Wearables are gaining popularity and very quickly. The best way to optimize the use of wearables is to use them in your daily life and part of your workout routines.
Let’s quickly cover the basics of wearables AKA mobile health (mHealth):
The health benefits of physical activity are very well known yet getting people to be physically active is still a huge issue as more and more people are living sedentary lives. Mobile health or more commonly known as mHealth is one of the ways technology is attempting to solve the sedentary lifestyle issue. mHealth encompasses any app on your phone that results in health in some manner. These apps can focus on diet adherence, online exercises class, or health tracking apps like Fitbit and ihealth, the possibilities are infinite. As mHealth’s popularity increases throughout society we see the expansion of mHealth into devices like watches which are then referred to as wearables. The consumer-based wearable activity trackers are becoming more widely available and allow users to objectively monitor activity levels in addition to other life aspects like sleep tracking, water usage and calories burnt. Wearables offer an alternative method for assisting individuals to initiate a healthy lifestyle.
So there you have it. At Myofiber, we have our clients continue to analyze metrics such as calories burnt, step count, hear rate, water intake etc. and have it linked to our in-house software. This allows us as practitioners to gain better insight to their progress. Along with standard body measurements (using tape or calipers), we can determine how a client is progressing. Pretty neat, right?
Below you’ll find a quick analysis of a study that compared weables trackers with non-wearable trackers.
A systematic review was conducted by Brickwood, Watson, O’Brien, & Williams (2019) that included studies that compared the use of consumer-based wearable activity tracker with other non-wearable activity trackers. The measure outcomes between the two were physical activity participation and sedentary levels. The results from the review revealed that there was a significant increase in daily step count, moderate to vigorous physical activity, energy expenditure when using wearables (Brickwood et al., 2019).
What does this mean? It means there are more calories burnt when you employ the use of wearables. People take this seriously as it can really help with optimizing performance and reaching your goals.
Are you still unsure if you should get the latest Apple or Samsung watch? Ever heard of Hexoskin? Too many options? Give us a comment or let us know if you need help picking the right wearable for you.
The conclusive result of the review is that when people use consumer-based wearable activity trackers as the sole intervention or part of an intervention it has the potential to increase their physical activity participation. The act of using wearables will encourage physical activity in individuals thus increasing the health benefits.
Written in collaboration:
Isis Camargo (4th Year Kinesiology Student & Intern from UofT) and Shaneh-Abbas Jaffer, R.Kin.
Myofiber 