Fitness tracker: your smart companion
Fitness trackers inform us about our health and physical performance. How to select the right wearable, set yourself useful goals and avoid pressurising yourself to perform.
What is a fitness tracker?
Fitness trackers – also called wearables – are electronic devices that you wear on your body, for example on your wrist or arm. The trackers use built-in sensors to collect data about your body and your health, such as how many steps you have clocked up, your heart rate, calorie consumption and sleep habits. You access this information via the tracker itself or a connected app on your smartphone.
How do I choose the right fitness tracker?
Are you struggling to decide which fitness tracker is right for you? Not surprising, given the countless models on the market. Consider the following points and pick a fitness tracker that will help you achieve your health goals:
- Comfort: fitness trackers are available as a clip, ring, bracelet or smartwatch. Choose a model that you are comfortable wearing on a daily basis.
- Functions: do you just want to get moving a bit more? If so, a simple pedometer might be enough. If you also want to focus on improving your heart health or optimising your training, choosing a tracker that measures your heart rate or analyses your blood oxygen saturation level makes sense. If you regularly go jogging or cycling, you may need built-in GPS. This lets you record distances and speeds accurately.
- Battery life: some devices need charging every day, while others have a battery that lasts for weeks. Pick a tracker with a long battery life if you want to monitor your sleep or stress levels over a longer period of time.
- Water resistance: do you want to wear your tracker while swimming or showering? Then go for a water-resistant model.
- Compatibility: do you want to analyse your data on your actual tracker or through an app on your smartphone? And which other apps would you like to share the data with? Make sure that the fitness tracker you choose is compatible.
Get rewards by exercising
Connect your fitness tracker to the Helsana+ app and earn valuable points through the exercise you do. You can convert the points you collect into cash, vouchers from selected partners or make a donation. Helsana+ is compatible with Apple Health (iOS), Google Fit (Android), Fitbit, Garmin, Polar, Withings and Suunto.
How do I monitor meaningful goals with my fitness tracker?
Found the right fitness tracker? We’ll show you how to set worthwhile goals and stay motivated to achieve them.
Set yourself SMART goals
Meaningful goals provide focus and the necessary drive. Ideally, they should be SMART:
S = specific: set a specific goal.
M = measurable: track your progress using the data from your fitness tracker.
A = attractive: choose goals that motivate you.
R = realistic: set yourself ambitious goals that you can actually achieve.
T = time-bound: fix a specific time period for achieving your goal.
Here are some examples that might inspire you:
Does 10,000 steps a day sound unrealistic? Good news: this figure was just thought up by a Japanese company advertising its pedometers in the 1960s. Studies since then have shown that the ideal daily step count for a longer and healthier life is between 7,000 and 8,000. For senior citizens, 6,000 steps is a good benchmark. If you want to stay healthy though, it’s not just important to exercise – you also need to strengthen your muscles and boost your endurance.
Are these step targets out of your range? Then set yourself a SMART goal: for example, raise your average daily step count from 5,000 to 8,000 by doing 500 more steps every week for 6 weeks. Do this by incorporating more exercise into your everyday life.
By monitoring your heart rate, you can train at the optimum intensity*. You can calculate your training heart rate in three steps:
- Work out your maximum heart rate
HRmax = 220 − age in years - Calculate your resting heart rate
Measure your heart rate (HRrest) with your fitness tracker right after waking up. - Calculate your training heart rate using the Karvonen formula
THR = (HRmax − HRrest) × intensity + HRrest
Choose the intensity to align with your training goals:
Intensity and Training goal
50–60%: Warm up, cool down, actively recover
60–70%: Improve basic endurance, burn off fat, train for a long period
70–80%: Strengthen endurance and heart, improve oxygen utilisation
80–90%: Raise fatigue threshold, boost maximum performance
90–100%: Increase sprinting speed (only suitable for highly trained athletes and for short periods of time)
*Important information: if you take beta blockers, your heart rate is not a good indicator for monitoring your exertion level. You should also ask your doctor whether you have a medical condition that could worsen through doing physical exercise.
