INTRODUCTION
There are three types of adopters of modern exercise equipment: early adopters, non-adopters, and lazier adopters. One of the most popular fitness gadgets in my long life, aside from the key-adjustable skates of the ’50s, first appeared around 2007. That would be the Fitbit. This device is a huge success: the company has sold more than 100 million devices to more than 28 million people. He was not adopted, until very recently. I was all for anything that got people moving, but I personally didn’t see the value of a device for motivating or tracking activity. Because I enjoyed exercise, physical conditioning, and the various forms of endurance of athletic competition, I pooped, teased, and dismissed follow-through movements as a distraction and annoyance. I exercised almost daily for more than eight decades, and I don’t remember wishing I had an activity tracker.
AN EPIPHANY
However, after finding out that my health insurance company would provide a $160 tracking device for free, I decided to give the gadget a try.
Clever! After a day or two wearing this attractive, comfortable, and impressively practical dandy Fitbit Versa Lite marvel of modern technology, I’m no slacker anymore.
A Fitbit is one of many step-tracking products, typically worn on the wrist like a watch. If you’re anywhere near my age group, the device might initially remind you of the Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio. If so, forget it! We’ve come a long way since Dick Tracy’s comic book tool. That 1931 watch is a Bronze Age predecessor compared to the AI/space-age/Large Hadron Collider (LHC)-worthy Fitbit.
However, not everyone benefits from more exercise. In fact, high-level Superperson-type athletes who engage in marvelous feats of endurance could benefit from a reverse, anti-stepping Fitbit device that motivates, tracks, and rewards lack of exercise. this would be useful during which athletes benefit from not taking unnecessary steps, or even standing up when they could be lying down, recovering their exhausted bodies for the hard ordeal of competition that each new day demands.
RESTRICTIONS
This applies to riders in the three-week Tour de France. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, walking or being awake when not on a bike is practically heresy for Tour cyclists. They need rest between stages. This endurance wunderkind endures 21 brutal stages over the course of 2,164 miles, including mountain climbs. They obsess over conserving energy when they’re not on their bikes; they don’t come close to 10,000 total steps over the course of the entire run. (Source: Joshua Robinson, How to Wear Out a Tour de France Rider: Ask Him to Take a Ride, Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2020.)
In one of his many victories (all lost to cheating), Lance Armstrong covered 2,232 miles over the course of the Tour in 86 hours, 15 minutes, and 02 seconds, posting an average speed of 25.9 mph. Can you imagine the atta boy congratulatory badges a Fitbit would have laundered for a feat like that? Unfortunately, he missed it, due to the almost certainty that Tour cyclists and other professional athletes have to deal with other, more important metrics, such as hits, goals, touchdowns, times, points, etc.us. However, we ordinary mortals can have fun and be motivated by the search for 10,000 steps a day (the gold standard for Fitbit users), heart rate, calories burned, floors climbed, zones crossed, etc.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH FITBIT
I’ve always exercised regularly, as noted above, but activity tracking is a new experience. It’s motivating to have a convenient readout of data such as the number of steps taken, maximum and average heart rate, calories burned, distance traveled, stairs climbed, and much more. It also provides details, when set to do so, for specific activities, such as swimming, biking, running, walking, jogging, weights, golf, tennis, yoga, etc. It even sends out various badges when you reach certain levels, like 10,000 steps in a day (I don’t have less yet). Just yesterday I received the precious redwood forest badge, Proudly displayed on top of this RWR. He arrived in an email from Fitbit, with this high praise accompanying the badge:
Way to go! You have climbed 25 floors. The tallest trees on Earth cannot exceed the heights you have been conquering. No wonder you earned the Redwood Forest badge!
One activity that does NOT register, that I have included in my daily routine for the last six months for strength training (due to gym closures), is push-ups. I do 200 six days a week, 50 at a time during four stops on a one-mile walk; On the seventh day, instead of resting, blessing, and sanctifying the Earth, as God did after he created it, I settle for walking four miles and doing 500 push-ups, 50 at each of the ten stops.
Actually, my Fitbit can probably track push-ups, too; there’s more to learn, as the device has nearly as many features as an Apple Watch. In addition to the time, day of the week, and date, it has a stopwatch, alarm, weather, music, wallet, relaxation/breathing function, Alexa, a phone finder. Oh hell, it seems like it never ends. there’s probably a get rich quick button somewhere.
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION
I shared a copy of this essay with a colleague in Perth, Australia. I found your assessment very entertaining:
I smiled reading your conversion to the Fitbit promoter. God will be encouraged to see you so easily swayed by some nifty technology. Look in the mail for the next wrist device that counts the Lord’s Prayer of him and Amen before you reward him with Way Forward, he’s reached the first rung on the stairway to heaven. I’ve heard (similar to Trump’s say) that it’s common for people to convert as time runs out. I have even heard of people turning to spa treatments.
This led me to think that perhaps Fitbit enthusiasts should listen to Lord Chesterfield’s words: ‘Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and don’t just take it out and bang it to show you have one. If they ask you what time it is, say so, but don’t proclaim it every hour and without being asked, like the watchman. Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (22 September 1694-1773)
In other words, the good Lord (Chesterfield, that is) was urging fitness newsletter writers to spare us unsolicited details about your step count, heart rate, calories burned, stairs climbed, cardiac minutiae, and other insufferable details. . Plus point.
So whether you’re a fitness buff or a non-athlete, consider a tracker device. It’s inexpensive (and could be free if you have a good health insurance plan), versatile, and could lead to more daily movement which, if you’re not a professional athlete, can be a very good thing.
