I ran today already 10,000 steps? Why is it that I have taken the escalator at the train station? Should I go to the gym? Everyone hears at some point, the voice in your head that reminds you: Actually, I could do more for the health. As the “Wearables”, wearable digital training and measurement devices, such as called seem to come. For well under 100 Euro you have to.
The plainer models to measure the pulse, count steps and record the stages of sleep. Smarter Smartwatches remind you when it’s time to move, to train, or rest. Many of the hope about an Apple Watch or a Fitbit bracelet to buy, to look particularly sporty. But the devices also make them measurably healthier, extend the life?
Thomas Teyke, Health Economist
Thomas Teyke would have to know that. He teaches as a health economist at the Fresenius University of applied Sciences in Cologne. In the office of the wiry Endfünfzigers Marathon, hanging medals. “I’m a devices-free. I don’t need anyone to tell me: You walked 10,000 steps. Today in the Morning I am Jogging with my dog through the woods, and now I’m already at 15,000 steps.” The sports Professor has his students but already award-check, what are the Benefits of Wearables for others could have, and says that they were quite reasonable.
The health conscious tend to use Wearables
In the latest survey, users and Non-users of fitness bracelets were compared to each other. The result confirmed the international research trend: Who’s wearing Wearables, and is particularly health conscious, sporty and active, pays attention to a healthy and balanced diet. And has the impression to benefit from its accessories. “The users provide the majority of their health behavior has improved significantly,” – said in the Fresenius study.
The mitforschenden students have all made their private experiences with the digital assistants. Yannick Michels, 25, studied health Economics and works at a pharmacy software Start-up: “I have an Apple Watch of 3. Generation, which I use daily. The vibrates, or lights up, and then it’s off. The Extra Motivation helps to find the drive, but still time to go.” Kim Stephan, 21, works in addition to the course of study in a dental care center and a dance at the Cologne carnival troupe “Fidele Fordler”: “I’m not wearing my Fitbit permanently. It has made me always a bit mad, if you can see, it has this and that done. Then I thought: Leave me alone, I’m now not 3000 steps more, I now sit in front of the TV.” Who’s the student anyway three times a week for dance training, it can ignore the commands of the digital Drill Sergeants time to time in good conscience.
Saskia Frensch, 21, is studying sports management and is a footballer for 1. FC Köln
This freedom does not want to take Saskia Frensch, 21,. She is studying sports management and is a footballer and plays for the second team of 1. FC Köln in the Regionalliga and has been for the second of Hoffenheim in the 2. League play: “I use my Polar M400, especially for Tracking Jogging and strength training, to train in certain heart rate zones. Since I’m 16, I work with trackers. Especially in my rehab break after a cross-band indoor band I’ve used crack you intense.” The most impressive success story has to tell Kim Stephan: “My best friend had 19 years of weight problems. He has also lost use of a tracker within half a year almost 20 pounds. His weight he kept, and he now goes regularly to run.”
At the wrist the pulse is recorded only inaccurate
Those who use technology properly, it can benefit, however, says Dominik Sethe, scientists at the Fresenius University of applied Sciences, were to be compared to the products for the broad market, not with sports medical precision instruments to: “You need to compare only three or four different trackers, and see that they each show a different heart rate. To me, the Marathon Training is happening, a Tracker 140 to 150 indicated and the Polar watch with the chest strap was 50 pulse beats underneath.” Still, the electrical pulse is measured on the chest is much more accurate than the fashionable, but arg-ridden Sensors on the wrist, which can detect vessels with light-emitting diodes, the pulse wave in the blood. Some Wearables allow, therefore, the wireless coupling with additional Sensors.
But in the era of Big Data, the question of precision is not the only, users of Fitness-Armändern. Because Wearables can learn all sorts of Intimate on us. Although Kim Stephan, the interest in the possibilities of technology is greater than the fear of your privacy, and wants it to be clear rules: “Medical data should not be in the case of corporations stored, but in the case of a medical database, to which only Doctors can access. The doctor’s office already has my data. And so there are strict safety regulations.”
The real data of the economy is unregulated and largely non-transparent. There are tons of Fitness, health and nutrition Apps. What happens with the data that you collect, it is often difficult to understand. The Internet giant Google (web search and Android Smartphones) and Apple (iPhone, Apple Watch) are stockpiling huge amounts of medically relevant data.
And yet, the sports scientists are happy about every new user of digital Training AIDS – the benefits, so you are convinced, outweigh. Worry you, however, that it is hard to inspire the right clientele for Fitness and Sport. “It are often the wrong people, applying digital tools, it’s not actually needed,” says health economist Teyke.
How do you get users to stay?
How to make it so, to bring the Wearables to the right users? Some health insurance companies members of the Tracker pay as an incentive for more movement. But to distribute only devices, says Dominik Sethe, like a straw fire. The smart technology needs to be smarter, psychological, because: “Only if it incorporates behavior modification techniques, it is effective and lasting.” The question is: How can you make people stick with it?
Lars Donath, Sports Scientist
“At some point, you fall back into the auto-pilot, you need to have a mandatory accompaniment,” says the exercise scientist Lars Donath, 38, of the German sport University in Cologne. In the supervised by him / her “moving call”study in Switzerland, he focuses on coaching: “We did via Skype with a medical history: How is your family and work Situation? Have you made Sport?” The first group receives a written recommendation. In the second variant, the telephone coaching sessions will be carried out, and in the third variant, the Coaching is supplemented by SMS. The aim of the study is to motivate the participants in 150 minutes of moderate activity in a month. “We are trying to establish without much effort, the joy of movement in everyday life. They found pleasure in it, later maybe the goal is to build a popular race.” First results are promising.
“Exercise, sleep, nutrition, Stress, and work are crucial,” says Donath. To have to these five fields of data collected and the behavior of individual tips to be implemented – digital Personal Training instead of the naked measure.
Because the basic problem in all health promotion activities is also in the digital age is still in the evolutionary shaped system of Homo sapiens: people find us difficult to do something today that will pay off only in the distant future.
Who thinks already like how he is in 20, 30 or 40 years, physically and mentally feel? “I know that Smoking, Drinking and Stress are unhealthy, but you think that the Cup will go to me over already,” says Donath. Who is nibbling a bag of Chips is empty, do not feel unhealthy and unhappy. So, how the negative effects of time delayed, not experience success immediately.
A psychological Trick that can increase the Motivation
The Psyche, trick, explore American psychologist, the concept of the future (“Future Self”), explains Donath. The idea is that The behaviour Now is linked to its effects in the future and vividly made. For a research study were divided participants into two groups. All were given the task to write a letter to your future self – for some it was the I of in three months, and for the other I from in 20 years. The latter group is trained, then considerably longer: The confrontation with the Mature Self can inspire people, apparently to a healthier life style.
Donath can imagine that is why Apps, in which an Avatar represents the user in its future Constitution. “Who does not want to confront on a daily basis with his own aging process, could also once in a year, a letter from his future Self to send, such as Christmas or a birthday,” says the researcher. With such Tricks, the second half of life could be easier for the “better half”.
