4 ms·

Anecdata point: I was very active before I got an Apple Watch, but having the watch has increased my activity in two ways. First, it scratches the part of my br

Anecdata point: I was very active before I got an Apple Watch, but having the watch has increased my activity in two ways. First, it scratches the part of my brain that loves routines; meeting a daily goal provides a dopamine hit beyond that from the activity itself. Second, it provides an extra nudge on days when I might otherwise have said “ah, I’m feeling lazy/tired/unmotivated etc., I’m going to skip today.” I didn’t initially think I would care about the rings, but I think they’ve contributed to my health overall.

hombre_fatal 3y ago
I replaced Strava (explicitly starting and ending my run) with aiming for 10k+ steps per day. I ended up much more active since I was incentivized to do activities that would incidentally increase my steps, like walking during a phone call, rather than having a rigid, more stressful “I am on a run” state where I’m fixated on my pace metrics.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  Running is much more beneficial as you are in completely different heart rate zones as a simple walk. Don't use the step count itself as a goal.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    I still run. But I walk too. And I now don't feel like I'm messing up any sort of pace metric when my run becomes a walk or a phone call or I drop and do 30 pushups every kilometer, etc. It led to a large increase of daily activity. It's like how I became a home cook when I bought my first bluetooth headphones. Suddenly I could comfortably listen to Youtube debates and podcasts and audiobooks, needed something to do with my hands while listening to them, and ended up learning to enjoy spending time in the kitchen. It's funny how little changes can have a large impact on your daily life.
    - Loic 3y ago
      All these little changes reduced friction in the right direction.
  - rainsford 3y ago
    Running is better than walking, but walking a lot is probably better than running a little. This is not a fitness tracker specific observation and I'm sure it varies from person to person, but my experience has been that if I look for opportunities to just be active rather than focus on more strenuous exercise, I tend to engage in a lot more physical activity. In my case, I think the increase in overall active time probably balances out the fact that the activity is at a lower level, especially since I end up fitting the extra active time in where it's likely replacing no activity at all rather than replacing more beneficial exercise. As I said, this isn't really a fitness tracker specific experience since I don't actually use one. But I think there's some interesting psychology at work here that a fitness tracker probably amplifies. Aside from people with certain health issues, "walk more" is a pretty easy task with a very low bar to entry compared to the health benefits. You likely don't need special equipment or a membership to anything or a change of clothes or a shower after and it's pretty easy to feel like you can fit into your day even if you're tired or busy. You could reasonably argue that going for a run after work isn't that much more of a heavy lift than going for a walk, but I'd bet good money that I'm not alone in feeling like it is a lot of days. And that ultimately matters in terms of how likely people are to actually be active.
  - idontwantthis 3y ago
    Don’t exercise because other exercise is better. This is the path of inaction.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    I think both are good for different kinds of endurance, so it would seem good to do both - brisk walking for the slow burn some times, and high intensity (or interval training) to get the heart rate right up other times.
  - brnt 3y ago
    Running is pretty bad for joints. If you want to get your heart rate up, get on a bike.
    - lloeki 3y ago
