The Sprightly Spud

Drowning in a sea of metrics? Perhaps a written training log could be the way to go. 

In a fitness environment dominated by names like Whoop, Garmin, FitBit and Apple, keeping up with the latest health and wellbeing technology has become somewhat of a sport in itself. From heart rate variability, to blood oxygen saturation, we have constant access to countless metrics to analyse and digest. 

Depending on our choice of wearable, we are inundated from the second our eyelids flicker open with ratings, scores and recommendations which we can use to dictate the path of our day. The situation only intensifies further when we start to train, as heart rate monitors, temperature gauges, and GPS facilities leap into action, preparing to arm us with a comprehensive picture of our performance. 

Whilst all these figures can, if utilised correctly, allow even us ‘gen-pop’ fitness junkies take a professional approach to training, they can be overwhelming, and can easily hinder your training enjoyment, and may disregard certain subjective measures of wellness. 

So should we ditch the tech for more classical methods of tracking?

10000 steps – science or simply a number?

In 1960s Japan, a pedometer called the “manpo-kei,” (literally the “10,000 steps meter”) was released onto the market. The concept was based on the Japanese saying “Hakken Issho,” which means “10,000 steps a day for good health.” Essentially, there isn’t any specific science around the number, its just catchy and seems like a reasonable target. 

Whilst walking 10000 steps a day may be a realistic goal for some, and probably do no harm to most people, for many individuals who work 9-5 office jobs, care for families and endure hours of commuting, it may be an astronomical overestimation of what is achievable. Additionally, the young, old, or disabled are unlikely to be able to hit the hallowed 10k step goal. 

Conversely, individuals with particularly active jobs or lifestyles may easily rack up over double the ‘recommended’ goal. What’s more, for elite athletes or sportspeople (whom one would expect to be all over their daily steps), their number of paces may be irrelevant, as they are undertaking hours of training each day, which doesn’t involve walking or running. 

A step goal is arguably the original fitness metric, and most trackers still have a pedometer feature to this day, but though for a lot of moderately active individuals it acts as healthy motivation to stay active, it has the potential to evolve into a toxic obsession for others… 

This same downward spiral can easily apply to the more advanced measures of activity and performance measured by fitness trackers, demonstrating how too much data can rapidly absorb any enjoyment we find in training. 

Self fulfilling prophecies

These days, how ‘healthy’ we are is being measured even when our brains and bodies are attempting to rest. The majority of us are aware that the duration and quality of our sleep has a dramatic impact on how we feel in terms of our alertness, creative output, and physical performance. It is, without a doubt, the body’s opportunity to rest, repair and prepare. Sleep is when we grow muscular fibres and produce immunity boosting hormones, amongst countless other restorative processes. As a result, elite athletes have been advised to seek 9-10 hours a night, more than the standard 8 hour minimum recommended to adults. 

The science of our slumber has inspired somewhat of a fascination in health-conscious humans, perhaps because we are (for obvious reasons) unable to observe ourselves doing it. Consequently, in pursuit of deeper insight into our sleep, a number of products have been launched to monitor temperature, blood oxidation, heart rate and movement to gauge the quality and quantity of the rest we get. These range from rings (like Oura), to watches (like WHOOP) and even mats which can be placed under mattresses. Providing colour coded scores’, ratings, and in-depth information about time spent in each sleep stage, they mean we are informed of how tired we are before we even open the curtains. 

A lot of people now swear by their sleep tracker for optimising health, and its clear to see how making links between bedtime habits (like alcohol or caffeine consumption) and reported sleep quality may be a useful tool in improving sleep hygiene and, subsequently, physical and mental recovery. In addition to this, a trend of very low recovery scores may be indicative of overtraining, or excess stress, and act as a useful trigger in revamping your lifestyle in support of longevity. 

Arguably the most well known sleep tracker, WHOOP, is designed to be worn all the time, and even charges on the wrist. The streamlined watch, responsible for monitoring every physical marker one could possibly think off, is partnered with an app – based journal, where users are encouraged to input daily data concerning hydration, food, stress and exercise, among other things. Put simply, the tech aims to establish a relationship between what we do, how we sleep, and how we feel. But, by relying on a watch to tell us how good or bad our day will be, are we succumbing to a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

For example, we’ve all had that weird hungover run that ends up feeling great. Sometimes, grinding through a fuzzy head and getting in that 5km can completely alter the course of your day, and act as somewhat of a miracle-worker for your physical condition. However, Whoop reports that for every drink consumed, resting HR increases by an average of 1.3 bpm, and HRV decreases an average of 2.4 ms, resulting in an overall decrease in recovery of 4.2%. This would likely mean your ‘WHOOP coach’ advises a rest day, and puts your recovery in the dreaded ‘red zone’, when in fact you might feel alright. 

