Are Fitness Trackers Worth It?

Are Fitness Trackers Worth It?

Unless you live under a rock you most likely have heard of or seen someone wearing a fitness tracker. From Fitbit to Whoop to the apple watch and all the other offerings in between, tech companies have stepped up to fill the insatiable desire we seem to have when it comes to tracking our fitness.

We’ve been through periods of using a tracker daily as well as years without one. We’ve also worked with hundreds of clients who have had their own experiences with them. Between those experiences and the available research, or lack thereof in some cases, we feel pretty qualified to tackle this question.

But is there a distinct answer? Can we pin them down to a definitive good or bad?

As with all things the answer may not be so simple. However, the following should help you be able to answer this question for YOU.

Accuracy:

So you’re trying to decide, are fitness trackers worth it? Well first we should probably talk about how accurate they are. The answer might surprise you…

When it comes to accuracy it depends on the actual feature we are talking about. Fitness trackers do a variety of functions and the accuracy of each can vary. Simple step tracking can be relatively accurate, but the “readiness” score that some trackers give you may not be as spot on. Let’s dive into some of the more popular features and what the research says about their accuracy.

Step Tracking:

Step tracking has become quite popular lately for getting in daily movement. It’s even a tactic that we use with some of our clients to encourage more daily energy expenditure (we will leave the topic of arbitrary step count goals for further on). But are step counting features on fitness trackers accurate? The short answer is yes, but not completely.

They are accurate enough to give rough measurements that can be used to encourage movement goals and track long term progress and trends. However, they aren’t completely accurate. Did you know that if you wore two different trackers they would each give you different step results for the same day? If you don’t believe us you can even try it for yourself!

Also, they tend to pick up movement at the hand as well as steps. Not that the few steps added from waving to a friend really matters, but if we’re talking about accuracy these things can add up over time. That’s why older pedometers used to be worn on the hip so that they only picked up walking movement.

Heart Rate:

When it comes to heart rate measurements using a watch will always be less accurate than a chest strap monitor due to the location of the wrist being further from the heart. However studies do show that heart rate measurements with fitness trackers test with an error of less than 5% when compared to the medical gold standard equipment.

However, trackers are more accurate when taking heart rate measurements at rest. As exercise intensity increases they can become increasingly inconsistent and off by up to 20 bpm.

If you’re just looking for a general idea of your heart rate or want to get an idea of your resting heart rate trends over time then a fitness tracker may be worth it to you. However, if you’re a serious athlete looking to base your training off of certain heart rate parameters then a chest worn monitor is a much better option.

Calorie Burn

Studies show that the calories burned feature of most trackers is quite inaccurate. In fact, a Stanford study from 2017 measured 7 popular wearable trackers and found that none of them accurately measured energy expenditure when compared to laboratory equipment. And how far off were the numbers you may wonder? The “most accurate'' was off by an average of 27 percent while the least accurate was off by a whopping 93 percent!

And if we dive a layer deeper, calorie burn or energy expenditure is also a terrible metric to judge your workouts by. Not only is it inefficient and inaccurate but it can also encourage a disordered relationship with exercise.

So are they accurate? It depends on what metric we are talking about and what you are using it for. For simple step tracking and heart rate they will meet most people’s needs. When it comes to measuring calorie expenditure and the individual readiness ratings they start to fall drastically short. Did you know that factors such as skin color and body mass index even play into the accuracy of fitness trackers as well?

Yeah, yet another element to consider when accuracy is taken into account.

Interpreting the Data:

Where things get complicated and more nuanced is when it comes to interpreting the data that your device gives you and making actionable steps based on the readings. That is after all the point of measuring and managing data right? We find that in theory this is quite simple but what ends up happening in the real world is not always so straightforward.

Where most mistakes are made with wearable technology is actually in the interpretation of the data as opposed to the recording of it. In an ideal world a coach would monitor the data for you and you wouldn’t even look at it. Why? This allows you to emotionally separate yourself from the data points while your coach makes decisions regarding your training and performance. This also prevents you from falling prey to the nocebo effect which we dive into further below.

However, unless you are a professional athlete or have a personal assistant to manage data for you then this isn't very realistic. This leaves you in the situation of having an abundance of data, both accurate and inaccurate, and the potential inability to make sensible decisions based on that data. This can be a slippery slope for many that can result in confusion and even psychological dependence on a tracking device that isn’t very accurate to begin with.

The Pros and Cons:

Now that we’ve talked about the accuracy and data interpretation of fitness trackers we wanted to lay out a few pros and cons to further help you make a decision. We left out accuracy and data management as they have already been covered thoroughly above.

