Choosing a Health and Fitness Ecosystem - Part 7 - The Apple Ecosystem

The 1st Generation Apple Watch was not the game changer people had hoped for. It wasn't really good for anything other than standard pedometer and HR functions. It required to always have your iPhone with you and was just not very diverse. However, with Apple Watch 2 and the updated Apple Watch, this has changed everything; specifically because of the Apple Watch 2. I will be focusing on the Apple Watch 2, going into a little detail on the watch, and then going over the ecosystem.

Fitness Watch or Smart Watch?

It's both. I won't sugar coat this though; it's one of the best smart watches, but still lacks greatly in the fitness watch department. However, the Apple Watch 2, in my opinion, is superior to most non-hardcore sports watches. So, if you are a triathlete or long distance runner like me, then Garmin, TomTom, Polar and Suunto are your choices. Yes, you can use others, but they just don't have the accuracy, sports tracking metrics and functions, and battery life that the 4 mentioned do.

Anyway, Apple Watch 2 is my focus here because I got to use one for about 5 months. As a note, I am going to be selling it because, although I love the smart watch features more than I can really properly describe, it doesn't even partially meet my sports training needs. Maybe in the near future some third party software company will figure out how to tap Watch OS to get more data, and Apple will improve battery life. Until then, I'll be sticking with my generic smart alerts on my Garmin 920xt.

About the Watch - From a fitness standpoint

So, the Apple Watch 2 has GPS and is waterproof. This makes the watch a fully functioning multi-sport watch. It still has wrist HR, thankfully improved from the first generation. You will need to charge your watch daily with a standard workout regiment. However, I found myself having to charge 2-3 times a day when I was doing multiple workouts, where both were using GPS and longer than 1 hour each. However, this was me being cautious; you can get away with only 1-2 charges. As a point of reference for readers, standard use for me was utilization of many apps throughout the day, as well as at least 1 workout, non-GPS, of 60 to 90 minutes. I would still have close to 20% battery life before I went to bed.

From a GPS standpoint, I found that once it picked up the signal, it was almost spot on for distances in outdoor swimming, outdoor running, and outdoor cycling. However, the map detail is severely lacking and you CAN NOT export to another service to see more detail. Thankfully it was close enough to my Garmin 920xt that I felt somewhat comfortable with the accuracy. You can use third party apps to get more detail, but they can only get so much data because Apple restricts a lot of the data available to other apps.

From a non-GPS standpoint, I found the watch to still be pretty good. It did not handle rapid variations in HR very well, but for stead-state workouts, it was almost identical. For treadmill running, I was pleasantly surprised how accurate the watch was for distance. It was never more than .2 miles under what the treadmill mileage would read, and never more than .1 miles under what my Garmin watch would read. However, if I did intervals with constantly varying paces, it became like most other watches; inaccurate. I did not play around with 3rd party apps much, so I didn't see if I could sync up a foot pod...maybe you can do this, I don't know. You can sync up a BT HR monitor though, which exponentially increases the battery life of the watch. I had a 2 hour trainer ride where my battery hardly drained on my watch while using HRM, versus a 45 min trainer ride without HRM. So this might be a good workaround if you are going to have really long workouts or workout days.

Apple Activity and Apple Health

Apple has two application for you to review you data; Apple Activity and Apple Health. Apple Activity is the software on your watch that tracks everything. It then sends the details to your phone so you can see more stats, maps if you did GPS, etc. It's a great design and extremely easy to see your data. There is virtually no learning curve on this. On the flip-side, there is too little data for the more data-centric athlete.

Apple Health lives exclusively on iOS. It basically is a repository of any health data that you can sync with it. So, anything from your watch ends up here. You can see trends in regards to HR, sleep (need 3rd part app or 3rd party accessories for sleep tracking), or any other stat you get into this app. It's not the most intuitive app, but has amazing customization, which I find great because I can really tailor it to what I want to see and what I really care about.

As I said though, Apple Health lives exclusively on iOS. To make this more difficult, Apple Activity has the same issue. Therefore, you can look at Apple's ecosystem as a closed loop, with no online portal. However, there are increasingly more apps which can pull data from Apple Health to display on their sites, such as MyFitness Pal. It's still not ideal though, but a choice made for security reasons by Apple. Right or wrong, that's how it is.

