THE FUTURE OF FITNESS A TECHIE’S GUIDE TO GETTING IN SHAPE
From tech that does it for you to tech that does it with you, exercising can be left to your own devices, writes
The current Silicon Age of rapid tech advancement is helping even the laziest among us to get fit with minimal effort. While there are still lots of higher LSM types who clock in with their personal trainers, and mid-LSMs who frequent the gym, technology has had a significant effect on the way people get fit, if you can afford the gadgets to go with it. Nowadays, technology can help you lose the flab in four easy steps, each with its own apparatus.
STEP 1 Get addicted to your wearable
A good place to start is the wearable fitness tracking device. In 2008, entrepreneurs James Park and Eric Friedman released the first Fitbit Tracker. According to Wired Magazine it looked like a clothespin had mated with a stapler. The steps you gained metered up on a dial that culminated in a blue flower — the reward of your march towards a magical 10,000 steps. Since then, smart watches have added things like alerts to move if you’ve been sedentary for too long, and sleep tracking. Devices are also being personalised so that they respond to your lifestyle habits and your body type. Some apps sync with your smart watch, reading your genetic profile and letting you programme your own fitness goals, recommending workouts and meals.
If you have an addictive personality these devices are particularly good for you: creating goals and then mindlessly motivating you towards them rewards the kind of compulsive behaviour typical of addicts. Before you know it you’ll be walking through the pain in your inflamed ankle for the reward of the 10,000-step beep. You’ll probably also lose some intrinsic human skills like your ability to incentivise yourself without digital assistance and your own intuition about your health, but who’s counting?
STEP 2 Show your online fitness community who’s boss
There’s nothing that has quite the motivating effect on our psyches as competition. Just when you’re about to collapse after your 10th burpie, the gym bunny with a hot body on the next mat is doing 20, so you tag an extra 11 onto your routine. Tech is great at utilising our innate competitiveness to get us to go the extra mile.
Steven Ward, CEO of a leading not-forprofit body that champions physical activity, says: “Immersive fitness has the potential to shake up our fitness regimes.”
Zwift, for example, is a popular, multiplayer online fitness platform that simulates cycling by matching the pedal strokes of users on stationary trainers to the pedal strokes of on-screen avatars, riding through animated environments. It allows thousands of people around the world to participate in group rides, workouts, and races. Athletes vie with other riders of similar ability, encouraging each other to push the limits. The same applies to Virtual Runner, a popular app that allows runners to interact with each other on race courses, popular running routes and scenic locations on any treadmill. Apps like Strava, Nike+ and Runkeeper do similar things — tracking your run, cycle or swim, and also letting you track the mileage of friends and strangers. Online coaching and online fitness communities are also helping to motivate participants, though with less of the competitive aspect.
STEP 3 Integrate tech and your body as much as possible
Until they manage to convince us that having microchips embedded in our bodies to monitor our health (and not spy on us and mine our data) is a good idea, there are some new technologies that are taking wearable a step further.
Put on your Hexoskin and it will constantly track your heartbeat, lung, sleep and activity data. The shirt connects to Bluetooth Smart compatible apps and devices to store your data, giving you advice about how your fitness is evolving over time.
Under Armour debuted its HOVR cushioning platform earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It has a built-in chip that syncs with the MapMyRun app to track GPS info, your running time, cadence, duration, and distance.
Sweatproof Soul Electronics Run Free
Pro Bio headphones have been described as a permanent running coach in your head. They measure speed, distance, cadence, step length and step width, as well as your head tilt, maximum leg force, shock, balance and vertical oscillation (how much your body bounces up and down). A realtime AI coach tells you, in your headphones, what to adjust, reports The Verge.
STEP 4 Let your bike ride you
They’re silent, effective and most importantly, fast — electric bicycles, like those made by Specialized, are revolutionising the already popular world of cycling. “If e-bikes are cheating, then I will happily consider myself an adulterous mountain biker,” says enthusiast Paddy O’Connell. For avid bike riders, the bikes add that extra bit of joy to the ride, giving you some superhuman strength when your tired muscles are aching for it. And for amateur riders, the bikes offer the opportunity to keep up with pros and really enjoy the ride. You have to peddle to keep the motor going, so there’s no chance of getting a completely free ride.
On that note, Bodytec is a relatively new exercise offering that uses electro muscle stimulation to tone you up. Electric impulses stimulate up to 90% of your muscles while doing basic exercise moves when you wear their cyborg-like suits, in essence shocking your muscles into shape with minimal effort on your part. LS