Strength in the numbers?

If you want to get fit or fitter, what do you need to know? Your weight, waist circumference, body composition? Pace, distance, speed? Strength, power output, force? What about heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, sweat rate, salt production or sleep data?

It is possible to track all that data, but is it necessary?

Or even helpful? Will it help to improve your fitness, get results faster? While having a baseline provides a good starting point. Tracking some types of data can be important for measuring improvements, but which ones and when?

Internal and External Focus

When you start exercising one of the best techniques to get over the initial challenges is a distraction. As fitness levels improve, the focus switches to internal cues. For example, someone starting a running program could benefit by running in a group. Someone training to set a new personal best could benefit by focussing on their breathing or monitoring their intensity as they push their limits.

This technique helps to get over the initial discomfort of starting a new exercise routine and then as fitness improves the switch to internal cues gives important feedback from the physical stress.

Number Crunching

With everyone from athletes to celebrities posting their Strava segments to sleep scores it wouldn’t be hard to believe that superior fitness is in the numbers. However, these could be the biggest distraction of all, because which ones matter the most? Or make a difference?

Choosing to measure every detail of every workout can become obsessive and is not necessary.

Five options.

Strava

This private company uses GPS to track your routes, measuring distance, elevation, time, fastest times, and if you just beat someone else up a hill in the Queen or King of the Mountain segments. Strava is not new. You can keep your data private, but it is not the default mode. Strava has encountered some significant privacy breaches with its heat mapping and is an easy way for people to know your regular routes, times and pace. If you want to measure distance or compare workouts this is an easy way to do it and you don’t have to share.

Oura Rings

A private company producing a ring that looks like jewellery but measures activity and sleep data. It is like a Fitbit, but for the cool kids like Kim Kardashian. Seriously if you have nothing else to do you can see how well Kim sleeps every night, she posts it on Instagram. This $300 USD ring claims it makes “accurate health information personal and accessible to everyone.”
Everyone, like Kim, can track sleep, but the money could be better spent on any number of things to improve fitness. The company also has some very disturbing claims including how you can monitor other people’s sleep habits.

Ōura’s suite of enterprise solutions,paired with the award winning Ōura Ring,

help companies, research institutions,sports teams, governments, and more

promote and monitor health and wellness across their organizations.

Oura Website

While I didn’t think this could get much weirder now Kim and her friend Gwyneth Paltrow are having a sleep competition because Gwyneth only gets 7 hours and 17 minutes compared to Kim’s 9 hours and 36 minutes.

For the record anything between 7-9 hours of sleep for adults is considered healthy. Having a regular sleep routine is a healthier way to get enough rest.

Heart Rate Monitors

Heart Rate monitors have been around the longest and can track intensity, pace, distance, elevation and speed. They are a very useful tool especially as fitness improves. One of the most common mistakes people make when they start exercising is going too hard. Then as fitness improves not increasing the intensity. Monitoring your heart rate is an easy and personal way to stay in your training zone. As a fitness tool, this one is simple, personal and useful.

No heart rate monitor? No problem.

An even easier and proven effective method of measuring intensity is with a Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE). This evidence-based way to measure intensity that is very well correlated with heart rate. Not only is it free, but it encourages people to become aware of the internal signals their body is sending.

The latest

Gatorade’s new hydration patch to monitor sodium depletion. AKA a way to sell more Gatorade? Launched in March, this one-time only use patch sells for $24.99 USD and may be a waste of money. While it could be a novelty item for the athlete who has everything, there is no direct correlation between sodium loss and replacement needs.

Sodium loss may only show that you have more sodium in your system. A reasonable assumption for the typical North American. 90% of people eat too much sodium and don’t exercise enough to need extra sodium. It is replaced at the next meal.

How much sodium do I need?

Most adults need about 1 tsp of salt per day and consume at least twice as much. The standard American diet is loaded with sodium. Too much contributes to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and bone loss.

The rare times that cause excessive sodium loss are normally in endurance events in very hot weather with poor acclimatization. For example, a recreational athlete who spends most of their day in an air-conditioned space. They aren’t able to adjust when training or competing in the heat. A small percentage of athletes may need to supplement with sodium. However, the key is to but stay hydrated and properly fuelled during the workout.

The bottom line

There are more ways to measure bodily functions and less knowledge about what these measurements actually tell us. For most people eating properly, following a regular sleep routine and exercising consistently would result in the greatest benefits.

New research from Boston University showed that the best way to improve fitness is to just do it.

Following 2,000 participants over 8 years, they found that spending more time in moderate to vigorous activity and less time being sedentary resulted in greater fitness. The researchers found that exercise is three times more efficient than walking at improving fitness. Exercise is 14 times more efficient than being “active” which is almost anything that is not being sedentary.

If it feels too hard, slow down, take a break. Just starting? Then distract yourself, look at the view, go with a buddy. If you are a regular exerciser make sure you are doing some vigorous exercise. Try a new route, or a new sport to increase the intensity.

You only really need to measure two things. Does it feel like at least a 7/10 on the RPE scale and am I doing it regularly? The rest is details. Measure it or not, it’s up to you. Just don’t get lost in the numbers.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla