Workout statistics have never been more popular than they are today. The fitness technology marketplace has exploded since the advent of accelerometer devices, and everybody seems to be strapping on wearable tech and downloading data.
This week, I’ll discuss the finer points of these devices and provide a few tips for maximizing their role in your workout. I’ll also give you an exercise that might just throw your accelerometer for a loop.
Fitness tracking devices have been around for more than a decade, but only recently have they become consumer friendly enough to really permeate the industry. And boy, have they. You can walk into almost any commercial fitness center during peak hours and see dozens of these devices on wrists, arms and shoes.
In you have not been made aware of the coolness of accelerometers, I’ll give you the skinny.
Typically, the devices areworn on your wrist or arm to detect movement. Movement triggers the device to make a digital record, and the device stores the data and also plugs it into an algorithm that predicts the caloric cost of that movement. Baseline data including your age, sex, height and weight are also factored into these calculations.
If you wear the device 24 hours per day and seven days per week, you’ll generate some fairly accurate information related to your caloric expenditure.
Fitness tracking devices usually come with some sort of software that allows you to send your data to a computer and view your caloric expenditure in the form of graphs and charts.
Some even include a caloric intake component, providing the user with a platform for logging dietary information. For those interested in weight loss, this is critical. A daily energy balance is then calculated and you’ll be able to track your caloric deficits (or surpluses) over weeks, months or years.
We don’t need to know how the technology works to understand that these devices detect any movement that affects them - but nothing else. So riding a stationary bike with an accelerometer on your arm won’t record the motions of your feet on the pedals.
Although some software packages include workarounds that address this downfall, it’s always going to be an issue with accelerometer-based fitness tracking.
Most manufacturers try to get around this deficit with software that lets the user enter activity data manually, so that caloric expenditure will be counted. You can simply look down at your stationary bike’s digital panel, note how many calories it claims you’ve burned during your workout and plug that number into the software.
Weight training is another area that gets a little bit muddy with fitness tracking devices. They can’t detect whether you’re lifting 5 pounds or 50, so there’s certainly some room for error.
This week’s exercise falls into this accelerometer blind spot, but the Step Down Curl is a total body move that’s more about overall body movement than lifting heavy resistance.
Select a pair of medium-weight dumbbells and stand in front of a big step (12 to 24 inches tall).
Hold the dumbbells in your hands with your arms outstretched. Place your left foot on the step.
Step up onto the bench with arms outstretched.
Keeping the left foot on the step, lower yourself back to the floor. As you do this, flex your elbows upward and perform a bicep curl.
As your right foot touches the floor, you should be completing the bicep curl.
Perform 12 repetitions with the left foot planted on the step, rest for one minute, then perform another 12 with the right foot on the step.
This exercise would make a perfect addition to any program whose goal is burning as many calories as possible.You’re using the entire body throughout the movement, which should result in plenty of calories burned at the end of the day.
If you don’t believe me, ask your accelerometer.
Matt Parrott has a doctorate in education (sport studies) and a master’s in kinesiology and is certified by the American College of Sports Medicine.
ActiveStyle, Pages 30 on 04/28/2014