Example
A 35-year-old person with a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute wants to improve their basic endurance:
- HRmax = 220 − 35 = 185
- HRrest = 60
- THR1 = (185 − 60) × 0.6 + 60 = 135
THR2 = (185 − 60) × 0.7 + 60 = 147.5
Based on this, the person could set the following SMART goal: over the next four weeks, go jogging three times a week for 30 minutes in a heart rate range of 135 to 147 beats per minute.
A person’s resting heart rate is their number of heartbeats per minute when they are at rest. A healthy adult’s heart beats between 60 and 100 times a minute. People who play a lot of sport sometimes have a rate below 60 beats. If your resting heart rate is constantly high, this may indicate health problems such as hypertension or hyperthyroidism.
Would you like to improve your resting heart rate? If so, get into the following ongoing habits: strengthen your heart by exercising at 70 to 80% intensity (see “Optimise training with heart rate”), reduce your caffeine intake and lower your stress levels by doing relaxation exercises.
VO2 max is typically measured in millilitres of oxygen consumed in a minute per kilogram of body weight while doing high-intensity physical activity. It measures the maximum amount of oxygen absorbed and used by your muscle cells when exerted and is seen as a good indicator of your endurance capacity. V stands for volume, O2 is for oxygen and max is for maximum.
Are you unfit? If so, your VO2max figure is probably around 3,000 to 3,500 millilitres per minute. If you do regular endurance training, it is more likely to be between 5,000 and 6,000 millilitres per minute. Normally, VO2max is measured in the lab via a performance test and breathing analysis. Fitness trackers estimate the VO2max based on heart rate, activity, age and weight.
If you want to increase your VO2max, set yourself a SMART goal that includes high-intensity endurance training. For example, you could do interval jogging for 30 minutes, 3 times a week for the next 6 weeks.
Celebrate your successes
A fitness tracker allows you to visualise your progress, no matter how minimal. Motivate yourself by celebrating your successes. For example, share your milestones with friends or treat yourself to a new training outfit, a healthy snack or an outdoor trip – whatever makes you feel good.
Adjust your targets if necessary
If you want to remain motivated for the long term, you should regularly review your goals. Does your fitness tracker soon tell you that you’ve already passed your target? If so, avoid getting bored and set yourself a more ambitious goal. Or perhaps you haven’t reached an important milestone yet and feel frustrated? Then make your goal more realistic or manageable by setting yourself interim goals. Or choose a completely new goal or change the activity you are doing. This will give you fresh drive.
Fitness trackers: a source of pressure and anxiety
A fitness tracker lets you constantly monitor your activity and share progress with friends or a fitness community. This can motivate you to achieve your fitness goals but can also create pressure to perform. Sometimes fitness tracker users feel stressed when they haven’t reached a certain target level. Despite feeling exhausted, they go for a walk, for example, to make sure they hit their daily step target. Also, some people compare themselves to others and feel inferior if they don’t achieve their goals at the same speed. Use tracker data for guidance, listen to your body and take regular breaks. Only compare yourself with yourself.
On top of the pressure to perform, fitness trackers sometimes generate anxiety. Many people use wearables to monitor their sleep or heart health. But the more we focus on a topic, the more we train our brain to worry about it. Fitness trackers can then trap us in a vicious circle. An example: you don’t always sleep well, so you monitor your sleep with your tracker. The data confirms your suspicions. You become concerned and worry even more about your sleep. The stress makes you sleep worse – the exact opposite of what you wanted to achieve. How do you break this vicious circle? Keep the following in mind: trackers don’t provide accurate data that you can use to make diagnoses. If you have health problems, see a doctor.
Are fitness trackers a worthwhile tool for improving health and fitness? Yes, as long as you think about how you use your device and don’t let the numbers make you feel pressured. Choose a model that suits your needs and set yourself SMART goals. Celebrate your successes and revise your goals if necessary. This will keep you motivated.
The physiotherapist provided the editorial team with advice and input for this article. Stefan Wöll (graduate in physiotherapy) works for Helsana health consultation. He supports customers on questions to do with pain syndromes, sport and exercise.
Newsletter
Find out more about current health issues every month and get all the information you need about our attractive offers from all Helsana Group companies * delivered by e-mail to read whenever it suits you. Our newsletter is free of charge and you can sign up here:
We did not receive your information. Please try again later.
* The Helsana Group comprises Helsana Insurance Company Ltd, Helsana Supplementary Insurances Ltd and Helsana Accidents Ltd.