Fitness Trackers - Are They Worth It?
HR data taken from my Garmin Forerunner 235 during a recent resistance training session.
In a world where we are inundated with data on a daily basis, fitness trackers are all the rage. From Garmin, FitBit, Apple Watch, Huawei, Samsung and everything in between. There's so much choice out there, it's difficult to decide whether they are worth it or not? What happened to a good old casio, eh? This article won't be designed to tell you which one to get as it's very much personal preference. This article is more about what you should know before you by one, what to know while you have one and the pro's and cons of potentially having a smart watch/fitness tracker in your life.
I'll start by saying I currently own a Garmin Forerunner 235 and it's perfect for what I need it for. Tracking HR on a daily basis & tracking my runs (when I decide to go for one). Outside of that it's just a regular watch for me. While fancy gadgets can be nice to have and they almost act as a status symbol nowadays, it's important to know exactly how to use the data that your smart watch gives you. "Not everything that glitters is gold" , as the saying goes and the same holds true for these. Hopefully the following will help shed some light on that for you.
I'll start by saying I currently own a Garmin Forerunner 235 and it's perfect for what I need it for. Tracking HR on a daily basis & tracking my runs (when I decide to go for one). Outside of that it's just a regular watch for me. While fancy gadgets can be nice to have and they almost act as a status symbol nowadays, it's important to know exactly how to use the data that your smart watch gives you. "Not everything that glitters is gold" , as the saying goes and the same holds true for these. Hopefully the following will help shed some light on that for you.
Is Knowledge Really Power?
So you've just bought yourself a smart watch and immediately you have access to heart rate data, steps, calories burned, exercise tracking, oxygen saturation, stress readings, VO2 max estimates, average speed, average step length, sleep, sleep cycles, heart rate variability etc etc. My point is, you are inundated with a bunch of metrics and outside of the absolute numbers themselves, the majority of people don't know what to do with it. We become slaves to the data and it takes away our own intuition with things.
So you've just woken up, feel like shit, felt like you were tossing and turning all night and didn't sleep well. Oh, but my watch said I got 8 hours of sleep last night? Tracking sleep is great, but do you really need a watch to tell you if you slept well or not? Probably not. Like most metrics there's a certain error in measurement that we forget about. We almost assume that things must be accurate if we're paying the money for it. But in reality , there's at least 15-20% error on every measurement. Long story short, take most of them with a pinch of salt.
This isn't to say they are completely useless, they have their pro's of course. For example, for most of the non-athletic population I think that it's a great tool to become more self-aware of how little/much movement you do every day. A large issue is inactivity (especially in the midst of a pandemic) and not hitting enough steps. We know for a fact based on the research that risk of all-cause mortality is inversely related to step count up to ~12,000 steps, hence the 10,000 step recommendation. On days where you are desk bound, you'd be lucky to hit 3/4,000. Having the watch on with regular reminders to stand up or move is one way in which we can combat unconscious inactivity.
Another key part of the smart watches is HR. Resting HR to be exact. Resting HR is a pretty good health or stress marker. Chronic higher resting HR can be a sign of poor health and maybe might be time to do something to improve that - this won't be the place to hand out blind interventions for those who need to be medically examined. Tracking HR over time can then be one of your main KPI's when looking at the effectiveness of an intervention. Most watches give a 7 day average whether on the user face or on the accompanying app and therefore it could be a point of interest for people. For athletic populations you can use resting HR as a marker for readiness and training effect. This is where things would start to get a little more individualised and you look at it on a person by person basis instead of a large generalisation. For example, my resting HR is roughly ~48-54bpm, somewhere in that range. As on today it's 47bpm and my 7 day average is 50bpm. That means my recovery from training and my readiness for high intensity training sessions is relatively optimal. I know that when my HR is chronically elevated for more than 2-3 days in a row it's time to pull back a little bit, maybe reduce the caffeine intake, reduce the intensity of 1/2 sessions and to focus a little bit more on breathing & purposeful recovery (for more detailed video on this check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URrUzBpGBRM ). It's not to say that single day readings should be cause for major concern - as this is one of the reason that testing things can give you false readings and negatively impact decision making - burt chronic high readings might be a sign of reduced capacity for recovery and higher stress levels.
When it comes to the other data points, they can be useful, we just need to know how to use them and when they might actually impact our decision making.
So you've just woken up, feel like shit, felt like you were tossing and turning all night and didn't sleep well. Oh, but my watch said I got 8 hours of sleep last night? Tracking sleep is great, but do you really need a watch to tell you if you slept well or not? Probably not. Like most metrics there's a certain error in measurement that we forget about. We almost assume that things must be accurate if we're paying the money for it. But in reality , there's at least 15-20% error on every measurement. Long story short, take most of them with a pinch of salt.
This isn't to say they are completely useless, they have their pro's of course. For example, for most of the non-athletic population I think that it's a great tool to become more self-aware of how little/much movement you do every day. A large issue is inactivity (especially in the midst of a pandemic) and not hitting enough steps. We know for a fact based on the research that risk of all-cause mortality is inversely related to step count up to ~12,000 steps, hence the 10,000 step recommendation. On days where you are desk bound, you'd be lucky to hit 3/4,000. Having the watch on with regular reminders to stand up or move is one way in which we can combat unconscious inactivity.
Another key part of the smart watches is HR. Resting HR to be exact. Resting HR is a pretty good health or stress marker. Chronic higher resting HR can be a sign of poor health and maybe might be time to do something to improve that - this won't be the place to hand out blind interventions for those who need to be medically examined. Tracking HR over time can then be one of your main KPI's when looking at the effectiveness of an intervention. Most watches give a 7 day average whether on the user face or on the accompanying app and therefore it could be a point of interest for people. For athletic populations you can use resting HR as a marker for readiness and training effect. This is where things would start to get a little more individualised and you look at it on a person by person basis instead of a large generalisation. For example, my resting HR is roughly ~48-54bpm, somewhere in that range. As on today it's 47bpm and my 7 day average is 50bpm. That means my recovery from training and my readiness for high intensity training sessions is relatively optimal. I know that when my HR is chronically elevated for more than 2-3 days in a row it's time to pull back a little bit, maybe reduce the caffeine intake, reduce the intensity of 1/2 sessions and to focus a little bit more on breathing & purposeful recovery (for more detailed video on this check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URrUzBpGBRM ). It's not to say that single day readings should be cause for major concern - as this is one of the reason that testing things can give you false readings and negatively impact decision making - burt chronic high readings might be a sign of reduced capacity for recovery and higher stress levels.
When it comes to the other data points, they can be useful, we just need to know how to use them and when they might actually impact our decision making.
 Tracking data from the same session as above taken from my Garmin Forerunner 235. |  Bodyweight tracking data from the 'Simple Weight Tracker' app on the app store. |
"Take What is Useful, Discard What is Not"
Smart watches have their merits and it's about figuring out what your goals are and how best to align your choice of watch with that, or how to use what you currently have.
GPS + Steps Tracking:
A lot of the newer watches have improved built in GPS systems and therefore tracking runs and steps via distance covered is a little more accurate. However, some of the older or more budget versions track steps via hand movements which is why you miraculously rack up 2-3,000 steps doing the dishes (I don't have a dishwasher, lol). If you are going to be running a lot or doing a lot of pitch based sessions and you want to use GPS data then I recommend something like a Garmin or a Polar watch to be as accurate as possible. I used to have a FitBit before and it was so far off whenever I used it for tracking a run!
