If you are ready to take your training to new heights, consider a fitness tracker to monitor your activity and provide insights into your health and fitness. Fitness trackers are generally small watch-like devices that you can wear on your wrist that measure the movements you do during a workout, and with many of today’s standard wearable it can act as a watch or smart-watch too.
You can download and track this information online or many trackers sync with your phone to provide an overview of your overall activity. In most cases, the statistics produced by can be quite extensive, and for data junkies this is pure delight.
If you are still not convinced, here are 6 simple reasons you should use a fitness tracker to monitor your activity and improve your health:
1. Motivation. You can use your fitness tracker as a training partner or coach. You can set goals and easily see if you have reached them or how close you are. Many trackers allow you to set alarms at preset goals or to sound or vibrate if you sit too long. Your tracker will show you if you are on track or if you need to step it up. Best of all, every bit of data on the fitness watch is at the tap or at the turn of your wrist. With such convenience, you will be more focused and easily motivated to keep track of the daily activity numbers.
2. Set new goals. The daily information you receive from your tracker can be used to set new daily goals. It also provides a visual representation of your fitness achievements, provides feedback and a sense of accomplishment. By setting new goals on a daily basis, you will be asking yourself constantly, did you burn your calories today, or reach your heart rate goal, or miles or steps? A fitness tracker can really give you an understanding of your daily activity habits and a sense of what you need to do to accomplish your goals.
3. Monitor your heart rate. If your budget allows, choose a tracker that will monitor and store your heart rate. Fitness trackers can measure your heart rate at your wrist or sync with a separate chest strap. The information provided is useful in determining if you reach your target heart rate and the time you remain within that range. This is especially useful when performing interval and high-intensity interval training allowing you to increase your intensity or to slow down to reach your recovery heart rate.
4. Swimming laps. If swimming or water sports are part of your fitness program, choose a fitness tracker that is water resistant or waterproof. Doing so will extend the usefulness of your tracker on the track, in the gym and in the pool. Some trackers are specifically designed for swimmers, which can provide metrics on the number of laps, your swimming pace, efficiency, type of swimming stroke and even the number of strokes per lap.
5. Track your sleep patterns. Rest, recovery, and sleep are an important part of your fitness and health. Your tracker can provide feedback that allows you to evaluate and measure your length and quality of sleep. Fitness tracking devices help optimize your sleep to allow for proper tissue building and repair. To the point, good sleep equals healthy body, healthy mind.
6. Numbers that matters. With every fitness watch, there is an App that can be synced to the wearable device to produce numbers and charts of your daily activities. The stats can be presented on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and give you an overview of the performance from steps taken, distance walked and ran, active minutes, resting heart rate, quality of sleep, calories burnt and more. By analysing the numbers you will get a better picture of your effort and performance, and what is required to reach both short and long term targets. For fitness buffs who prefers the desktop or Mac over the smartphone app, some fitness watches will provide your activity data via a web portal for easy access.
There are plenty of healthy benefits to using a fitness tracker. Whether you are trying to lose weight, improve your fitness or an athlete looking to improve his or her performance, a fitness tracker can guide you on the right path for an effective workout. Furthermore, these devices are easy to use, comfortable to wear and very convenient to track your activities with. If you are a bargain hunter, no worries. There are some basic activity trackers available for as low as $20. For your next workout why not train the house down with a fitness tracker and log your day to day physical activities, your resting heart rate, your sleeping habits to help improve your health and fitness. Every little bit of tracking counts.
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