Imagine being able to hire a personal trainer that follows you around all day, tracks your sleep schedule, logs your heart rate, and tracks where you are and how you move into a monthly report with suggestions on how you can improve your energy, health and fitness. That feels a bit TOO personal even for me. Here at The Quad, we like to use wearable digital fitness trackers, the Whoop strap, to get the job done for us so that we can improve your health in a way that is personalized.
What Exactly Are Wearable Trackers And How Do They Work?
Wearable trackers allow you to check your physical activity and health (Harrar), with the aim of improving your fitness. They come in a variety of forms, from wristbands to clips that you attach to your clothing like the Whoop strap. By tracking your movements and activities with sensors, they can provide key data on how active you are and how well you are doing with your personal training goals. With the right data, these trackers can help you reach new heights in your performance and health.
There are a few different sensors (Lashkari) built into each device that track your balance, movement, light, electrical current, altitude, and location.
Altimeter
This sensor measures your altitude and is typically designed for mountain climbing wearable trackers.
3-Axis Accelerometer
As the name suggests, an accelerometer sensor tracks movement and speed. This is very important to any wearable tracker because this is the sensor that can track your steps.
Bioimpedance Sensor
This sensor tracks and collects data on your heart rate through a small electrical current coming in contact with your skin.
Gyroscope
Used to measure rotation and orientation of your body, paired with the accelerometer allows the device to track workout motions.
Optical Sensor
Uses light on the underside of a wearable tracker to measure the pulse and heart rate.
Temperature Sensor
This sensor tracks body temperature, the warmer your body gets the harder the sensor perceives you are working out.
Why Should We Track Our Health?
Tracking your health with wearable trackers is an important part of exercising and how we can best help you as personal trainers. It allows us to check your physical activity and make sure that you are on the right path. By tracking your heart rate, steps taken, sleep patterns, and other vital signs, our trainers can make sure that you are getting the most out of your workouts for a healthy body and mind. Furthermore, tracking your health with wearable trackers can also help motivate you to stay active and keep up with a regular exercise routine.
“Studies show that consistently using a fitness tracker—a device that tracks your movement, such as a traditional pedometer or other wearable device, or a smartphone app—can increase your steps per day by more than a mile, especially if you establish a heart-smart daily goal.” (John Hopkins Medicine)
Watch Your Blood Pressure
Blood pressure can provide important insights into the body’s functioning and help identify potential issues that need to be addressed. Blood pressure readings can also reveal how well the body is responding to exercise, diet, and lifestyle changes. By tracking blood pressure regularly, individuals can adjust their lifestyle accordingly to ensure they are on track for optimal health and fitness.
Track Your Calories
Tracking your calorie intake helps you understand how much energy you need to fuel your body (Frey), as well as how much energy you are expending through exercise or other activities. It can also help you identify any potential deficiencies in your diet and make sure that you are getting all the nutrients your body needs.
Keep A Healthy Heart Rate
A happy healthy heart rate can help you determine the intensity of your workouts, identify potential health risks, and ensure that you are getting the most out of your exercise routine. By tracking your heart rate during exercise, you can make sure that you are pushing yourself but not overexerting yourself.
Get More Sleep
Probably one of the most important and often the most overlooked activities to track. Muscles need time to recover. If you don’t get enough your muscles can’t recover, repair, and rebuild from the stress that you put them through after intense exercises. Sleep is important to stay alert and physically active (“How Sleep Works – Why Is Sleep Important?”) throughout the day to stay ready for your next workout.
Improve How You Track Your Health With Whoop 4.0
The Whoop Strap 4.0 (WHOOP) measures your sleep, recovery, and the effort you put in each day during your workouts. The Whoop app attached to the strap then provides you with loads of data and information. Which it then calculates and suggests actionable steps you can take to live a better healthy life. Once you use it, you will get hooked because it is like having your own digital personal trainer. There are three main features that help Whoop stand out from other typical wearable fitness trackers.
