Fitness Tracker - The Perfect Lockdown Companion
While gyms and fitness centres around the world have shut their doors due to the COVID19 pandemic, you might be wondering how to continue with your workout routine to maintain both your physical and mental health during the lockdown. Since exercise is a key way to stay healthy, fitness bands and smartwatches are becoming the perfect lockdown companion.
According to various industry studies like the FICCI EY report, Redseer Consulting, Global Wellness Institute and IHRSA & Fitternity’s grounds-up study of the Indian retail fitness services market, there are six million active users in India who are spending on an average $350 to $400 annually towards fitness services, amounting to $2.6 billion market size.
Lack of motivation is reported to be one of the biggest issues faced by people under the COVID19 lockdown. Trying to stay motivated to get up and exercise between emails and video calls is challenging. But this is where fitness band come to the rescue.
A recent report from Garmin's health monitoring data says –‘From January to March 2020, the activity count for outdoor activities had an overall drop of 15.5 percent, with activity count for golf, hiking trail running and running decreasing by 87.6 percent, 34.9 percent, 29.2 percent and 18.8 percent respectively. In comparison, indoor activities such as floor climbing, yoga, Pilates and indoor cardio workouts showed an overall increase of 38.5 percent in the same period. With travel and activity restrictions implemented from March 2020, overall outdoor activity count from January’20 till 21 April’ 2020 dropped by 71.2 percent while indoor activity count increased by 40.2 percent in the same period.’
Steps Tracking
Fitness bands and smartwatches have been great in tracking steps and exercise during normal times, but even during these times of the lockdown, these fitness trackers have just shown how important they are. Apart from tracking steps Fitness trackers also monitoring sleep, heart rate and some can also track exercises and if you are stuck to you laptop or tv for too long the fitness tracker can alert you and remind you to take a break with some activity.
As per a Fitbit report published in the end of October 2019 -Fitbit users in India are the least active and log in only 6533 steps daily, the least amongst all 18 countries, according to the latest report by the wearables brand. Compared to other countries, Fitbit users in India clocked 3600 steps less than the average of the most active country – Hong Kong.
Sleeping Pattern Tracking
Tracking sleeping patterns has become especially useful now with work from home situation everywhere. Sleeping 6-8hrs a day is an important part of staying healthy and boosting your immunity. Fitness trackers can easily track your sleep patterns and help you change your sleep schedule for a healthy lifestyle.
Heart Rate Tracking
Getting your heart rate up is key to burning fat and cardiovascular system and similarly having a low resting heart rate is equally signifies a healthy heart. Most of the newer fitness trackers provide heart rate tracking. The better ones go further and track it throughout the day providing you with easy to read data. If you are exercising at home while juggling between working from home and binge-watching TV series, tracking your heart rate becomes imperative. Your heart rate can easily tell you how intense your workout was and help you set personal goals for exercising at home.
One of the main complaints about working out at home is the lack of direction that comes with it. However, the extra information provided by Fitbit, such as heart rate, active zone minutes, and calories burned, provides the push needed to power through a workout. Similarly, Garmin offers physiological data monitoring, along with exercise analysis and suggestions help users check their health status and training results. The Garmin Connect APP offers users access to multiple training plans and various training exercises that can be done at home. Key physiological data are then recorded during workouts to allow efficient health monitoring.
“Given the current circumstances, we know how hard it is to focus on your health and wellness. But staying active, eating nutritious foods, sleeping well, and managing stress are critical to boosting your immunity and your mood. To help support you, we’re offering 40 new pieces of Premium content free in the Fitbit app”. said James Park, CEO & Co-founder Fitbit
World Health Organization’s Clinical management of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) when COVID-19 disease is suspectedInterim Guidancespotlights the importance of health monitoring data. In light of the lifestyle changes during the lockdown period, it is crucial to keep a consistent check on one’s physiological data to actively monitor physical health and wellbeing.
