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How to Use GPS Tracking to Improve Your Health and Fitness
Until the beginning of the 21st century, fitness tracking meant using a stopwatch, graph paper, and charts to understand your progress. The advancement of mobile technology has revolutionized health monitoring and how one stays active. With over 80 percent of the world’s population owning a smartphone, the rise in wearable fitness trackers has been impeccable. From watches to wristbands, earbuds, phone apps, and more, here is how GPS can help improve your health and fitness.
Monitors Vital Health Data
Most GPS tracking gadgets can monitor your pulse and heart rate, which is essential in improving your overall health. Measuring your heartbeat per minute and pulse over a prolonged period are crucial signs of progressing your fitness levels.
Heart rate monitors use optical sensors to detect blood vessels under your skin, so you need to use wearable devices for this. They check for changes in the appearance of your blood and oxygenation levels. Although you shouldn’t depend on technology only on your health status, it’s the first indication of unusual trends. In case of a significant change in your heart rate or other medical factors, contact your doctor to get checked.
It Helps You Lose Weight
Many people exercise to shed off some pounds, and using GPS tracking can advance your efforts. One of the strategies that you can use to lose weight is tracking calories and maintaining a caloric deficit. That way, you know when and how many calories you should consume throughout the day to attain your goal weight.
By taking fewer calories than you usually would, your body is forced to find alternative energy sources – fat stores. To use a tracking device for this purpose, you must first determine your Active Metabolic Rate (AMR). The parameter uses your baseline calorie burn and any other activity to calculate the calories you burn. Your tracker can determine your AMR accurately when you key in your age, sex, height, and weight.
Measures Speed Improvement
Your speed is an indication of the heart’s health. Unfortunately, measuring how long it takes manually from one point to another is both time-consuming and susceptible to errors. A standard stopwatch can be inaccurate and may rely on human reaction times. Conventional methods are therefore not easy, especially when you are mentally and physically exhausted after working out.
On the contrary, a GPS tracker can:
- Measure your highest speed
- Measure your speed at different points
- Measure your average rate along with the workout activity
The measurements are helpful when preparing for races, whether it is swimming, running, or cycling. You stand a better chance of knowing whether your performances are improving or not. If you try a new technique, route, or track, you’ll track your performance and optimize it.
Enhances Your Bulking Efforts
People who want to build muscle can use fitness trackers to help with bulking up. Besides the usual tricks of building muscle like eating more protein, creating metabolic stressors, maintaining a caloric surplus, and resting enough, monitoring your progress using GPS tracking will go a long way too.
Although workouts are crucial for bodybuilders, the real growth happens during your resting hours. As long as you consume essential nutrients to sustain the development, you’ll bulk up in no time. Using fitness trackers that monitor the amount of protein you get from your meals will put you on track and make your bulking efforts consistent.
Offers Psychological Motivation
With the proper tracking devices, you can keep up with all your exercises. Since you know what you achieve every time you work out, you can determine what you should be doing next. It keeps a record of your daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly reports of your progress.
The availability of this information will put subconscious pressure on yourself, which is a good thing. You know the benefits of all your efforts and are motivated to keep doing them for better results. Having a clear objective of your ambition increases your focus and helps you attain your fitness goals.
Conclusion
Fitness trackers are also part of the fitness club software that most gym businesses use which give you insights into your routine to help you determine areas that require improvement. For instance, you might realize you take fewer steps over the weekend and take necessary measures to improve on that. You may also learn the dieting mistakes you are making and correct them. Therefore, the gadgets are vital for the user’s general wellbeing.