When I first started using a Fitness Tracker, all it could do was count the steps that I walked. The benefits of Fitness Trackers were very limited. But, nowadays, Fitness Trackers are evolving. It won’t be an exaggeration when I say that the benefits of fitness Trackers have exceeded expectations. Nowadays, Fitness Trackers have sensors to track heart rate, SPO2 levels, distance traveled, calorie calculation, various exercises, and more features all in one tracker!
The tracking of these activities helps you to stay fit and motivated. Moreover, the App is also very motivating and gives the overall result of your fitness.
As unbelievable as it sounds, you’ll feel like you have complete control over your body when you use a fitness tracker.
The benefit of Fitness Trackers is it gently nudges you to keep going, like a good friend. You can set a goal and watch yourself work hard towards completing the goal through this wearable fitness device. Fitness Trackers give an overall insight into your health through exercise, heart rate, sleep, SPO2 levels, etc.
With strong sensors, fitness trackers can easily detect you spinning, moving, walking, sleeping, etc. If you are having a hard time maintaining the calories in your diet, this device is also greatly beneficial. Fitness Trackers are a great alternative for the gym and you can get real-time coaching through this wearable devices’ app.
You can even have a healthy competition with your peers by watching their exercise data on the App. Lastly, this device helps you to be accountable and responsible for yourself.
Benefits Of Fitness Trackers
Experiencing the benefits of Fitness Trackers myself, I wanted you to benefit from it too. So, I compiled a list of benefits of Fitness Trackers below.
Set A Goal And Achieve It
The most important thing before starting any task is setting up a goal.
I’m sure you have been there too. Firstly, you set a goal, whatever it may be. Then, you start working for that goal. Lastly, you complete the goal and a sense of achievement and warmness flows through you. Well, Fitness Tracker will help you achieve this state of bliss.
In a Fitness Tracker, you can set a realistic goal such as walking 5,000 steps a day, monitor calorie intake, sleeping on time, cycle 3 miles, etc. After you set this realistic goal, you should start working to achieve it. Don’t go overboard on the goals and only set goals that you are capable of completing aka realistic goals.
Then, you can visually monitor your goals and progress through the App. The device and App even motivate you into completing your goals. Slowly, but surely, you will achieve your goals. You will complete walking 5000 steps, cycle 3 miles, control your calorie intake, and sleep on time.
To sum up, Fitness Trackers benefit you in making goals and motivate you to achieve those health goals.
Motivation For You
If you’re having a hard time finding a friend who will motivate you into exercising and getting fit, then Fitness tracker will be that friend. This wearable device hypes you up to stay focused on your fitness journey.
We all feel a little unmotivated at times. It is difficult to stick with our schedule because people nowadays lead hectic and busy lives. In such times where stress eats us up, a gentle reminder from this device does wonders.
A message will pop on the screen of the device reminding you to get up and start working. Moreover, the App on your phone keeps records of your exercise data which reminds you how hard you have worked. The visual data of all your progress will motivate you to work even harder.
When I completed walking around a park, a message popped on my screen saying “Congratulations on walking 5,000 steps today!” This visual message made me feel good and rewarding. So I worked even harder, walking 10,000 steps a day.
When I didn’t exercise, the device gave me an alarm message to start working. And surprisingly, the reminder worked for me.
Fitness trackers are like a good friend who gives a gentle nudge to motivate you into exercising and being healthy.
Alternative Of Gym
Yes, Fitness Trackers somewhat act as an alternative to the gym.
The cost of some fitness trackers is similar to yearly (or even monthly!) gym memberships.
Moreover, some people are scared to work out when other people are watching them. They think that someone will laugh at them and think badly of them when that’s not the case at all.
I’ve also realized that some coaches (not all though) are too harsh on beginners.
That’s why these people decide to work out from home.
Well, there are benefits of Fitness trackers for those who want to work at home. If you are one of those people who want to exercise at home, then Fitness Trackers will benefit you.
