Fitbit could have constructed its repute on serving to individuals hit 10,000 steps, however the firm’s present suite of sleep, weight loss program, and train options additionally makes its merchandise invaluable to aggressive athletes. It’s why staff Lotto-Soudal requested Fitbit to offer Fitbit Cost 2s for them to make use of throughout this yr’s Tour de France, and why the Australian nationwide swim staff partnered with Fitbit to outfit its greater than 100 coaches, swimmers, and employees with Fitbit Surge and Fitbit Flex 2.
Under, the highest 13 methods Fitbit helps these athletes—in addition to its ambassadors—and how one can additionally benefit from these athletic-performance-boosting options.
How Fitbit Units Can Assist You Get Race Prepared
Precisely Observe Your Exercise Stats
Not all athletes prepare the identical means, which is why not all Fitbit merchandise are alike. By way of exercise monitoring, Fitbit Ionic is essentially the most strong and offers you the very best thought of what’s accessible. It presents on-board GPS—for correct tempo, distance, elevation climbed, break up occasions, in addition to a map of your stroll, run, or trip route on-device with out having to hold your telephone—steady coronary heart charge and coronary heart charge zone reporting (see “Exercise On the Proper Depth,” beneath), water resistance as much as 50 meters, an interval timer, and an train mode that may seize real-time stats of over 20 forms of actions (for any cross coaching you do). Study extra about Ionic’s full set of options right here or go to Fitbit.com/examine to search out the machine that most closely fits you.
Go Longer
Future or trip scheduled? Your Fitbit machine can go the gap—and assist you get there, too.
Fitbit Alta HR can last as long as 7 days on a single cost; Fitbit Cost 2 stays powered for about 5 days, and Ionic for as much as 5 days (or as much as 10 hours when utilizing GPS or enjoying music). Battery life varies with use and different components, so for extra data learn Can I enhance my Fitbit machine’s battery life?
Fearful about your batteries operating low. In case you prepare with Ionic, you’ll be able to pay for meals and drinks with a swipe of your wrist wherever contactless funds are accepted utilizing Fitbit Pay*.
Join With Likeminded Athletes
The Fitbit app has a built-in digital neighborhood with topic-specific teams like Cardio, Working, Swimming, Yoga, Climbing, Strolling, Biking, Power Coaching, Accidents, and extra, making it simple to search out new associates, ask questions, and get recommendation.
To hitch one, faucet the Group tab on the backside of the Fitbit app. Then navigate over to Teams or scroll down and faucet “Uncover Extra Teams.” When you be part of, you’ll find a way see the posts of different group members and publish one thing of your personal. Their posts can even seem in your Feed.
In case you personal Fitbit Ionic, you’ll additionally have the ability to obtain a Strava app. (Need much more analytics and motivation? Go to promo.strava.com/fitbit-ionic/ to get a 60-day free trial of Strava Premium.)
Keep Motivated
Irrespective of how devoted you might be, everybody has days after they simply can’t muster the willpower to work out. On these days, lean on Fitbit. Open your app and absorb all of the tremendous inspirational Group selfies or ditch the health club and do a Fitbit Coach exercise in your front room.
Get Ample Relaxation
Apart from being good to your well being, a full evening’s sleep can also be important to consideration, focus, bodily functioning, muscle reminiscence, therapeutic, and restoration. However logging sufficient shuteye generally is a problem, particularly for aggressive athletes juggling work, coaching, and people pre-race nerves.
What do the professionals do? Prioritize and observe it. “Sleep is the greatest factor,” says Dallas Mavericks ahead and Fitbit ambassador Harrison Barnes. “I observe my sleep every evening to ensure I’m rested and recovered so I’m at my finest on the courtroom the subsequent day.”
Husband-and-wife distance-running duo Sara and Ryan Corridor additionally place quite a lot of inventory of their sleep length and high quality. “If these two matrices are each good then I’m going full throttle within the health club,” says former skilled runner and Fitbit ambassador Ryan Corridor. “Nevertheless if I’ve missed a few hours of sleep, then I would like to regulate my exercise and never elevate as heavy or aggressive as normal.” Sara provides, “I’ll have a look at it very first thing within the morning and return to sleep if I haven’t gotten sufficient.”
