A fitness tracker, also known as an activity tracker, is a wearable device that monitors the wearer’s level of fitness activity. Most exercise tracking devices are worn around the wrist and look very much like a wrist watch. They typically monitor the following aspects of physical activity: Distance traveled in steps, calorie consumption and heartbeat.
Some devices also measure the quality of the wearer’s sleep. These devices are synced to the wearer’s computer. By means of this synchronization, the user is able to generate a lot of detailed information about their health and activity level. In essence, a fitness tracker is a modern take on the pedometer. Pedometers have been around for decades. They are small devices that are usually worn on the belt and track the number of steps a person takes. Fitness trackers are able to do much more, in some cases even graphing heart rate and sleep quality.
A tracker will give you an objective report on your physical activity. While the majority of people are useless at gauging how much exercise they do, with a tracker there’s no escaping reality.
A fitness tracker can also be a great motivator. It can turn the everyday, boring things you do each day, like walking up stairs or mowing the lawn, into a part of the game – you’re keen to do it because it will get you to your goal quicker. You’ll get instant feedback on how many calories you’ve burned, and how many steps you’ve taken. This, in itself can be motivating.
In addition, every time you hit a goal – such as achieving 10,000 step in a day – you are motivated to do a little bit more the next day. And then, being able to share your successes via social media, adds another aspect of motivation when your online friends give you encouragement and congratulations. And, when you become part of a fitness community, you find an extra level of commitment and accountability.
For many people, the motivation of getting to their activity goal has them actively looking for ways to get in more activity through the course of their day. And that has got to be good for them.
Now the big question, Do these things really work and are they worth the money? If you’ve ever wondered how accurate your fitness tracker really was, be sure to check this information out – it’s a real eye opener!
Fitness trackers make use of sensors contained within the unit to take readings of your data. They then sync with your computer or mobile device to relay the information to an app where it is prepared for your analysis. Some trackers will put the information into graph and chart form for easy comparison and to enable you to monitor your progress over time. New research adds to the mounting evidence that your fitness tracker might not actually help you lose weight: Although these devices can help monitor your heart rate, they’re unreliable when it comes to calculating the amount of calories you actually burn, according to a study.
Researchers from Stanford University evaluated seven different fitness devices — Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn, and the Samsung Gear S2 — used by 31 women and 29 men, the Guardian reports. The participants wore their devices while walking or running on the treadmill, cycling on exercise bikes, or sitting still — and none of the devices measured energy expenditure (or calories burned) properly.
Despite the inaccurate calories-burned calculations, fitness trackers may still be valuable, given the successful heart rate monitoring. More attention to diet and exercise is always going to improve the health of our population.
The fitness tracker market has exploded from nothing into a $11 billion industry in next to no time. Trackers are undeniably the fitness fashion must have of our time – but do they actually help you to get fitter?
The great appeal of this device is that it gives us information. And, like or not or not, we have become information junkies. We crave the details that we never used to worry about. Previously only our doctors had privy to information about our heart rate, breathing pattern or pattern of sleeping. Today we view it as vital information that we need in order to attain our goals.
Of course, information in itself will not make us fit. It is the motivation we derive from that information that matters. And, many people seem to get a lot of motivation from analyzing their movement statistics.
According to research, tracking our fitness data is a good way to make a success of a fitness goal. Research has shown that if you want to stick to a new habit, monitoring is one of the best ways to make a change.
In previous decades we had to manually write all our data down in a training diary. Now the device on our wrist does it all for us. Studies have shown that people who wear a device that measures their activity spend more time walking, running, more time climbing the stairs, more time in the outdoors and less time sitting than people who do not wear them.
Another benefit of the fitness tracker is that it forces you to face the reality of how much exercise you are actually doing. When you look at self-estimates on questionnaires, people tend to overestimate how much activity they’re getting and underestimate how many calories they’re eating. With more objective information, you can get more specific about the changes you need to make.
Really, though, a difference of a few steps or calories isn’t a big deal. The big advantage of a fitness tracker is not that it provides you with a completely accurate read-out of data, but that it gets you to be constantly thinking about doing more. Suddenly you are actively looking for ways to be more active. You’ll willingly take the stairs rather than the elevator to get you to your daily goal quicker.