Putting Sports To The Test

When it comes to regular exercise, being able to chart your progress is essential – tracking improvements in your fitness can make a massive difference in staying motivated and achieving your goals. But losing sight of how much – or little – you’re doing is all too easy.That’s where the Nike+ FuelBand comes in, monitoring your every move and the rate of activity to see how many calories you’ve burned, how far you’ve travelled and how much NikeFuel (a universal metric of activity) you’ve earned. And like a personal trainer, it tells you when to make that extra bit of effort and when to celebrate your achieved goals.

Simple insights

I’ve often been put off by the sea of fitness apps and gadgets out there that overload you with stats, facts and data without ever really offering much insight into what you’re doing, and how well you’re doing it. Thankfully, the Nike + FuelBand keeps things simple but informative, breaking down your daily activity into digestible bits of data while showing how close you are to achieving set goals via a coloured bar that builds from red to green.

And because the Nike+ FuelBand measures all types of exercise in the same way, it’s easy and accurate to compare the sports and activities you’re doing, from running and rowing to basketball and tennis.

Running still streets ahead

Out of all the various sports and activities I dabble in, I’ve always assumed running to be miles ahead in terms of calorie-busting exercise as it requires continuous movement for long periods of time. The Nike+ FuelBand certainly backed this up - a 25-minute, five kilometre run burned over 300 calories more than nearly 4,000 steps, generating just under 900 NikeFuel points.

When comparing this with a game of basketball, for instance, I had to spend nearly an hour on the court to achieve similar results. No real surprises here, perhaps, but just wearing the Nike+ FuelBand during the game proved it wasn’t only a great piece of technology but a fantastic motivator too, spurring me on to work that little bit harder to meet my NikeFuel goal.

Surprise calorie-burner

The biggest surprise came when I picked up a tennis racquet. I didn’t believe that knocking a ball around for an hour could really stand up to running’s impressive stats but after just 25 minutes I’d burned over 200 calories, amassed close to 750 NikeFuel points and clocked up nearly 1,000 steps, giving time on the treadmill a real run for its money. Not bad when you consider how small the playing surface of a tennis court is.

The verdict

While running is clearly king when it comes to getting the most amount of exercise in the shortest possible time, using the Nike+ FuelBand has definitely made me reconsider the importance I place on it over other sports and activities. An hour of tennis, for instance, not only offers a similarly impressive workout but it’s a much more social activity and one I’ll be looking to do more of.

Even over the course of a few days the Nike+ FuelBand has proved to be something of a lifestyle-changer as well as a smart exercise tool. Just having something telling me how active I am each day is a surprisingly effective motivator, helping me to not only have a better handle on my fitness but to make concerted changes to boost my daily count of NikeFuel points.

Source: http://dld.bz/cFGdY