The Pros:

Beneficial IF You Know How TO Read the Data

If you are experienced or work with someone who is, the long term data of these trackers can be beneficial. Although the value of individual metrics such as HRV or resting heart rate may be open to interpretation, being able to view long term trends of these is undoubtedly beneficial. The key is having both the experience and knowledge to read the data and the ability to make the right decision based on it

In a perfect world and in many high level performance scenarios the coach is responsible for collecting and reading the data while the athlete merely performs. This allows the coach to objectively use the data and track progress over the long term without the athlete becoming emotionally affected by it. However if you’re reading this we highly doubt that you are one of the top performers in the world. For you access to these services and this situation may be infeasible. 

Accountability Data

Many of the people we have worked with in the past find wearable trackers to be motivating for getting in movement. This is because they do a good job of gamifying the experience and providing short term satisfaction. It also provides an objective measurement for non exercise movement that coaches and clients can look at.  As coaches we only see our clients for a few hours a week. Trackers can provide a snapshot view of activity levels outside of the gym which play a huge role in achieving the results many people are looking for.

Motivating for Beginners

A wearable tracker can be quite motivating for someone just starting out on their fitness journey. We are all about removing barriers of entry for fitness so in this regard we find them quite attractive. Especially for our more tech savvy clients who may be more biased towards these anyways. However, as we will talk about below, issues can arise further down the line in some people as they grow more dependent on their tracker.

The Cons:

All or nothing mindset

Trackers can become an issue with those who are prone to an all or nothing mindset. They can also encourage an all or nothing mindset in and of themselves when it comes to fitness goals. If you don’t fill your rings or hit all of your steps it can leave some with a sense of failure. The tracker should help encourage you to move, not make you feel like a failure for hitting 8 thousand steps in a day instead of 10 thousand. It can be hard for some people to separate themselves emotionally from the data and see the big picture which is one of the most glaring issues we see with wearable trackers.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

For many people a tracker can start to create a nocebo effect on their performance. What is nocebo you ask? Well it’s similar to a placebo, but the opposite. A nocebo is when you experience worsening side effects or results based on negative expectations or your psychological condition.

What does that mean for fitness trackers? It means that if you wake up and have a low recovery score and your tracker tells you that you will have a poor performing day you most likely will. The same motivation that drives you to workout harder on a “good” recovery day can self sabotage you when you have a “bad” recovery day. It’s all in the power of the mind and the reality it can create based on your interpretation of the data.

Maybe you would have had a great training session but a poor recovery score in the morning keeps you from hitting the gym. Maybe you still hit the gym but that lingering feeling of doubt keeps you from having a good session. Regardless of the outcome it still ends up holding you back and preventing you from being able to truly understand how your body feels.

For most people in most cases the recovery score can have more of a negative  impact than a positive one when it comes to making training decisions. Forget the fact that for strength training results to be attained recovery IS NOT the goal, adaptation is. Your tracker isn’t tracking adaptation, it’s tracking recovery. And a poor recovery day may be a GREAT window of opportunity to drive adaptation.

Trackers reward recovery and optimization, not growth and adaptation. Results come from the latter, comfort comes from the former.

Dependence On The Tracker:

Becoming too reliant on a wearable fitness tracker can have downsides. The most notable thing we see with clients is building a sense of dependence on the tracker and it’s information. How can we get a sense of this mindset starting to develop? We often will hear phrases like the following:

“I forgot to turn my watch on before a workout. Now it doesn’t count.”

“ I was 150 steps short yesterday so I paced around my apartment until I got them”

While they are said with no ill intent, they show us that the emphasis is being placed on the tracking and not the actual activity itself. We want our clients to get outside and enjoy nature with a loved one or go on an adventure. Not hit 10 thousand steps. We want them to engage with fitness and training because it feels good to move and challenge their body. Not burn a thousand calories at the gym. There’s a huge difference in the approach and also the place of the tracking device between these two scenarios.

So, Are Fitness Trackers Worth It?

In order to decide if fitness trackers are worth it you may want to see if the metrics you are even trying to track are accurate. If you're using it as a simple step counter it might be a good investment. On the other hand if you want a detailed sleep analysis or accurate heart rate tracking in real time there may be better options.

But we will let you be the judge! As with all things they have both their pros and cons. It is up to you to decide if they create more of a positive or negative impact on your life.

We find for many clients that they can be helpful in the beginning stages of the fitness journey but long term it is best to not rely on them. And for many people it is a good idea just to stay away from them in general!

Sources and Further Reading

We have listed the sources that went into this article below but wanted to take a moment to shout out the book Unplugged by Dr. Andy Galpin. This book touches on these topics and many more, while encouraging you to get outside and connect with your body in a natural way. We can’t recommend this book enough for yourself or your clients!

DUSHECK, J. E. N. N. I. E. (n.d.). Fitness trackers accurately measure heart rate but not calories burned. News Center. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/05/fitness-trackers-accurately-measure-heart-rate-but-not-calories-burned.html. 

Mackenzie, B. D., Galpin, A., & White, P. (2017). Unplugged. Victory Belt Publishing.