How a lot sleep do you want? The CDC recommends adults get no less than 7 hours an evening, however you could want kind of relying in your private physique chemistry and exercise ranges. To zero in on what’s finest for you, take note of your sleep length and Sleep Levels within the Fitbit app (accessible with any heart-rate enabled Fitbit machine), after which ask your self how you’re feeling, suggests Fitbit sleep marketing consultant Allison Siebern, PhD, consulting assistant professor at The Stanford Middle for Sleep Sciences and Drugs and director of Sleep Well being Integrative Program on the Veterans Affairs Medical Middle in Fayetteville, NC.
In case your sleep levels are falling outdoors the averages however you’re feeling refreshed and engaged, then you definitely’re seemingly getting the amount and high quality of sleep you want. Use that as your baseline after which set a Bedtime Reminder and silent alarm that can assist you follow a constant sleep schedule.
Keep on High of Your Hydration
You’ve little doubt heard the 8-glasses-of-water-a-day recommendation, however are you aware a lot water your physique wants? Sadly it’s not a static quantity. “As a result of the quantity of sweat and sodium athletes lose is extremely variable, it’s necessary to grasp particular person wants and develop a personalised [hydration] plan, together with each fluid and salt,” says Lauren Antonucci, a registered dietitian and triathlete.
Carry out a sweat check to calculate your sweat charge and if you’re a heavy sweater, purpose to replenish 75 p.c of misplaced fluids. You’ll be able to set a water-consumption objective within the Fitbit app and simply log your consumption by the glass or bottle. The app will inform you if you’ve hit your objective.
Gasoline Your Physique With The Proper Vitamins
What you eat could make or break not solely how your physique features however how you’re feeling whereas competing. So consuming healthfully is necessary—and one thing Barnes continues to be fine-tuning.
“Once you’re touring as a lot as I do, weight loss program is sort of the one factor you are able to do a greater job of controlling,” says Barnes. “This season goes to be totally different. Not essentially paleo—as a result of I really feel like if you minimize out the carbs, your vitality will get just a little low—however one thing sort of alongside that observe. Simply cleaner consuming can be a giant factor.”
Learn up on the right way to gasoline to your sport, after which decide to meals logging for no less than per week so you’ll be able to see precisely what you’re consuming and the place you’ve gotten room for enchancment. Analysis exhibits that aggressive athletes can profit from tailoring their energy and macronutrients to their coaching stage and depth.
Work Out At The Proper Depth
Exercising in response to coronary heart charge is previous hat for endurance athletes like Ryan Corridor: “Monitoring my coronary heart charge throughout train is a good way for me to know I’m staying in no matter zone I’m desiring to be in,” says Ryan. “So if I’m operating simple I do know my coronary heart charge needs to be within the 120-130 beats-per-minute (bpm) vary, and if I’m operating onerous I do know I have to get my coronary heart charge as much as 150-170 bpm.” However it will also be precious to sport-specific athletes like Barnes.
Barnes just lately advised Fitbit that he started utilizing goal coronary heart charge coaching final summer time as a solution to get fitter and enhance his restoration. “Hitting a coronary heart charge of 130 and sustaining that for 45 minutes is essential for my off-day coaching,” says Barnes. “It’s helped take my conditioning to a different stage.”
Whether or not you’re a target-heart-rate-training veteran or new to the apply, Fitbit may help. The first step includes establishing your coronary heart charge zones. In case you have a Fitbit machine with PurePulse, the Fitbit app does the be just right for you utilizing a typical age-related method (particulars right here). Nevertheless, you can even observe these instructions to set customized coronary heart charge zones.
As soon as your zones are set, all it’s a must to do is keep throughout the one which corresponds to your objective. Glancing at your tracker or watch throughout train is a straightforward solution to verify—for example, you probably have a Fitbit Cost 2, the placement of the center in your show (and the accompanying textual content) will inform you which coronary heart charge zone you’re at present in. However you can even verify your post-workout abstract within the app to see precisely what number of minutes you spent in every zone.
