Set yourself up for success – gathering the right data and working out how to map out goals in a smart way.
Can tech really help us?
Reaching beyond the marketing images and wording, is there actually benefit to using tech to help with our goals?
As previously mentioned, it definitely has its place and when used for direct measurements can provide excellent insights when we focus on the areas needed, and understand how to interrupt them.
We can look at an example of active time, our watch may say be active for x minutes throughout the day, once we’ve hit that target for a number of days/weeks, it then suggests we increase that time.
Perhaps the first few times this makes sense, and I would firmly be in the agree camp, the tricky part comes when it continues to offer the suggested increases. As we don’t have an infinite amount if time and energy.
The same can be said for calories burnt, floors climbed, distance travelled etc, so having an upper bound makes sense.
If we look into this why these are the targeted goals it makes sense, some of the changes we make are more difficult to measure, things like increased pace, increased weight lifted. The basis of time/distance/volume are much easier data points to calculate and present.
Just going to add here that there are some wearables that have a much more granular approach including heart rate mapping against workouts, distance and speed, and for those that need that level of data they are fantastic.
So what parts should we be looking at?
Consistency, given that the devices are recording constantly, they can help keep us going – using them to keep us going when we might not feel like it is a powerful tool, lots of devices can allow reminders to be set, these could be workout cues, hydration reminders or even using the step or floor counters (aside from the increases we spoke about earlier).
Distance, if our goal is one involving distance, we can utilise the device to record this, important note here is that we aren’t trying to continually get further or indeed faster just based on the data, that should form part of our plan. More so to check the averages we are completing and how we are looking against the plan, is there improvements inline with our planned progress?
Rest, slightly controversial one here, having seen and experienced some of the nuances of rest work rate scores and rest indicators, I now that they can on occasion be a little out…. I do however like the unwind and rest settings which can be set for the evenings that give us that little nudge in the right direction, having an unwind reminder 30 minutes before the suggested sleep reminder allows to lower our screen time, start to relax and get that all important sleep.
Sleep, clearly linked to rest, having a handle on how long we are sleeping for is good to again help remind us that we both need it and the quality, not suggesting that the tracking ability is perfect, just that making sure we are getting the hours in and not burning the candle at both ends.
When dialling into our training plan, the data we choose to focus on is critical, are we looking to imncrease distance? – measure over a longer period, we will have times when we fluctuate up and down with our performance, try not to adjust based on a single session. Equally when we are looking at different sessions, look at the in isolation, for example are we doing hill work? – only compare those sessions with are based on hill work.
This all sounds simple, but we can often get drawn into comparing everything, such as looking at the distance of said hill reps and then saying that’s similar in distance to xyz run so that means the pace should be this/that or the other….
Need help with understanding what data points to focus on? – Chat to one of the team here at SF info@spikefitness.co.uk or 07597215652.