      If there's one thing the human body has evolved to do over aeons it's running. One can marvel at a slow motion video capture of a sprinting cheetah - the fastest running mammal -, where every bit of their body springs into beautifully orchestrated action. One can equally marvel at the same capture of the ruthless efficiency of an endurance running human - the longest running mammal, by far. Every bit of the human body engages towards that efficiency, from kinetic action via immediate energy storage and release via tendon springiness (not just in legs but all the way through the upper body, recovering vertical fall energy, as well as lateral counterbalance motion to be released for forward motion) to the cardiovascular system acting as a massive thermal regulator (via breathing mostly, blood and lung moisture as heat carrying fluids, but also fingers+hands that move for balance double as finned heatsinks), enabling the evolutionary prey hunting strategy of outrunning them to exhaustion. Running does not damage joints because that's what we evolved to be ever since we started standing upright and to be able to do so as long as possible both in duration and age, and even if we take a hypothesis of extreme selective pressure since the days when food started coming from fields and livestock, a few thousand years would have barely put a dent on our physiology being evolutionarily built for running; instead, running with no or bad warmup by stomping on concrete with bad or unfit shoes and bad posture biased by our modern sitting-all-the-time world does.
      - Lio 3y ago
        I've heard this before[1] but anecdotally I just know lots of serious runners with serious injuries, to the point of needing surgery. If you're in a running club I bet you do too. I don't know any cyclists or swimmers where the sport by itself has caused that kind of damage. Myself, running gave me rather unpleasant sciatica by inflaming a tight psoas muscle. I can compare it to road cycling and it's night and day. I can ride a 150 miler when I'm not that fit or flexible and once the tiredness has worn off I'll have no issues. I remember running a half marathon once when I was fit but without long, structured training and I was limping around for a week afterwards. You could argue that's due to improper training or warm ups/downs, etc. but it just seems that running is very hard on the body for something we're evolved to do above everything else. Anecdotally, I also know several cyclists in their 80s still riding about happily. I'd guess they'll ride until they don't want to any more and not because of injury. - 1. I think it was the premise of the book "Born to Run".
throwaway290 3y ago
Contranecdata: zero change. I am not motivated by numbers. On bad days I couldn't care less that the numbers are low, and it's good, otherwise it would add to the stress/depression that probably led to those in the first place. I don't mind it too much because it can visually show memorable anomalies in near past (like here I was ill, here I moved, here I had a fun day of walking), but I really dislike those "ring" gamifications when it tells me when I reached 10k taking me out of flow and making me realize I walked a lot. What worse, it taught me what 10k of steps feels like, which makes me measure where I am at during extended walks instead of being in the moment enjoying walking! What I really want is those non critical activity stats to be hidden in real time and only be available for like a month ago and earlier. In its current incarnation it feels like it's aimed at people who consciously make themselves do things instead of enjoying them, it's not healthy...
- kaashif 3y ago
  > it feels like it's aimed at people who consciously make themselves do things instead of enjoying them, it's not healthy... Needing gamification to exercise is sub optimal, but it's not that bad compared to just exercising less, which is the alternative.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    I'm not sure stress-forcing yourself to exercise to make the numbers is better compared to exercising less but sure it's probably individual.
    - debaserab2 3y ago
      I don't feel that way. I went through a pretty big exercise slump over covid and I bought an apple watch at the start of 2021. If you make your goals modest at first, the numbers will be easy to hit and every couple of weeks the fitness app will suggest you raise them - if you raise them each time it suggests, you'll eventually hit a manageable goal where you're spending 30-60 minutes exercising per day. The gamification aspect was really good for me to get off the couch and actually do something but now that I have good habits going I naturally enjoy the extra walk/yard work/gym workout. I don't really pay that much attention to my daily goals anymore, but if I look down and it's 4 PM and I see that I'm a bit short on today's exercise goal, I might consider taking the dog for a second walk or making an unplanned trip to the gym. It's not the end of the world if I don't make it, but it's pretty cool when the month ends and I get the "you hit your exercise goal every day for august" notification.

