Digital arm candy: Unlocking fitness goals with tracker wristbands

What do Garmin Vivofit, Jawbone UP, Misfit Shine, Fitbit One/Flex, and Withings Pulse have in common? They are a number of wearable fitness trackers or fitness bands available in the market designed to keep you healthier, or at least more updated in keeping track of your daily steps, calories burned, heart rate, and other health indices. Think of them as highly evolved pedometers that can help you push yourself a little more toward achieving your fitness goals.

Image Source: yourallaround.com

Bad habits are just too hard to break, especially when it comes to maintaining the ideal weight or keeping solid with athletic training. The willpower can be swayed if not checked and motivation can dwindle. That is why fitness trackers fill the void as constant digital companions that record your fitness progress and remind you when it’s time to do pool laps or more kilometers.

Image Source: dvice.com

What’s even more beneficial is that these fitness bands can be synchronized with your smartphone or personal computer. This feature makes them even more powerful devices for storing data, providing stats about your caloric intake, sleep cycle, etc., and generally just helping you improve your life.

Image Source: imore.com

Most of the fitness bands in the market resemble chunky arm bands designed for men; however, thriving competition among large and small digital corporations have forced out fashionable yet highly functional fitness bands for the female demographic. Some even offer fitness trackers in pendant form or as minute devices which can be attached to the belt or inserted into side pockets.

Make sure to further research on this device if you plan to own one. Everybody has different fitness goals and needs and the market has numerous options for fitness trackers to suit your personal requirements.  

Kevin Foote is all for health and fitness. Are you struggling to keep your New Year’s fitness resolutions? Learn more health and nutrition tips here.

REPOST: The 7 most important fitness tracker measurements

With new tech wares being developed to keep track of our vital signs and biometrics, staying fit just gets easier. Popular Science lists down 7 must-have fitness trackers.  

Image Source: popsci.com

In early 2015, Apple will release its first major product since 2010 -- a health tracker dubbed Apple Watch -- that will reportedly log a litany of biometric information using 10 different sensors. The wrist device has the same aesthetic as the Nike Fuelband, FitBit Flex, and the countless other fitness bands already available. With a rising number of wearables hitting the shelves, you’d better know what information is vital and how to make the most of it.

1. Step Detection

An algorithm translates an accelerometer reading into distance traveled and helps estimate activity level and calories burned.

Healthy Range: About 10,000 steps per day

2. Pulse

A sensor opposite an LED monitors fluctuations in light transmitted through your finger. The rise and fall of light indicates heart rate.

Healthy Range: 60 -- 100 beats per minute

3. Heart Rate Variability

A heart rate monitor measures the variation of beat-to-beat intervals. High variability is indicative of good health and a high level of fitness.

Healthy Range: 18 -- 44 percent variability while resting

4. Blood Oxygenation

A pulse oximeter detects the light absorption of hemo-globin to see how much oxygen reaches your extremities. That data helps athletes determine whether they’ve recovered fully from a workout.

Healthy Range: 95 -- 99 percent

5. Body Temperature

A thermometer that sits against the skin assesses surface temperature. Abnormal spikes or drops are early warning signs of sickness.

Healthy Range: 97.6 -- 99.6 degrees Fahrenheit

6. Sleep

Sensitive 3-D accelerometers detect small body movement during the night. When paired with continuous heart rate monitoring, it offers a rough idea of sleep stages -- light, deep, and REM.

Healthy Range: 7-- 9 hours of sleep

7. Blood Sugar

Sensors measure glucose in skin fluid using infra-red light or low-power radio waves. For diabetics, it’s a pinprick alternative. For others, it’s a way to see how diet affects health.

Healthy Range: 80 -- 140 milligrams per deciliter


Kevin Foote believes it's okay to indulge in roast beef and pumpkin pie, as long as you sweat it out the next day. Follow him on Facebook for more fitness talk.

REPOST: Medicine Balls Are Ancient Fitness Tools That Keep Bouncing Back

Medicine balls are weighted balls that are often used for strength training and fitness development. They are ancient wellness tools that have remained basic fitness equipment in these modern times. The following Reuters article discusses their versatility and significance:  

Image Source: hartsport.com.au

(Reuters) - Medicine balls, the fitness tool as ancient as Hippocrates, have bounced, slammed, tossed and twisted their way into today's trendiest workouts, fitness experts say.

The durable, versatile spheres, which can range from 2 to 25 pounds (0.9 to 11 kg), fit into today’s most intense regimes, from boot camps to interval training.

Alonzo Wilson, creator of the New York City fitness studio Tone House, uses medicine ball exercises to strengthen and condition, and to boost team spirit.

He said the people who seek out his brand of extreme athletics often find medicine balls less daunting than his resistance harnesses or cords and ropes.

“They make people feel comfortable,” said Wilson, a former professional athlete. “We use them in partner throws, to hold and turn, to touch the ground with. Slamming the ball down while (jumping) in the air elevates the heart rate.”

In a fast-moving workout, he added, the balls allow freedom of movement.

“With a lot of machinery you’re kind of stuck,” he said. “But with the med ball you can run, jump, grab it, slam it and hold it while not staying in one spot.”

Daniel Taylor, the author of “Conditioning to the Core,” believes versatility is the secret of the medicine ball’s successful trickle-down from elite athletics to everyday workouts.

Image Source: woman.thenest.com

Taylor, head strength and conditioning coach at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, said at the most basic level it is a user-friendly weight for people who are nervous about weights.

"A pushup executed with a hand on a medicine ball will train stability,” he said. “Throw or slam it (from overhead or against a wall), it can train power efficiently and well.”

But novices should start in the lighter range, advises Deborah McConnell, master trainer at equipment manufacturer Life Fitness.

She said the balls reappeared with the rise of boot camp and small group training classes. Ancient drawings date the medicine ball to almost 3,000 years ago, when Persian wrestlers trained with sand-filled bladders.

In ancient Greece, the physician Hippocrates is said to have stuffed animal skins for patients to toss for “medicinal” purposes. Gladiators used them to prepare for the arena.

The last great medicine ball revival was in the early 1900s.

"There was a game called the Hooverball, like volleyball with a medicine ball tossed over the net,” said McConnell about the trend that started when President Herbert Hoover’s physician suggested his overweight patient use the ball to shape up.

Image Source: muscleandfitness.com

Chris Freytag, a health and fitness coach with the American Council on Exercise, said the latest comeback spurred a rebirth of other weighted balls.

The medicine ball is like a heavy basketball and made to bounce, she explained, while the slam ball is made to slam without breaking and the deadweight ball is sand-filled and does not bounce.

“Now it’s this chic thing,” she said, “maybe because it feels more like playing. You’re not going to toss a hand weight.”


Sports and nutrition expert Kevin Foote champions fitness as the pathway to a healthy life. Subscribe to his blog for more health and wellness articles.