3rd Party Apps

As I have eluded to, there are lots of 3rd party apps that utilize more functionality and data capturing of the Apple Watch. Again though, they can only get what Apple makes accessible. There are still lots of 3rd party apps not using the GPS function of the watch very well either. Although Runkeeper uses it, the GPS seems to have more issues than using the native app or the Nike+ app. I am sure companies will get better with supporting ALL of the functionality on the Apple Watch 2. The beauty of Apple's ecosystem is that it can grow exponentially thanks to 3rd party app and hardware vendors. In addition, there are rumors that the next iteration of the Apple Watch will have a much better battery; but we shall see.

Final Thoughts

If you are primarily into general fitness, do some races - short or long, or like multiple sports and don't need long duration tracking, then the Apple Watch 2 has you covered. In addition, it's one of the best Smart Watches I have ever used. Android watches still have a ways to go, even though the Polar one is pretty nice. If you need a long battery life though, more accuracy, and more data, you will want to have a dedicated fitness watch for that part. And since Apple's ecosystem is mostly closed off, you will have to manually sync, if possible, to get the whole picture of your workouts. If I was just starting out in triathlon, and never had been spoiled with my Garmin, I would probably find the Apple Watch to be a perfect training partner. The final ecosystem, TomTom, is up next!

Choosing a Health and Fitness Ecosystem - Part 4 - The Polar Ecosystem

Polar Ecosystem

Polar has always been one of the top fitness brands since I can first remember. Their HR accuracy was always second to none and their devices were reliable and for a long time were the gold standard. They had struggled with the smartwatch, integrated GPS and smart fitness watch concepts, causing them to fall dramatically behind the likes of Garmin, TomTom and FitBit.

However, they have really stepped up and have an amazing line of products in addition to amazing mobile apps and a website to compliment it all. So, first up is the Polar Ecosystem.

Polar Flow Website

Polar Flow is Polar's portal to all things Polar health and fitness. The site features the following sections:

• Feed
• Explore
• Diary
• Progress
• Community
• Programs

Feed is just the standard activity and social feed of friends' activities. Explore is a really neat feature that allows you to see what others are doing and where, assuming they allow it to be shared. This is a really neat social feature that makes it incredibly easy to find training partners or groups. Diary is a an awesome tool. It allows you to both plan out training, see training schedules from Programs, and see what activities you completed on what day. For details behind your training, races, and progress, the Progress tab has all of the information that whatever Polar device you use can capture. Community is another social feature that allows you find groups that you can join for training, competition, etc. For example, if you are a Strava person, there are Strava groups and challenges on there.

Finally, the Programs section. I wanted to break this out of the other description because this is an amazing tool which you won't find on most sites, especially for free. To put it simply, Programs is a tool that allows you to build a running program for common distance events; 5k, 10k, half marathon, full marathon. It's only for running, but it's amazing. And unlike most sites that provide running programs, Polar keeps in mind how important strength training is. Once you create the program, it will appear in your Diary, and depending on your Polar device, it will load the training plans onto your device. I am not going into specific details, but you can explore on your own and check out the screen captures I provided.

Polar Flow and Polar Beat Apps

Polar also has the Polar Flow and Polar Beat apps for iPhone and Android. One thing that makes these such great applications is that it can turn your phone into a fitness device and does not care if you have a Polar device or not. I am not sure why all companies do not follow Polar's lead on Polar Beat. Polar Flow serves as a dashboard and sync tool for supported Polar devices, from watches to accessories to cycling tools. I used to use a standard Polar HR watch and monitor, which cannot sync with a phone (it did had a USB sync though), as they do not have Bluetooth. However, with Polar's H7 combo Bluetooth and Polar Frequency heart rate monitor, I was able to use my watch and also use my phone with the Polar Beat app. Eventually I stopped using the watch because the Beat app had GPS and tracked way more data. As a quick note, Polar Flow used to be both apps, and I am not sure why they really had to turn it into 2 apps, other than for marketing and branding purposes.

Devices

Polar currently has a very nice lineup of devices, ranging from activity trackers to multi-sport devices. They pretty much have everything to cover your healthy lifestyle. I am not going into the list, but you can visit Polar's website to learn about all of the offerings.

Polar Beat and H7 Heart Rate Monitor

Polar Flow

Final Thoughts

Overall, Polar is still a top company when it comes to fitness and fitness tracking. They have come a long way in smarter devices and activity tracking. If you know people who are using Polar, it's an awesome ecosystem to work on. Plus, as an added bonus, most gym equipment supports the native Polar signal. Up next is FitBit.

NOTE: Both Polar Flow and Beat pictures are taken from Polar's website and are property of Polar.

