features of the fitness tracker helps you do that and can even set goals that change automatically every time you reach them. Beyond improving motivation, as already mentioned, it ensures that your journey to fitness never stalls and your condition never stagnates.
Keeping your eye on the ball
Fitness trackers also help to promote one of the most important habits for anyone trying to make positive changes to their body. They make you actually pay attention to what you’re doing. If you don’t pay attention to what you do, how often you do it, and what progress you make, you’re not thinking about it as often. If you don’t think about it as often, your motivation decreases and you’re more likely to forget about it and skip out on a workout. The same principle applies to diet. If you don’t pay attention to what you’re eating in detail, you’re more likely to go over your calorie limit or to let your resolve slip and have more treats than you should. Simply by paying attention, you’re more likely to stick to the regime you’ve crafted for yourself.
They’re helping people exercise safely
Avoiding injuring yourself through a workout is a handy skill to have. If you’re just getting back into exercise, pushing your heart too hard can genuinely be very dangerous. Heart-rate monitoring technology still has a few kinks to work out, but the devices that include it are giving people information that helps them work out more safely. They can learn their healthy heart rate range and ensure they’re pushing themselves hard enough to see results, but not so hard they put themselves in real danger.
Reliable, convenient, and offering the average person a lot more insight into their own fitness, wearable fitness tracking devices are here to stay and that’s a great thing. Perhaps it’s time to consider just how much they could help you, practically and emotionally, on your journey to a better body.
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