Tracking your fitness

During a discussion last week, a co-worker and I were talking about fitness and perceptions of how much they exercise. When asked, people will always overestimate the amount that they exercise. Believe it or not, good many has been spent on research studies to prove that people will overestimate the exercise they do. For the most part, I don't think that there is a malicious intent to this overestimation. Nobody wants to admit that they don't get enough exercise - or worse yet, don't exercise at all. But the best way to let people know how much they exercise is to track it - after all, the numbers don't lie. There are a lot of great tools that allow for the tracking of a person's activity (regardless of modality of exercise). We've listed some of these tools below:

Heart Rate Monitor

Heart rate monitoring can be as simple as using your watch while you take your pulse to determine your heart rate, but in the middle of a workout, this can be a time consuming and distracting way to measure how hard you are working. Luckily, there are a variety of heart rate monitor systems from companies like Polar, Nike, and Timex to simplify keeping track of your heart rate while you exercise. Most of these systems are comprised of a chest strap with built in electrodes that measure your heart rate for transmission to the watch which displays your heart rate. Many of the watches allow you to set lower and upper heart rate zones to help make sure that you are working out too hard (upper zone) or taking it too easy (lower zone). A large number of manufacturers of cardio equipment for gyms and health clubs make their equipment compatible with Polar branded heart rate monitors. When you use equipment such as a treadmill or Jacob’s Ladder that is Polar compatible while wearing your Polar strap, your heart rate will be displayed along with your distance, speed, and time.

GPS Devices

GPS devices take the heart rate monitor to the next level, by incorporating a GPS tracking system with your heart rate monitor to record how fast you are running and cycling while recording your heart rate. This can be downloaded to your computer or popular websites such as www.strava.com or www.trainingpeaks.com where you can keep track of your results as well as compare workouts to see how your fitness level improves.

Nike +

Nike+ is a device that works with the Apple iPhone as well as a Nike watch. It consists of a foot pod that you put in/on your shoe, which measures each step that you take for transmission to your iPhone/Nike watch. Your running distance and pace are then calculated and can be uploaded to a Nike website so that you can monitor your progress.

Smartphone Apps

There are a variety of smartphone apps for both iPhone and Android phones that can take advantage of the internal GPS of the phone as well as the accelerometers (these measure position and movement of the phone – they allow the screen to rotate as you rotate the phone and to control phone based action games). Apps such as CardioTrainer use the GPS to track running and cycling workouts similar to the GPS watches. For strength workouts, apps such as SquatFu and PushupFu help to count your squats and push-ups and help to keep you accountable by making sure that you go the full range for each repetition to count. (Of note, I have purchased and tried each of these apps and definitely recommend them. - QB)