You can be your boss and pick any exercise and goal you want. Fitness Apps also have a wide range of fitness workouts that might suit your fitness level. On top of that, some Fitness Apps offer you real-time coaching so you stay motivated. It all feels like a gym, doesn’t it?
The app even gives you tips like a trainer to improve your exercise quality. Most people can’t stand the harsh criticism of the trainers but the Fitness Tracker App is motivating and gentle.
Healthy Competition With Your Peers
Healthy Competition is good if you are trying to become better than your peers by walking more steps a day, eating healthy, etc. The Fitness App can group you with like-minded individuals who are keen on staying fit and healthy. And ultimately, even you will be motivated to stay fit.
This is because research has proved that friends’ behavior shapes our behavior.
You can look at the stats of your peers and check if you are having similar progress or not. Furthermore, you can even compare the sleep stats to see if you are getting enough good sleep.
It is said that working together to achieve a goal with friends and colleagues will increase the probability of the goal being completed. If you feel unmotivated, there is always another friend who can motivate you. After all, there is nothing more fun than getting fit and healthy with your peers.
You Will Eat Balanced Diet
You are what you eat. If you have an unhealthy diet, you will become unhealthy in the long run. If you eat healthy food, you will mostly remain healthy throughout your life.
Fitness Tracker will help you track your eating habits in this matter. This tracking will aware of your eating habits and you’ll eat a healthy balanced diet.
Fitness Trackers will not only track your exercise data but also the food and water intake in your day. The device even calculates the calories burned during exercising. This will aware if you’re losing or gaining weight.
All in all, Fitness trackers are a great way to stay in shape and eat healthy food!
Monitors Your Sleep, Heart Rate, And Overall Health
Fitness Trackers have sensors in them that detect your sleep pattern, heart rate, floors climbed, SPO2 levels, etc. These features are greatly beneficial in assessing your health.
Heart rate monitoring throughout the day is greatly beneficial to know if your heart is working efficiently or not. If the heart rate is slightly off (too high or too low), you can be aware that something is wrong. Some Fitness Trackers even come with Blood Pressure monitoring. Thus, the Fitness Tracker is greatly beneficial to elderly people and those with cardiovascular problems.
The pulse oximeter sensors are brilliant because it helps to know your oxygen saturation levels. COVID19 affects the lungs and oxygen saturation levels. Thus, the SPO2 sensor detects the low SPO2 levels and alerts immediately!
All of your sleep data is displayed in the App (deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, awake state). You can assess this sleep pattern to know how much sleep you’re getting. Even the quality of sleep is displayed in the App.
The tracker detects that you are sleeping when you don’t move your hand.
If you have a bad sleeping pattern, then you can use guided breathing exercises to relax your mind and have a sound sleep. Perhaps the most amazing thing that a fitness tracker can do is detecting sleep apnea.
The Fitness Trackers along with the App, monitors your activity like heart rate, SPO2 levels, sleep stats, steps walked, exercises, calories burned, floors climbed, swim laps, etc. Then, the App gives you tips (like a coach) on how you can improve your activities to improve your health.
Overall, Fitness Trackers are a great way to monitor your health.
Helps You Be Accountable
Perhaps the most beneficial thing that a Fitness Tracker does is, it makes you accountable. If you buy a Fitness Tracker, you are buying it for a purpose. The purpose might be exercising, controlling calorie intake, getting better sleep, walking some miles, etc. The fulfillment of this purpose is your responsibility.
The Fitness Tracker gives you a responsibility to stay alert after your goals and motivates you to complete them. This gives you a sense of importance and that you are doing this only for your sake! And the best thing is you won’t feel left out. This device and app will help you stay on the right track.
If you feel lazy, don’t worry. Fitness Trackers have third-party Apps where you can post your workouts and challenge your friend. This will remove your laziness. Research has proved that the chance of completing a task increases by many folds when you have healthy competition with like-minded individuals.