hombre_fatal 3y ago

I replaced Strava (explicitly starting and ending my run) with aiming for 10k+ steps per day. I ended up much more active since I was incentivized to do activities that would incidentally increase my steps, like walking during a phone call, rather than having a rigid, more stressful “I am on a run” state where I’m fixated on my pace metrics.

jupp0r 3y ago
Running is much more beneficial as you are in completely different heart rate zones as a simple walk. Don't use the step count itself as a goal.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  I still run. But I walk too. And I now don't feel like I'm messing up any sort of pace metric when my run becomes a walk or a phone call or I drop and do 30 pushups every kilometer, etc. It led to a large increase of daily activity. It's like how I became a home cook when I bought my first bluetooth headphones. Suddenly I could comfortably listen to Youtube debates and podcasts and audiobooks, needed something to do with my hands while listening to them, and ended up learning to enjoy spending time in the kitchen. It's funny how little changes can have a large impact on your daily life.
  - Loic 3y ago
    All these little changes reduced friction in the right direction.
- rainsford 3y ago
  Running is better than walking, but walking a lot is probably better than running a little. This is not a fitness tracker specific observation and I'm sure it varies from person to person, but my experience has been that if I look for opportunities to just be active rather than focus on more strenuous exercise, I tend to engage in a lot more physical activity. In my case, I think the increase in overall active time probably balances out the fact that the activity is at a lower level, especially since I end up fitting the extra active time in where it's likely replacing no activity at all rather than replacing more beneficial exercise. As I said, this isn't really a fitness tracker specific experience since I don't actually use one. But I think there's some interesting psychology at work here that a fitness tracker probably amplifies. Aside from people with certain health issues, "walk more" is a pretty easy task with a very low bar to entry compared to the health benefits. You likely don't need special equipment or a membership to anything or a change of clothes or a shower after and it's pretty easy to feel like you can fit into your day even if you're tired or busy. You could reasonably argue that going for a run after work isn't that much more of a heavy lift than going for a walk, but I'd bet good money that I'm not alone in feeling like it is a lot of days. And that ultimately matters in terms of how likely people are to actually be active.
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  Don’t exercise because other exercise is better. This is the path of inaction.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  I think both are good for different kinds of endurance, so it would seem good to do both - brisk walking for the slow burn some times, and high intensity (or interval training) to get the heart rate right up other times.
- brnt 3y ago
  Running is pretty bad for joints. If you want to get your heart rate up, get on a bike.
  - lloeki 3y ago
    If there's one thing the human body has evolved to do over aeons it's running. One can marvel at a slow motion video capture of a sprinting cheetah - the fastest running mammal -, where every bit of their body springs into beautifully orchestrated action. One can equally marvel at the same capture of the ruthless efficiency of an endurance running human - the longest running mammal, by far. Every bit of the human body engages towards that efficiency, from kinetic action via immediate energy storage and release via tendon springiness (not just in legs but all the way through the upper body, recovering vertical fall energy, as well as lateral counterbalance motion to be released for forward motion) to the cardiovascular system acting as a massive thermal regulator (via breathing mostly, blood and lung moisture as heat carrying fluids, but also fingers+hands that move for balance double as finned heatsinks), enabling the evolutionary prey hunting strategy of outrunning them to exhaustion. Running does not damage joints because that's what we evolved to be ever since we started standing upright and to be able to do so as long as possible both in duration and age, and even if we take a hypothesis of extreme selective pressure since the days when food started coming from fields and livestock, a few thousand years would have barely put a dent on our physiology being evolutionarily built for running; instead, running with no or bad warmup by stomping on concrete with bad or unfit shoes and bad posture biased by our modern sitting-all-the-time world does.
    - Lio 3y ago
      I've heard this before[1] but anecdotally I just know lots of serious runners with serious injuries, to the point of needing surgery. If you're in a running club I bet you do too. I don't know any cyclists or swimmers where the sport by itself has caused that kind of damage. Myself, running gave me rather unpleasant sciatica by inflaming a tight psoas muscle. I can compare it to road cycling and it's night and day. I can ride a 150 miler when I'm not that fit or flexible and once the tiredness has worn off I'll have no issues. I remember running a half marathon once when I was fit but without long, structured training and I was limping around for a week afterwards. You could argue that's due to improper training or warm ups/downs, etc. but it just seems that running is very hard on the body for something we're evolved to do above everything else. Anecdotally, I also know several cyclists in their 80s still riding about happily. I'd guess they'll ride until they don't want to any more and not because of injury. - 1. I think it was the premise of the book "Born to Run".

throwaway290 3y ago

Contranecdata: zero change. I am not motivated by numbers. On bad days I couldn't care less that the numbers are low, and it's good, otherwise it would add to the stress/depression that probably led to those in the first place. I don't mind it too much because it can visually show memorable anomalies in near past (like here I was ill, here I moved, here I had a fun day of walking), but I really dislike those "ring" gamifications when it tells me when I reached 10k taking me out of flow and making me realize I walked a lot. What worse, it taught me what 10k of steps feels like, which makes me measure where I am at during extended walks instead of being in the moment enjoying walking! What I really want is those non critical activity stats to be hidden in real time and only be available for like a month ago and earlier. In its current incarnation it feels like it's aimed at people who consciously make themselves do things instead of enjoying them, it's not healthy...

kaashif 3y ago
> it feels like it's aimed at people who consciously make themselves do things instead of enjoying them, it's not healthy... Needing gamification to exercise is sub optimal, but it's not that bad compared to just exercising less, which is the alternative.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  I'm not sure stress-forcing yourself to exercise to make the numbers is better compared to exercising less but sure it's probably individual.
  - debaserab2 3y ago
    I don't feel that way. I went through a pretty big exercise slump over covid and I bought an apple watch at the start of 2021. If you make your goals modest at first, the numbers will be easy to hit and every couple of weeks the fitness app will suggest you raise them - if you raise them each time it suggests, you'll eventually hit a manageable goal where you're spending 30-60 minutes exercising per day. The gamification aspect was really good for me to get off the couch and actually do something but now that I have good habits going I naturally enjoy the extra walk/yard work/gym workout. I don't really pay that much attention to my daily goals anymore, but if I look down and it's 4 PM and I see that I'm a bit short on today's exercise goal, I might consider taking the dog for a second walk or making an unplanned trip to the gym. It's not the end of the world if I don't make it, but it's pretty cool when the month ends and I get the "you hit your exercise goal every day for august" notification.