Confession: I'm a bit obsessive about the pedometer in my smartphone. It's fun to take it with me and see what number of steps I take once I'm exercising or grocery shopping or doing laundry around my house. I aim for 10,000 steps a day, but I don't all the time hit the mark, and I wondered if switching to a digital fitness tracker would give me the additional mile. So a small study published in September American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) caught my attention.
Study researchers desired to see if digital fitness trackers would increase physical activity in older women. Trackers are small gadgets that are available wearable styles equivalent to wristbands, watches and pendants, in addition to hand-held versions that you may clip on a sleeve or slip right into a pocket. In addition to your step count, a digital fitness tracker also can measure and record how briskly you walk and the way far, how long, and at what intensity. i AJPM In the study, researchers used a brand of tracker called Fitbit and an accompanying web application that analyzes the recorded information and creates graphs.
How did they do it?
The study involved 51 obese postmenopausal women who were doing moderate to vigorous physical activity for about 33 minutes per week. The researchers divided them into two groups. Women in the primary group received a normal pedometer. Women within the second group each received a Fitbit, an instructional session, and a follow-up call after 4 weeks. Both groups were asked to do not less than 150 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity each week and to walk 10,000 steps a day. All the ladies used a further gadget called an accelerometer to trace their movements.
After 16 weeks, neither group had reached their fitness goals. There was no significant increase in physical activity levels within the pedometer-only group. But the fitness tracker group added an additional 38 minutes of physical activity per week.
Accountability, accuracy, and motivation
“When you can see what your activity level is, and you know someone is checking them, there's accountability, and you're motivated to work harder because you want to comply, ” she says. i AJPM study, the participants knew that the researchers were taking a look at their results. (You can achieve the identical degree of accountability through the use of a tracker and asking a partner to look at your results.) “We use the same strategy with our patients and clients. fill out journals or log their exercise programs, and we review these logs with them at their follow-up visits. This helps establish a level of accountability because they know that We are testing them.
But an activity journal can't capture what you're doing as accurately as a fitness tracker, Arslanian explains. Unlike logs, journals, or standard pedometers, trackers accurately record objective data about your exercise, including speed, distance, intensity, and duration of your exercise, and track your progress on those measures. can do “When you can see all of these things, especially your progress, it motivates you to keep doing what you've accomplished,” Arslanian says.
Another advantage
Some fitness trackers also can record your heart rate, which is essential for determining the intensity of your workout. “If you're doing aerobic exercise, you want to exercise at 60% to 80% of your maximum heart rate for at least half an hour, three to five times a week,” Arslanian says. “Do this, and your endurance will increase.” Having a tool that offers you that information, or alerts you should you're under or over your training heart rate, could make exercise simpler. It also can make them safer, especially if you might have heart problems or other medical conditions.
The most accurate approach to determine your maximum heart rate is to perform a stress test. But for healthy people, it is feasible to estimate your maximum heart rate. To estimate your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220. (For example, should you're 60 years old, your maximum heart rate is 160 beats per minute.) You'll wish to exercise 60% to 80% of the time. That number:
- 60% of 160 (0.60 x 160 = 96) is 96 beats per minute.
- 80% of 160 (0.80 x 160 = 128) is 128 beats per minute.
So when exercising, you'll wish to keep your heart rate between 96 and 128 beats per minute.
But Arslanian cautions that you simply shouldn't start an exercise program with no consultation. “You must get the OK out of your doctor first, and you want to develop an exercise program that’s inside your training range and your safety zone, with a spread of intensity and duration. has the best opportunity to be effective,” she says. . Using a tool like Fitbit could make it easier to remain on this training range.
Here's advice that may also help us all go the additional mile, whether we're using a fitness tracker, a pedometer, or perhaps a smartphone as a workout tool.