Getting fit, healthy and in shape can be a difficult and taxing journey. The worst part? Most of the time you don't really know if what you're doing is actually helping your health and fitness.
That's why a lot of people make use of sports wearables. But even then, you're often bombarded with numbers, statistics and progress reports that are pretty overwhelming and hard to understand. It can be difficult to wrap your head around those numbers and see if you're actually making progress.
Now, TomTom, a fitness tracker app, will be updating its apps and devices with a new awesome feature that makes it easier to understand your progress – your fitness age. The update to TomTom Sport app will come in September this year and will track your exercise with "fitness points" and provide you with your "fitness age".
As the name of the feature suggests, your Fitness Age will tell you how fit you are compared to others your age with an easily understandable number. This feature is supposed to be a more simple way of helping the more casual athlete or people just looking to get healthier and fitter. We can leave the complicated numbers and measurements to the more serious fitness experts!
The system used in the feature is relatively simple – you do some exercise, the TomTom watch reads your heart rate over time to get a sense of your overall fitness, and then the app tells you how you're doing compared to other people your age.
If you're a person who's in good shape, your Fitness Age might be younger than your actual age. However, if you aren't in great shape, your Fitness Age will probably be older than your real age.
The good news is that if you are unfit, it's easier to improve your fitness faster than someone who is already fit and only has to make small gains. That's where the second update feature comes in: the app will also quantify your exercise in terms of Fitness Points to make sure you're not only working harder but also working smarter.
Fitness Points are there to help you understand the most effective use of your time. The Fitness Points take into account exercise intensity as well as the raw number of steps, distance or time. For example, an intense 10-minute workout or run can have more impact than a 20-minute walk and will earn you more Fitness Points.
This simplifies the measures of your activity and fitness and shows it in a way that is fun and easy to understand.
The app shows your exercise in coloured bubbles. This makes it easy to see what you've done and how you can go the extra mile. At the same time, the app is smart enough to tell you to have a rest day after you've pushed yourself to the max! It also shows you what you need to do on any given day to hit your target – like another cardio exercise or a quick walk.
This cool app links to your workouts through your TomTom device (like the Spark or Adventurer sports watches). In the app, you can manually set up a workout session – adding different activities to warm up, high intensity and rest periods – or your watch can pick a workout goal for you and then pick a time and it'll suggest a running or cycling session.
The watch coaches you through your workout as it monitors the perfect heart rate thresholds to get results, alerting you if your pulse goes too low or too high.
It is important to note that TomTom isn't designed as a long-term training programme. Instead, it is aimed at spicing up your next workout, show your progress and your targets in easily understandable ways.
The new update will come during September to the last two generations of TomTom watches (the Runner 2 and 3, and the Spark and Adventurer). People with older devices can still calculate their Fitness Age and Fitness Points through the app.
The rest is up to you!
Watch the video to find out more!