Choosing a Health and Fitness Ecosystem - Part 2 - Activity Tracker vs Fitness Device

Activity Tracker vs Fitness Device

The health and fitness tech market is growing exponentially, with everyone either wanting to get healthy or being obsessed with numbers. However, before you jump on the bandwagon, you need to know the difference between an activity tracker and a fitness device. They are starting to become one-in-the-same for the most mainstream brands, but there is a clear difference and this will hopefully help you when you are deciding what to choose.

Activity Tracker

An activity tracker does just what the name implies; it tracks your daily activeness or lack-there-of. At the most basic, an activity tracker will tell you how many steps you have taken. Most however include sleep tracking as well. Once you start going up the line, you will get automatic workout tracking, integrated or external heart rate tracking and other metrics related to your steps, such as stairs climbed and inactivity periods.

It should be noted that if you are not a huge fitness person and you just want to track the basics because you either something to keep you on point with hitting your step goals or achieving some level of activity toward health or weight goals, then an activity tracker is key. And most companies are hitting up these devices with extremely stylish designs. For example, Withings has an activity tracker watch that is really slick, the Activite Steel and Saphire. Garmin just came out with one as well, the Vivomove; and it's probably the most attractive looking activity tracker I have seen yet.

Other devices can track activity as well, like smart phones and smart watches. So, your iPhone or Android phone will probably have a step tracker app or you can get an app that can utilize your phone to track that. But Apple Watch and Gear S2 can track your workouts like mainstream fitness devices, right? Yes and no. I leave the super technical details to DC Rainmaker, but basically these devices are not the best when it comes to true fitness tracking. The have severe accuracy flaws. Now, there are some 3rd party companies that have apps to correct some of this, but overall, if you are training for races or have a huge focus on working out, then an activity tracker is going become very limiting at some point.

Fitness Device

And now the fitness device. This is a device that is purely designed for tracking detailed metrics about your workouts. This can include heart rate min, max, average, and zones, calories burned, intensity levels, elevation changes, distance, speed, instant pace, and the list goes on and on. Now, thanks to FitBit being so competitive, they forced companies like Garmin, Polar and Tom Tom to incorporate activity tracking into their newer devices. So nowadays, a fitness device usually has all of the activity tracking components in addition to everything it already has and is designed for. This basically gives you an extremely detailed and advanced device that will give you a holistic look at your day-to-day lifestyle and the impacts of your workouts, activities, sleep, and more.

In addition, thanks to Apple, many fitness devices and activity trackers alike are incorporating smart features now as well; apps, music control, message alerts from your phone, and much more.

How Do I Choose?

This is fairly simple in most cases. If you are just trying to be active or you have goals set by your work, then a standard activity tracker will meet all of your needs and then some. However, if you consistently workout by doing running, cycling, strength training, swimming, other, or a combination of them, then you will want a fitness device so you can see metrics specific to the workout you did so you can keep improving for whatever goals you have. This is not to say that a fitness device wouldn't be good for someone who is just looking for standard activity tracking, but it will definitely give you way more than you want or need...although for some of the extra smart features or style, in some cases, it might be worth it.

Summary

This was a short article, but I wanted to make sure you understood the top level difference between devices before I start going into more details on which ones to buy, how to customize your ecosystem, and more. Up next I will be discussing calories burned across activity trackers and fitness devices.

Choosing a Health and Fitness Ecosystem - Part 1 - The Basics

The Basics

If you don't have a naturally fit and healthy lifestyle, then it may be a struggle to figure out what you need to help motivate, track, analyze and progress. There fitness devices, smart devices with fitness features, apps for smart phones, websites, software, and much more. Not only that, each group has typically no less than a dozen or two companies / brands you can go with. This alone makes wanting to track what you do intimidating and can stop you before you get started.

So, let's cover a simple checklist to help you navigate this crazy world of health and fitness. As a note, I will be doing more in-depth posts on various options, ecosystems, and advice to blend your lifestyle into the ecosystem you choose.

What Do I Need to Get Started?

You need to first ask yourself, "Do I really care about tech and tracking as a way to motivate myself?" If the answer is no, stop reading and go get healthy! If the answer is yes, which is how it is for most people, then let's figure out what your initial motivation is.

Most people want to be healthier or improve something about how they look and/or feel. Some people also have major health issues that should be addressed. However, this isn't always enough to get going. Once you decide to get going, you then need a way to keep yourself motivated.

