Track my fitness: How wearable fitness trackers and Athletigen improve training

Eat, sleep, and move; those are the basic functions of our body’s daily life and wearable devices, many of them dubbed fitness trackers, record every function. But do these devices really help us improve our fitness?

There’s an overwhelming diversity of fitness trackers on the market with an impressive numbers of features and a range of prices to match nearly everyone’s budget. Every type of tracker has at least one sensor including a 3-axis accelerometer, gyro, altimer, GPS tracker, electrodermal activity sensor… It’s quite a list!

You could hazard a guess at what any of these sensors measure but how does knowing what they measure help with your personalised training goals?

Calorific expenditure

Any fitness tracker should give you a reading of how many calories you’re burning each day and during training.

You can adjust your calories throughout the week and the kinds of calories you consume depending on your metabolism to improve your training regime. Using your genetic metabolism profile to plan your diet while keeping a closer eye on your daily calorie intake, will help you make more personalised adjustments to improve performance.

Measuring nutrition alongside training

Everyone knows balanced nutrition is essential for healthy bodies, but what effect do different diets and nutritional choices have on our performance? Along with your genetic information from Athletigen, you’ll be able to best plan your nutritional strategy and then track your progress with specific changes in diet.

Rest, recovery, and sleep

We all need rest and sleep, but some more than others. Rest is important for repair of the body as well as cognitive learning.

If sleep is affecting your performance you will be able to keep track of this via your device. Also, adjusting your training to keep your heart rate within a healthy range (visible on some devices), will help protect you and your body from undue harm as you manage your recovery interval.

Monitoring VO2 Max training

Improving your maximum oxygen uptake through training can be tough, but how do you know if you’re improving? Some of the high-end fitness trackers can help you. For example, in jogging, being able to track your performance during each kilometer and seeing how your pacing changes in response to elevation patterns along your run is useful if you feel you’ve plateaued in training. Especially if you are a low VO2 Max responder, interval or sprint training can be more effective over endurance training. Keep in mind, if you are suddenly changing your training, your calorie intake might also change and need adjusting.

Every tracker is different

Each fitness tracker varies slightly due to the different algorithms used by each model to present the collected data. Consequently, different models of fitness trackers give rise to different readings. This won’t affect the long-term effectiveness of any tracker in telling its user how well they did compared to yesterday or last week, which should be very accurate. The only problem that might occur is when athletes want to compare fitness data between different models of tracker.

Happy Tracking

Fitness trackers and Athletigen can help every kind of athlete with their training and create even more intimate knowledge of their responses to every aspect of training. We are so lucky to have the chance to know our bodies so well.

Watch this great video to see the types of functions you can expect from fitness trackers right now and get started for free at Athletigen.