Wearables in Fitness: Options, Positives and Negatives
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Fitness is a technologically-diverse industry with hundreds of players vying to bring the newest and best devices and programs to the market. These companies offer a variety of options to make workouts more effective, exercise more exciting and tracking your results easier. These devices range from simple pedometers that measure how many steps an individual takes in a day to complicated treadmills that allow injured athletes to run at a percentage of their full body weight to improve recovery times. This article would quickly turn into a book if we were to try to cover all angles of fitness and tech, so we will be focusing on what the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) predicts will be the biggest trend in 2025, Wearables [1].
What are wearables? Wearables are any kind of electronic device designed to be worn on a person’s body. There are many different types of wearables, a short list of the most common ones found today include:
Smartwatches
The Apple watch, Fitbit, and other multi-use devices that are worn on a daily basis similar to classic wristwatches. These devices can tell the time, count your steps during your workout and can tell you if you fall into such health crisis such as A-Fib among dozens of other features.
Smart Jewelry
Commonly worn as rings, but also available as necklace pendants and bracelets. These devices use biometric markers such as body temperature and heart rate to track what the user is doing. Some common brands include the Oura Ring, Samsung Galaxy Ring, and the Evie Ring [2][3].
Smart Clothing
Seen commonly on the Soccer pitch, there are now wearable shirts and other clothing garments that track health and fitness markers of athletes. Professional soccer and basketball associations have been pioneering in the use of this integrated technology to track athletes’ health and fitness, minute-by-minute, while on the field. The leading brand internationally now is the STATsports tracker [4].
Smart Glasses and Virtual Reality
Smart glasses and Virtual Reality devices are a newer and currently less adopted technology in fitness. However, there are many companies who see these devices as the future of health and wellness. Some brands include Solos smart glasses, Meta Quest and ActiveLook [5][6].
This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wearables in fitness as new devices and ideas continue to come online all the time. The question now becomes, with all of this hype and noise surrounding them, are these devices effective, and do they truly add to the health and well-being of their users?
The Benefits
Wearables would not be the number one trend in the fitness and wellness industry year after year if there were not numerous benefits to using them. To name just a few:
Accountability
The device’s ability to track an individuals’ movement every day of the week and report back to the users themselves, or even to a coach who has access to the data, is a great way to ensure athletes and everyday people stick to their programs and in-turn achieve the goals they are looking for.
Accuracy
A wearable that tracks someone’s movement on a run, for instance, ensures that they are working at a level necessary to elicit the changes in performance they are training for. Otherwise, without the device, they are only estimating success by their perceived exertion and not by how hard their body is actually working.
Safety
Many of these devices can now detect potential health problems an individual is experiencing before they (or their doctors) may know they are happening. Atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and falls are all things that are monitored and recorded by most devices today. Some will even call paramedics if they detect a serious health anomaly.
Fun
Wearables bring a whole new degree of fun to staying active. Users often report the enjoyment they experience when they achieve the goals on their devices. It is also a fun way to share, compete and support friends and family in achieving health goals together by connecting devices and posting results.
The Negatives
As with all technology, with the positives come some downsides. These can be eased through proper use of devices and thoughtful planning of how to best utilize them. However they are certainly something to be aware of before investing in the latest and greatest fitness wearable.
Anxiety
Some individuals have experienced stress and anxiety about achieving fitness goals and surpassing their exercise targets while utilizing fitness wearables. This can become problematic as the wearable can create a negative cycle for susceptible people where the benefits are outweighed by the stress caused using them [7][8].
Injury Issues
While the wearable device can give users the sheer numbers of what the body is experiencing, it cannot give a truly wholistic picture of what the individual is feeling. This can lead to overtraining and injury as athletes will push through pain and discomfort to achieve various goals stated on their digital training program. There are of course wearables that are beneficial as well when it comes to preventing or detecting injury, but listening to the body over the device is extremely important [9].
Data Security and Privacy
Like anything done on the internet and via technology, most of the data that is collected by the wearable device is a valuable commodity. Although most devices have strong data security and privacy protocols built-in, there is still a very real risk that extremely personal information could be compromised in a data breach or utilized in a nefarious way by unscrupulous companies.
The Future
Where are wearables going in the near and far future and what should the industry expect? From the ACSM’s trend predictions to simply walking down the street every day and seeing just how many people are wearing smart devices, it is clear that they are here to stay. Over just the past few years, the accuracy and dependability of devices has consistently improved. With more computing power, AI and simply more time to perfect programming, there is no doubt the accuracy will reach close to medically acceptable levels very quickly. The devices will also become more compatible across the board with existing, more “traditional” fitness companies: similar to the partnership between Garmin and fitness hardware manufacturer Technogym [10]. These partnerships will make for more accurate tracking and hopefully better health results for all users. A day where the doctor prescribes a program and tracks activity through your watch or ring is fast approaching and if the negatives associated with wearables can be mitigated, they might just revolutionize the health and fitness industry in ways never before seen . . . and seen in more integrated ways within commercial real estate as well.
References
1. https://www.acsm.org/education-resources/trending-topics-resources/acsm-fitness-trends
2. https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/fitness-trackers/best-smart-ring
4. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4966509/2023/10/19/wearable-technology-in-football/
6. https://www.meta.com/quest/fitness/?srsltid=AfmBOoqoexiqVwOgdT3tOjrB87gSWOfwQXUBzI08eNFW7Motl4FaLgTG
8. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10777278/