We'll start with the easiest and fastest growing motivator: Your job, school, or coach has laid down the hammer and said you either have to be more fit and healthy, or there is some awesome financial perk to being fit and healthy. This is the easiest to address. In most cases, especially with companies, there is already some tool that the company is going to use, such as Viverae or Shapeup. Almost all of these tools link to other fitness or tracking websites and electronics. The most common examples are MyFitnessPal and FitBit. So, if your company is your motivator, your ecosystem is simple: Use what they have, get a fitness tracking device that will connect to that ecosystem, and if you plan on tracking nutrition, either find a site that allows you to track what you eat or utilize the site of the fitness device you got, assuming they offer food tracking.

Let me give you a common scenario. Let's say your company uses Viverae. Their portal allows you to track sleep, steps, activities, and nutrition. Most companies who have this setup also offer company stores or discounts to activity trackers, the most common being FitBit. FitBit is a one-stop-shop for general activity, health and fitness tracking. For example, the FitBit Flex HR will track you steps, sleep and activities. This data will automatically (once you set it up) sync to the Viverae portal. In addition, FitBit's website and app allow you to track your nutrition as well. This also syncs with Viverae. You can also get a FitBit scale that will get your weight and other vitals. This can also sync with Viverae. You now have an all-inclusive ecosystem with minimal effort:

1. Viverae Portal to show all progress for whatever bonus you will get from your company
2. FitBit Device
3. FitBit Application and Website

That's it! It's not as intimidating when you see it that way.

But I Do More than Just Health and Fitness for Work, School, or a Team

That's fine. And maybe you already have fitness devices or activity trackers you currently use. This can be both an easier and more complicated scenario. If you are using one of the major brands, like Garmin, FitBit, Jawbone, Under Armour, Polar, or TomTom, then those companies already sync pretty well with other websites and portals. In regards to nutrition and health tracking, if you are using one of the major ones like MyFitnessPal, then that syncs with all of the major activity and fitness tracking brands. Therefore, for those who are doing multi-sport, activities other than walking/running, and so on, there is an easy way to sync everything up.

Now, the caveat here is that you may need to be using multiple sites and apps to see everything, but it's still rather minimal. Here is an example of a common scenario for someone who does multiple sports in addition to nutrition tracking.

1. Garmin VivoActive HR
2. MyFitnessPal
3. Withings Scale

This scenario is very common. And it's also the easiest to manage. Now, there are other sites you can sync your data to for a different or more in-depth look at your workout and health data, but that is completely optional. However, let's say you have a device that doesn't sync up well with other sites you want to use. There are websites out there that will sync with virtually anything that can give them data. In turn, they will then format that data and send it other sites you use. So, if your fitness device doesn't sync with MyFitnessPal, for example, you can use a site such as tapiriik.

In Summary

Ideally, you want to stick with an existing ecosystem, especially when it comes to devices. So, if your planned support group all use FitBit, and FitBit's devices meet your needs, don't look any further. If you have tons of friends who have all sorts of devices, find a site that can sync with all of them, and then get whatever device looks the nicest or is the easiest to use. Up next I'll cover the difference between an activity tracker and fitness device, and how to choose the right one for you.

Polar FT40 Review

I have had my Polar FT40 for about 3 years now. I purchased it for 2 reasons; 1) It was one of the few watches out at the time that had great reviews on overall accuracy of calorie expenditure during a workout and 2) It was Polar, so I knew the heart rate tracking was going to be very accurate and I could train in zones. Now, the FT40 does not have specific zone training settings, so this was a manual effort; I really only cared if my heart rate went too high. I also wanted a watch that was designed to be able to track fat vs. cardio; basically meaning that I wanted to figure out approximate calorie burn when I was doing weight lifting or HIIT workouts, in addition to my cardio workouts.

Watch Functions and Setup

When I bought the watch, it came with the manual, software installation CD, heart rate strap, heart rate monitor, USB sync dock, and the watch. I had to setup the watch first, since part of the software installation process was to sync the watch to the software. Watch setup was very easy; you put in your gender, height, weight, date of birth, and activity level, and set the time and date.

For more options from the main screen, press the bottom right button. The first option is settings. Now press the right middle button. Here are the Training Settings:

1. Training Sounds
• Off, Soft, Loud, Very Loud
• Pick whichever you want. When I used to listen to music, I turned the sound off, but since I don't usually listen to music now, I usually set the noise to Loud, which is usually a good volume to hear over gym noise or a treadmill motor.
2. Heart Rate View
• Beats Per Minutes or Percent of Maximum
• I do BPM because I don't train based on % of max, but if you do, you can
3. HeartTouch
• The Polar explanation says it better than I can: "When HeartTouch is on, different training information during training can be accessed without pressing buttons, for instance, when gloves make pressing buttons difficult, by bringing your training computer close to your transmitter."
• I personally use it so I can keep session duration displayed on the watch, and then when I want to see what time it is, instead of scrolling through the displays, which is a pain, I just move the watch near the heart rate monitor, and the time will be displayed.
• Per the manual and my usage, HeartTouch only displays the time, and no other display values...HeartTouch is either On or Off.
4. Heart Rate Upper Limit
• This value is set based on your personal info when you first setup the watch. However, if you are in amazing cardio shape, your max HR may be a lot higher. Therefore, you can change this if you know your max HR is different.

