AINT NO APP FOR THAT…
No app is going to teach you double skips and handstands....
The Fitbit, one of last years most popular Christmas gifts.
Track your daily activity, your exercise, and your sleep!
It can actually be really interesting to do this. I have been doing a couple of months of step tracking after realising that my day outside of exercise had gotten a little bit lifeless....
I did the same for sleep a couple of years ago.
And I'm using the Headspace app to get me back in the habit of daily meditation, or help me punch quickly into sleep if I've been working too close to bedtime and the brain is still active.
And (although it's not strictly a wearable) Krista is currently using My Fitness Pal on her phone to record her food daily, as she found that she wasn't meeting the daily protein requirements for an athlete with her training volume.
However, this type of tracking is a short term thing, the point of it is to simply identify a pattern, and to be able to clearly see when that pattern is changing. Once I received enough feedback about days with less than 1000 steps, and understood how much ancillary movement was required to get closer to 10, 000 I instinctively knew how to get there on my own.
I used to meditate just fine without an app, so once I'm back in the habit, I will much prefer to do it on my own...although I will miss Andy's soothing voice...!
Now that Krista has had some practice figuring out how much protein is in certain foods, she knows if she's met her target without the help of an app.
Also, the data on all of these wearables and apps are actually not that accurate!!
All we're measuring with them is trends, nothing specific.
And you know what app is actually the best at measuring trends??
Your brain...
Wearables are not very useful long term.
Great to check in on trends and help you start new habits, and break old ones, but....they are unlikely to help you maintain them long term.
And if you're using them to try to take your mind off exercise, well we've talked about that before too....
I've always banned headphones in class. Even if it included a long run.
You're trying to avoid discomfort by jacking in to something else. Problem is you also jack out of interacting with other members and worse, input from your coach.
Don't try to jack out of the discomfort, the feeling of your muscles working, of your body doing amazing things.
Instead, embrace it wholly and completely.
The heightened periods of engagement you reach during a workout that requires total concentration and pushes your abilities, elevates cognitive and kinaesthetic performance, according to Steven Kotler in his book Rise of The Superman. It also creates a deep level of satisfaction, far better than some digits on a screen.
At least, it will once you are jacked out of the app and jacked into your SELF.
Want to read more about this? Check out the new book Unplugged, co-authored by Brian McKenzie, who will be at CrossFit NZ Oct 1st for the Art of Breath seminar. It's still currently on an early bird special, so if you're interested in diving deep into the very first 'app', our breath, you can sign up HERE.