Better Recovery
With Whoop you get insight on key biometrics like heart rate, resting heart rate, and sleep performance. Whoop’s Recovery feature will tell you how much stress your body can take in any given day and what you need to do to recover. Use Recovery to measure your body’s readiness and how you adapt to different exercises and routines to optimize your lifestyle.
Data Tracking With “Strain”
Whoop’s Strain feature is a true measure of how much stress you’re putting on your body, both mentally and physically. With Strain you get access to tons of metrics, monthly assessments and personalized suggestions that you can use to monitor fitness success. Take advantage of Whoop’s in-depth data technology to guide and motivate you on your fitness journey.
Improved Sleep
As mentioned before, sleep is vital to fitness success and now with Whoop’s Sleep feature you can track your sleep. Make sure that you are getting optimal recovery by tracking sleep stages, disturbances, respiratory rate, and more. You can finally have your own personal sleep coach too!
The Quad Loves Whoop And So Should You!
We at The Quad love Whoop if you can’t already tell. It is the best wearable tracker you can own. Whoop straps have a unique sleek design that will look good with anything you wear. They have bands that come in all sorts of patterns and colors to fit your interest. The easy-to-use Whoop app allows personal trainers to connect with you through the community feature and other people in your area or gym. We can track our progress together by sharing recovery score, strain score, and sleep as a fun way to compete and hold each other accountable!
Whoop is an amazing device that is used by some of your favorite fitness celebrities like Lebron James and Michael Phelps.
“Phelps and James were among the first 100 users of the fitness wearable brand named Whoop. And this was not the only achievement accomplished by Whoop, as the fitness wearable company has now reached a net value of $3.6 billion in the market.”
Sourced from Bontra, Soumya
How Personal Training And Wearable Fitness Trackers Work Together
Using wearable digital fitness trackers like the Whoop Strap is highly recommended to complement your fitness experience. We use it to improve all of our clients’ fitness experiences. With sensors that track your balance, movement, heart rate, and sleep patterns, we can gain key data on your performance and health. Tracking your health is an important part of exercising and personal training. Wearable trackers will help you stay motivated to maintain a regular exercise routine and improve your energy, health and fitness. Whoop 4.0 will provide all the data you need so let’s get started in building a better, healthier life.
- Bontra, Soumya. “Michael Phelps and LeBron James Were Among First 100 Users of a Company Now Worth $3.6 Billion.” Essentially Sports, 30 October 2022, https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-swimming-news-nba-basketball-news-michael-phelps-and-lebron-james-were-among-first-100-users-of-now-3-6-billion-company/. Accessed 10 February 2023.
- “Could a Fitness Tracker Boost Your Heart Health?” Johns Hopkins Medicine, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/could-a-fitness-tracker-boost-your-heart-health. Accessed 10 February 2023.
- Frey, Malia. “The 6 Things You Need to Know About Tracking Exercise Calories.” Verywell Fit, 11 March 2022, https://www.verywellfit.com/exercise-tips-for-weightloss-1231550. Accessed 10 February 2023.
- Harrar, Sari. “Research: Fitness Trackers and Apps Do Up Activity.” Everyday Health, 23 December 2020, https://www.everydayhealth.com/fitness/study-can-wearable-fitness-trackers-and-apps-give-your-exercise-routine-a-boost/ Accessed 10 February 2023.
- “How Sleep Works – Why Is Sleep Important?” NHLBI, 24 March 2022, https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/why-sleep-important Accessed 10 February 2023.
- Lashkari, Cashmere. “Types of sensors in wearable fitness trackers.” News Medical, https://www.news-medical.net/health/Types-of-sensors-in-wearable-fitness-trackers.aspx. Accessed 10 February 2023.
- WHOOP | Your Personal Digital Fitness and Health Coach, https://www.whoop.com/. Accessed 10 February 2023.