Monitor Your Health Degree
Setting a brand new race private finest or getting an costly stress check isn’t the one means you’ll be able to inform in the event you’re getting fitter. In case you have an Alta HR, Cost 2, Blaze or Ionic, Fitbit’s Cardio Health Rating function estimates your VO2max, the gold-standard measurement of how nicely your physique makes use of oxygen throughout train. For essentially the most exact rating, use multisport mode in your machine to trace a 10-minute (or longer) run on a flat course with GPS (if it’s accessible in your machine and also you haven’t already achieved so just lately). As soon as the exercise syncs together with your Fitbit app, your Cardio Health Rating will routinely replace. To seek out this data, faucet the heart-rate tile in your Fitbit app dashboard, then swipe left on the highest graph.
Management Your Whole Coaching Load
How a lot relaxation you want isn’t simply depending on how a lot you prepare, however in your non-exercise exercise as nicely. “We at all times consider how onerous we prepare however not often can we consider how a lot we’re transferring,” says Ryan Corridor. “Monitoring steps offers me a very good total image of how lively my day was and if I would like to regulate my coaching based mostly on how a lot time I’ve already spent on my ft.”
That is very true instantly earlier than a contest. Sara Corridor tries to maintain her whole mileage low heading right into a race. “For instance,” she says, “two days earlier than my objective race I received misplaced on a layover run and ran round lots inside and out of doors an airport, and appeared on the Fitbit app afterwards to see how a lot mileage I’d been on my ft. I adjusted my run accordingly the subsequent day.”
I at all times inform the youngsters that I coach that I need them transferring as little as potential previous to cross-country races and sitting as a lot as potential to avoid wasting their legs for the race,” says Ryan. “So even on a regular basis actions like strolling up stairs I attempt to have my athletes keep away from previous to races.”
A short pre-race exercise can prime you to carry out, however outdoors of that, you may additionally wish to contemplate constructing further relaxation into your day.
Outsmart Overtraining Syndrome
An elevated resting coronary heart charge—the center charge measured if you’re awake, calm, snug, and haven’t just lately exerted your self—will be an early indicator of overtraining syndrome. However till comparatively just lately, getting an correct studying was tough (except you have been a kind of athletes who have been into sporting a chest strap to mattress).
Enter Fitbit’s wrist-based heart-rate-tracking units, which makes use of coronary heart charge knowledge from if you’re awake and asleep to estimate your resting coronary heart charge. As a result of these units measure coronary heart charge constantly and will be comfortably worn 24 hours a day, no further work is required in your finish to calculate resting coronary heart charge. Simply have a look at your machine or open the Fitbit app and faucet on the center charge tile on the dashboard. The graph on the high of the display screen will be expanded to see your common resting coronary heart charge over longer intervals of time.
“I’ve used resting coronary heart charge for years to ensure I used to be recovering nicely,” says Ryan Corridor. “Up to now, it was onerous to get an correct learn as I used to be manually making an attempt to depend my coronary heart charge whereas making an attempt to put as nonetheless as potential upon waking. This result in quite a lot of questionable knowledge and it was a ache so I wasn’t very in line with it. My Ionic takes all of the ache out of monitoring coronary heart charge and offers correct knowledge.”
Management Your Weight
Whether or not you wish to shed some pounds, achieve weight, or simply keep your physique, the instruments you want are the identical: simple meals logging (accessible on the Fitbit app), all-day calorie-burn monitoring (accessible with any heart-rate enabled Fitbit machine), and a wise scale like Fitbit Aria 2, which measures your weight, BMI, physique fats share, and lean mass. “I wish to change each calorie I burn (except I’m making an attempt to realize or shed some pounds),” says Ryan Corridor. “Fitbit makes it easy for me to ensure my energy in match my energy out.”
See All Your Information in One Place
Maybe the most important benefit of utilizing one machine to trace all of your well being and wellness actions is the comfort of with the ability to retailer, discover, and analyze your knowledge in a single place—the Fitbit app. From steps, to weight, to energy burned, to exercise summaries, your stats are simply accessible 24/7, which makes staying motivated, accountable, and knowledgeable a lot simpler. Questioning why one thing is working (or not)? Verify your dashboard. Must reply a query out of your physician about one in every of your well being habits? Verify your dashboard. Questioning whether or not you’re prepared to your A-race? Verify your dashboard. In case you’ve been utilizing the instruments above, the reply might be sure.
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