Other options on the main selection menu after Settings are Fitness Test and Data. You can read below about Fitness Test. For Data, you get some nice options:

1. Training Files
• Starts with most recent workout
• Displayed date, time of workout, duration of workout
• Press the right middle button to see details
• Calories
• This is your calories burned during the workout
• Cal. Fat
• This is the fat percentage of calories burned
• Average
• Average Heart Rate during session
• Maximum
• Maximum Heart Rate during session
• Fat Burn
• Amount of time you were in the fat burning zone
• This time is usually higher during low intensity workouts, such as strength training
• Fitness
• Amount of time you were in the fitness zone (or cardiovascular zone)
• Typically for runs, biking, or other purely cardio workouts, most of your session time will appear here.
2. Week Summaries
• Shows current week first
• Graph shows activity level of selected week vs. other weeks
• Pressing the middle right button, you can see the details for that week
• Duration (overall for all sessions)
• Calories (total from all sessions)
• Sessions (total sessions for week)
3. Totals since (when you first started using the watch)
• This is a really awesome feature, as you can see how awesome you are
• The one problem is that the max Duration time is 99 hour, 59 minutes, so although it will keep adding sessions and calories, your Duration will stop at 99h:59m
• Displays Duration, Sessions, and Calories
4. Delete Files
• Deletes your currently stored files...if your storage is full and you need to do a workout, you may need to do this
5. Reset Week Summaries
• Same as Delete files
6. Reset Totals
• Same as Delete files
• This is good to use if you are trying to achieve certain goals. This way you can see how many sessions, total duration, and total calories burned to achieve your goal. Then you can reset for you next goal.

Recommendations for Initial Use

After you have setup your watch, signed up on Polar Fitness website and are ready for a workout, I recommend doing 2 things. It's important to know 2 things; what is your resting heart rate and what heart rate range should you be working out in. Heart rate ranges for age and gender are good guides, but people who fall on either extreme end of the spectrum may either hurt themselves or not get enough out of a workout. For example, someone who is extremely out of shape, overweight, and has no real fitness stamina, then their heart rate range is going to be significantly less than another person who is in the middle of the spectrum in the same age group and gender. So, make sure to do the fitness test.

To do the fitness test, press the bottom right button 2 times, then press the right middle button. Make sure you heart rate monitor is on. You also want to do the following:

• Find a relaxed environment to do the test
• Avoid any physical activity prior to test, or any food, drink, or medicine that could alter your heart rate...do this for up to 1 day before test
• Avoid any large meals at least 2 hours before test (I tried test this way and right after a large meal and got the same results)
• Make sure if you are doing the test multiple times over time, always do it in the same conditions

Then, you can start the test, wait 5 minutes for it to finish, and see your results. You will then be asked to update your VO2Max, at which point you should, since it will make calorie burn more accurate.

My result for example, the first time I took the test mine was 42. Per the chart in the manual, that means my VO2Max was on the low end of being moderately good. The last time I took it I was at 53, which is very good. So, you can see I have improved. In essence, the fitness test is Polar's version of trying to determine your VO2Max. Compared to getting your actual VO2Max tested, it's not the greatest, but compared to most other calculators and competitor watches, it's one of the most accurate.

Training

When you want to start your workout, press the middle right button and wait for the watch to pickup the heart rate monitor signal. If you want to start, just press the middle right button again and go! If you need to pause, press the bottom left button, and the press the middle right button to resume. if you are done, press the bottom left button twice.

If you want to customize your workout, before pressing the middle right button a second time, press the bottom right button to see Training Settings, and then press the middle right button to see options.

• Training Sounds
• If you want beeps or not, and how loud
• Heart Rate View
• BPM or % of Max...whatever you want to display based on your training session
• Heart Touch
• I usually keep it on all of the time so I can see the current time if I need to
• Heart Rate Upper Limit
• If you are trying to keep from going above a certain heart rate, set the upper limit and make sure you have Training Sounds enabled so you know if you go over

Sadly, there are no other special training settings. However, there are plenty of other models you can get for this. But for a watch to get you accurate calorie burn from workouts, this is definitely the watch for you.