Can smartwatches influence your attitude towards health and fitness?

Fitness trackers and smart watches are becoming so popular now that it feels as though FitBits and Apple watches are at least as popular, if not more so than classic analogue watches within certain demographics. First up, a confession: this is not my first foray into the world of smart watches. 

I previously trialled a Fitbit for a month but ended up passing it on to a friend because I was worried about becoming obsessive over hitting the plethora of stats and targets that the watch measures. And of course, this is one of the biggest arguments against smart watches and the digitalisation of our lives: too much micromanaging and listening to computerised goals rather than your body. 

However, I enjoyed the little buzz – both literal and figurative – that I got when the watch notified me that I had surpassed my step or stair target for the day. So it is with a sort of cautious interest that I look forward to trying a new watch and seeing what it will teach me.

I consider myself to be fairly healthy; being equally happy to eat vegetables as cake, practising yoga or going to the gym most days, but also resting. As such, I’m not planning on using a new bit of technology on my arm to completely transform my habits, but to highlight patterns good and not-so and perhaps offer insights into any improvements I could make. And I won’t lie; I’m looking forward to the endorphin buzz of seeing my hard work in numbers and data form.

One key development in many new smart watches is the inclusion of built-in heart rate monitors. Gone are the days of strapping belts directly across your chest; now your wrist pulse is measured throughout the day. Personally, I find this to be one of the most interesting aspects of smart watches. 

Not just for measuring how hard you push yourself in a spin class, your heart rate is an indicator of stress, fitness and other health variables. If you want to get geeky, there are so many ways that the data collected in a fitness tracker can be displayed, analysed and compared, which is one of the real strengths of wearable tech. 

At the end of the day, so long as a smart watch stays as an interesting supplement to my lifestyle and not an essential or obsessive habit, then I think that for me, it is perfectly fine, and I’m really interested to see what my daily activity looks like – it might be a surprising result.

Some six weeks into trialing the Apple Watch Series 2, I have become pretty used to having a smart watch on my wrist giving me chirpy notifications throughout the day and the activity tracking display has definitely been a motivator to get moving. In a distinction to some other smart watches, the Apple Watch separates energy expenditure into hours in which you’ve stood and moved at least once, minutes spent exercising, and the calories burnt by movement throughout the day.

The move tracker really surprised me in how much it varied depending on what I was doing –a day spent on the beach or walking around outside easily met my targets, whereas a day working from home barely registered, even if I fitted in a workout and worked from standing. It was an eye opener in the effect that gentle movement has upon our health.

Aside from activity tracking, my new watch supplied me with a plethora of apps to put technology right on my wrist –even if, as a stereotypical millennial, my phone rarely leaves my hand. If desired, I can pay for my coffee, control music on my phone, check emails and text messages and take photos all from my watch.

It’s almost too much –I have found that when I’ve turned off the connection between my watch and phone to save battery life that the quiet is a relief. A smart watch is brilliant but sometimes too much, especially in today’s technology overload.

Whilst I have mixed feelings about just how smart the Apple Watch Series 2 is, I love how versatile it is for training.

The built in stop watch and third party "Seconds" app make circuit training really easy, and seeing the movement and exercise creep up is definitely motivating. However, I think my favourite feature is the "Breath" function. A few times a day, that watch prompts you to breath and for a duration of one to five minutes, with the breaths marked by a soft vibration and gently pulsing light. It really encouraged me to get into the habit of “mini meditations”, especially during my less-than relaxing train journeys back to my city.

As I spent the start of summer at my parents before starting a yoga teacher training course, my training routine has been tweaked from what it might otherwise looks like. I’m not very good at cardiovascular training other than circuit training or the odd run outside a group class environment, so my gym training has been focused around weight training.

Between this and my yoga practice, my heart rate doesn’t raise significantly higher than resting or walking, so unless I select the “Other” option on the exercise app (the watch has pre-programmed settings for running, walking, swimming and cycling) my training won’t be picked up. In the other section, the watch assumes that you are working at a similar pace to a brisk walk, unless your heart rate increases above that level, so it isn’t hugely accurate. I toggled between using the other exercise function and leaving the watch to pick up changes in heart rate by itself during the first two weeks of my yoga training, but in the end elected to keep manually turning the exercise function on, which increased my apparent activity levels massively.