Exercise & Calories Burned:
One of my single pet hates when it comes to fitness pages on instagram! Tracking calories burned on a fitness watch is the single stupidest idea that you can do. Why? Because immediately people will attach calories burned to how effective the workout was or they're already planning how many extra calories they can eat now. The former is a bad idea because you now have this relationship between calories burned and effectiveness, which leads people down the road of being a red zone warrior and burn out pretty quick. The latter has the potential to throw people off the rails altogether with regards to their relationship with exercise and food in general. Your nutrition should be designed to match your energy needs & your overall goals. It shouldn't be flipped because now your chasing a calorie target in the hope it's going to speed up the process, BAD IDEA. You know what a good idea is? Ditch looking at calories burned, get yourself a coach who understands what you need and how to get you there and stop obsessing over burning an extra 50 cals so you don't feel guilty over eating an extra square of chocolate.
Sleep Duration, Sleep Quality & Sleep Stages:
I'll keep this one short. Unless it's a whoop band or an Oura ring, stop tracking your sleep on your watch. Or at least stop paying attention. Considering that your sleep is tracked through movement when sleeping it's never going to be accurate. I've often checked mine after being awake for 2 hours and it still says I'm asleep on the app so I wouldn't pay much heed to it. A better strategy would be to assess it yourself if it's that important. Below is an example of an athletic performance indicator form I've used (and still use) with athletes as a readiness form every day. This will help accurately assess sleep and see if it's an issue that needs addressing. Very simple approach for subjectively measuring things in which objective means just aren't up to the task. Plus it takes back control of these things rather than solely relying on the watch to tell you what you might already know.
GPS + Steps Tracking:
A lot of the newer watches have improved built in GPS systems and therefore tracking runs and steps via distance covered is a little more accurate. However, some of the older or more budget versions track steps via hand movements which is why you miraculously rack up 2-3,000 steps doing the dishes (I don't have a dishwasher, lol). If you are going to be running a lot or doing a lot of pitch based sessions and you want to use GPS data then I recommend something like a Garmin or a Polar watch to be as accurate as possible. I used to have a FitBit before and it was so far off whenever I used it for tracking a run!
Exercise & Calories Burned:
One of my single pet hates when it comes to fitness pages on instagram! Tracking calories burned on a fitness watch is the single stupidest idea that you can do. Why? Because immediately people will attach calories burned to how effective the workout was or they're already planning how many extra calories they can eat now. The former is a bad idea because you now have this relationship between calories burned and effectiveness, which leads people down the road of being a red zone warrior and burn out pretty quick. The latter has the potential to throw people off the rails altogether with regards to their relationship with exercise and food in general. Your nutrition should be designed to match your energy needs & your overall goals. It shouldn't be flipped because now your chasing a calorie target in the hope it's going to speed up the process, BAD IDEA. You know what a good idea is? Ditch looking at calories burned, get yourself a coach who understands what you need and how to get you there and stop obsessing over burning an extra 50 cals so you don't feel guilty over eating an extra square of chocolate.
Sleep Duration, Sleep Quality & Sleep Stages:
I'll keep this one short. Unless it's a whoop band or an Oura ring, stop tracking your sleep on your watch. Or at least stop paying attention. Considering that your sleep is tracked through movement when sleeping it's never going to be accurate. I've often checked mine after being awake for 2 hours and it still says I'm asleep on the app so I wouldn't pay much heed to it. A better strategy would be to assess it yourself if it's that important. Below is an example of an athletic performance indicator form I've used (and still use) with athletes as a readiness form every day. This will help accurately assess sleep and see if it's an issue that needs addressing. Very simple approach for subjectively measuring things in which objective means just aren't up to the task. Plus it takes back control of these things rather than solely relying on the watch to tell you what you might already know.
Overall Summary:
Smart watches are nice. They look nice, they're sleek and they open our eyes to a whole lot of things that we may not have been aware of before. But seeing is one thing and understanding is another. Hopefully this sheds a little bit more light on things for you and where you should actually put your attention and how to use it.
Do you own a smart watch? How do you use yours? Was it worth the price you paid for it?
Smart watches are nice. They look nice, they're sleek and they open our eyes to a whole lot of things that we may not have been aware of before. But seeing is one thing and understanding is another. Hopefully this sheds a little bit more light on things for you and where you should actually put your attention and how to use it.
Do you own a smart watch? How do you use yours? Was it worth the price you paid for it?
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