Human beings just love measurable statistics. And this adoration has been brilliantly exploited by the fitness and technology industries in the form of measuring our bodies and performance. As technology has both improved and become more affordable, we’ve become obsessed with humblebragging, and monitoring our progress. But are all available units worth keeping a beady eye on? Let’s get into it…
Fitness stats we can all measure include…
The basics require nothing more than a scale, a tape measure, and the ability to count: I’m talking about our weight, the size of various body parts (steady – I mean things like upper arm circumference, chest, waist and hip etc), and number of repetitions of particular exercises that we can complete. So even prior to the tech takeover, these things were measurable by the average individual.
Once you can combine weight with other factors, you can also calculate things such as the dreaded body mass index (BMI) and waist to hip ratio. For many of us, our heart rate is even measurable manually, though it takes a bit of practice, and whether you can actually record it during training without a gadget is another matter.
Devices such as smartwatches can monitor our performance for us, including stats such as time elapsed during training, distance splits, heart rate (and heart rate zones), and heart rate recovery. We can also continue to monitor things such as the amount of weight we lift, or goals or points we score. But what’s the point?
Assessing the validity of measurements
When I underwent my personal trainer course, we discussed fitness assessments, and not just how to carry them out. We also had a conversation about what was worth monitoring and why. Two key factors are validity and reliability – is there a point to taking a measurement, and can you do so effectively?
Exercise physiology at an elite or academic level offers access to all kinds of technologies that are incredibly high tech (and the people who operate them are trained to do so), making it far easier and more accurate to establish things like someone’s body fat percentage, or VO2 max. In an everyday gym, these things are less straightforward to measure, and accuracy is the primary element which suffers. Which, for me, begs the bigger question: is it worth trying?
The most important question to ask yourself when looking for a fitness stat…
What purpose will having this knowledge serve? Particularly when you bear in mind that the information might not be accurate.
Will it really change your life or improve your performance if you know how many calories you’ve burned, or how long you’ve spent in the highest heart rate zone?
Critically: will the knowledge you obtain impact you positively or negatively? Does obsessing over certain numbers help or hurt you?
Metrics that aren’t worth caring about…
For me, these include things such as: the amount you sweat (we’re all different!); calories burned (highly inaccurate for many reasons – not least of which is the fact that we don’t know for certain how many calories are in many food items); number of training sessions you complete per week; running, cycling, walking or swimming speed (it’s too variable! And again, what will it help you learn?!); blood pressure (I called this a red herring – yes, there’s a “healthy” range, but it is a range only, we are all different, many things can impact blood pressure, you can’t make a full assessment based on one reading, and the low-tech ways of measuring it are riddled with inaccuracy).
There are many more. But all of the above numbers are ones I will comfortably ignore. They tell me very little about my overall long-term health. However…
Measurements that I do pay attention to…
There are two: heart rate recovery, and amount of sleep I get.
Now, sleep is a tricky one, I’ll willingly admit. It’s easily impacted by internal and external factors, and getting in a twist about having too little of it is largely pointless. But I can at least prioritise it and set myself up for the best chance of success. Because sleep is key to my body recovering well, and that’s something I really care about.
And, in a way, you can’t forcibly adapt heart rate recovery either. However, the speed at which you recover from raising your heart rate is important. If you push yourself, and increase your heart rate for a maximal effort during a limited section of your workout, but it then doesn’t drop into a lower range, or resting range, for a long time, it’s worth getting checked out. Particularly if you notice this happening repeatedly.
What’s the best way to use my fitness tracker?
To tell the time. That truly is its best use. There are a few other good ones – sharing your location with someone who’s looking out for you whilst you run outdoors alone; checking your messages; playing music; logging workout sessions if that’s something you want to do.
Everything else? Sprinkles. And ones which don’t taste nice at that.