Why you don’t need to track your body to exercise – 03/01/2024 – Balance

In recent years, stepping up your fitness routine has started to become as difficult as getting a degree in data science. There are glucose monitors, sleep trackers and step trackers, heart rate monitors and cadence sensors. There are watches, rings, armbands, chest straps and wearable monitors that promise to estimate your maximum oxygen volume, your breathing and more.

Even if you don’t use a wearable device, if you carry a smartphone, you’ll likely have much of the same data accessible through a health app. While tracking your workouts isn’t new, there’s now an overwhelming amount of data — the kind that was once reserved for professional athletes — available to everyday consumers.

But does more data make a human being better, faster, stronger and healthier? Can these tools really motivate you, lead to a better annual physical, or maximize the benefits of your workouts? Doctors, exercise physiologists and trainers say that not all data is good or useful, and more data does not mean more effective training.

The real issues are not related to the wearable device, but rather to the user.

What are wearable devices?

A wearable device is any body-worn tracking device that measures one or more bodily functions, whether it’s heart rate, sleep time, step count, or breathing. Most, including those manufactured by brands such as Fitbit, Garmin, Coros, Whoop and Oura, are not considered medical devices and are not regulated or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

In fact, the FDA recently warned consumers that wearable devices that claim to measure or estimate blood sugar without piercing the skin should not be used for diabetes management. However, many devices include metrics that are typically collected in a laboratory setting.

For example, one measurement that may be useful for athletes is your VO₂ max, the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise. The number is usually determined in a laboratory by exercising at various intensities while wearing a mask that records oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production.

However, wearable devices claim to infer this number using an equation based on your heart rate, which should be taken with caution, experts said. Other data, such as step count and distance traveled, is generally more accurate.

Can devices motivate you to exercise more?

“Activity trackers are enablers, not instigators, of behavior change,” said David Bassett Jr., professor emeritus of kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

In other words, the device alone won’t make your workouts easier or improve your sleep cycles. But they can help you identify trends in your exercise regimen and track your progress if you’re trying to improve.

Researchers who have studied the impact of wearable devices on behavior have indeed found a correlation between their use and increased movement. But, Bassett added, there is a sense of responsibility when researchers are around.

“Wearable devices are very good at changing behavior if they are used in the context of a physical activity intervention study,” said Bassett, who has long studied wearable devices.

This desire to impress people can also be beneficial, according to researchers. The Strava app, which tracks workouts and allows users to share their activities, has become ubiquitous for this reason. Competitive runners and cyclists often joke, “If it’s not on Strava, did it really happen?”

Can devices make you a better athlete?

The challenge for athletes looking to improve their performance with data is finding the most useful type of information and determining how often they need to consult it. For professionals and those just starting to exercise, less is more.

“A beginner and a professional athlete often use devices in incredibly similar ways,” said Darian Allberry, head of user engagement at Coros, a GPS watch company. They want to know how far they went and how fast they traveled. Plus, extra data can be distracting, he added.

This month, Sara Hall, a professional marathon runner competing in the US Olympic Marathon Trials, actually threw away her GPS watch during the race to avoid distractions. Likewise, for beginning runners, it’s more important to learn to listen to your body’s signals—fatigue, aches, bursts of energy—than it is to track your pace or heart rate.

It’s the athletes in the middle of the pack — runners and cyclists looking to break a personal record or achieve a new achievement — who can reap the greatest benefits from wearables, Allberry said.

If you’re hoping to run a faster marathon and want to try moderating your pace based on heart rate “zones,” for example, a wearable device can help you do that. Cyclists who plan their training based on power zones can also use a tracker. If you buy one, however, make sure it meets your needs.

But if you’re just trying to get out of the house more often, a device data dump probably isn’t entirely necessary, said Ethan Weiss, a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. “We have this attachment to data. We all love data.” , Weiss said. “We love measuring things for the sake of measuring things.”

Sometimes he tells his patients that a different object attached to their wrist could encourage them to be more active. “Have you ever thought about having a dog?” he said.

This article was originally published in The New York Times.