It will be difficult to brush off the responsibility when the Fitness Tracker will keep reminding you again and again to fulfill the responsibility, aka staying fit, sleeping on time, etc.
Stay Connected (Smartwatch Function)
Fitness Tracker nowadays has a built-in smartwatch function. There are rarely any Fitness Trackers nowadays which don’t display notifications of texts, calls, emails, from your phone.
You don’t need to constantly check emails on your phone every time you are trying to exercise. Just swipe the Fitness Tracker towards you to see notifications.
You should stay connected to the Bluetooth of the device with your phone for this feature.
Drawbacks Of Fitness Trackers
Fitness Trackers have many benefits but nothing in this world comes without a little fault. You can read the following to know some drawbacks of Fitness trackers.
Cost
Some Fitness Trackers may leave dents in your bank account. Fitness Trackers with SPO2 sensors, blood pressure monitoring, and other wonderful features come very expensive. There are cheap Fitness Trackers but they are somewhat unreliable.
And perhaps the worst thing is when you use the tracker only occasionally.
I think Fitness trackers aren’t necessary to help you stay fit. It’s only a luxury. But, it sure does have many benefits.
Loss Of Interest
This one is debatable. Research has said that after 6 months of use, Fitness Trackers start to become boring. I have experienced this but for me, it was around 8 months. I started to think that I was now fit and didn’t need any more fitness routines.
However, if you are a person of routine and can fairly stay in line with your goals, Fitness Trackers will suit you the most.
Results May Be Inaccurate
This is especially seen in cheap Fitness trackers. There is inaccurate tracking of steps walked, distance traveled, sleep stats, exercise, heart rate monitoring, etc. This is rather dangerous as it might give just false data.
You may be getting more or less sleep than said by the device. You may have walked more or fewer miles than that said by the app. Your calorie estimation also might be hugely off. And your heart rate might be too high or too low.
If the tracker doesn’t give accurate results, I think it is better to not use that Fitness Tracker.
FAQs Of Benefits Of Fitness Trackers
Are Fitness Trackers Worth It?
Yes, Fitness Trackers are worth it if you make them so. I have seen many different opportunities and features that a Fitness Tracker offers. For example, outdoor exercises, guided breathing exercises, heart rate sensors, SPO2 detection, distance traveled, and so on.
If you can utilize all of these activities by setting goals and get motivated, I am sure you will reap maximum benefits from the fitness tracker. See, the main thing is you need to commit to the Fitness Tracker activities.
Another thing is that there are many different Fitness Trackers you can choose from the market. Choose the one that tapers to your needs. Then, utilize the tracker and it will be worth your time and effort.
Do Fitness Trackers Benefits Health?
There is no clear-cut answer to this. See, Fitness Tracker is not like medicine that improves your health. But, yes, Fitness Tracker will help you in improving your health.
Through many different activities tracking as steps walked, calorie estimation, cycling, swimming, heart rate, floors climbed, etc. Fitness trackers will tell you to stand up and start moving for the day. The device also lets you set goals and will persist you to complete the goal.
To sum up, Fitness Tracker will help you improve and assess your health. However, just keeping the tracker on your hand and expecting miracles while being a couch potato is a silly thing to do. You should work to improve your health and a Fitness Tracker will be your friend, guiding you along the way.
What Do Fitness Trackers Measure?
Fitness Trackers have many different sensors built into them. The sensors measure the following:
- Altimeter/Barometer- Calculates the elevation and floors climbed.
- Pulse Oximeter Sensor- Calculates the SPO2 levels.
- Gyroscope- Tracks the 3D motions of the user. For example, exercising and sports.
- Optical Heart Rate Sensor- Monitors Heart rate.
- Temperature Sensor- Detects temperature.
Fitness Trackers also measure calorie intake and sleep.
Conclusion
By reading this article, I hope you got the message that Fitness Trackers will give you loads of benefits. Although nothing in this world comes without faults, I think you should give fitness trackers a try. Who knows if a fitness tracker will be your fitness and training buddy?