In addition to this, anyone prone to people-pleasing tendencies may find the stress of making Mr WHOOP happy negatively impacts their beauty sleep, only serving to exacerbate any existing issues. 

It seems to me that the ‘usefulness’ of sleep trackers relies heavily on the user’s ability to dissociate their genuine feelings of tiredness from the data on their watch. If they align, that’s great, but if not its vital to rely on your own intuition first. On top of this, there is something to be said for the importance of having fun. There is more to life than early nights, and if obsessively striving for ‘green’ recovery means missing out on memories, being a slave to a tracker may do more harm than good. 

Accuracy and Business Acumen

Without wishing to sound cynical, one cannot avoid the fact that WHOOP, and many of its competitors, are subscription based services. To acquire the latest WHOOP 4.0 model, one would be required to shell out £27 per month. At first glance, this seems like pretty neat deal, as the package includes a wearable band, app access and all the (supposed) delights of a sleep, recovery and fitness coach that WHOOP claims to provide. 

However, with a 12 month minimum subscription, you are actually committing to £324 of expenditure. 

Its likely that if the idea of a WHOOP band captures your fancy, you’re a bit of a data junkie, and keen to seek the most accurate insights into your health and wellbeing that you can. Consequently, as the accuracy of any trend-based data improves over time, WHOOP could end up being a fairly significant investment…

Its certainly a canny business plan on their part. 

Critically, the accuracy of WHOOP may also vary between individuals, with research finding  that those with darker skin tones, obesity, or heart rhythm disorders may interfere with the band’s ability to collect its necessary readings, decreasing the extent to which recovery and strain scores can be trusted. 

Just too many numbers?

Aside from the accuracy argument, there is a risk that we simply do not understand the numbers, figures and statistics our fitness wearables are generating, and decrypting the daily data deluge may start to feel like a full-time job. 

Take the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro, noted as one of the most advanced multi-sport watches around. It goes far beyond counting steps or recording the pace of your run, also measuring VO2 max levels, EPOC and altitude acclimation, amongst other things.

For an elite athlete or coach, these advanced metrics may provide a useful basis for analysis, and aid in monitoring adaptation to new training stimuli. However, for those of us just wishing to improve on a 5km time, knowing our precise lactate threshold may be interesting but, quite frankly, excessive and a little overwhelming. 

Could a more organic alternative be better?

All this being said, any good PT would tell you that logging weights, times and performance is a key part of any fitness journey. It helps maintain motivation, keep an eye out for any plateaus that may mean a new stimuli is needed, and, critically, ensure you are targeting progressive overload. 

Therefore, if the innovative technology is all a bit too groundbreaking for your personal taste, then it may be worth going old-school, and reverting to using pen and paper.

How to do it

A physical training log can be as complex or as simple as you want and need it to be. 

The first step is easy, and arguably the most enjoyable: stationary shopping. 

There are few things more satisfying than cracking open a fresh notebook, and though choosing pretty accessories may sound trivial in terms of the value of your diary, the incentive to stay diligent and consistent in recording workouts (a key factor in making sure the reliability of any trends you’re detecting is strong) is much higher when you are writing in a notebook that brings you joy. 

Secondly, you must consider which metrics are important to you, and need to be recorded. These will be different for every athlete. 

A newbie runner, in the game purely for enjoyment, may just wish to write down how long they ran for, without even noting (or knowing) the distance. Even tracking solely the time you spend on your feet can is enough to monitor progressive overload.

When it comes to the opposite end of the spectrum, and the likes of professional athletes such as Molly Huddle, or Phily Bowden, the complexity of the data they record in a training log may be somewhat higher. Theoretically, a pro could purely use a paper diary, but the majority choose to monitor heart rate, pace and distance using a watch or heart rate monitor, then transfer these to their old-school notebook where they can add subjective measures of performance (enjoyment, energy, fatigue etc.) and records of variables like hydration, fuel, stress and session timings. 

Many athletes may also choose to note whether they completed a session alone or with others, and how this impacted their physical or mental experience. 

You cannot, however, miss out the emotional side of exercise. It is all very well reporting that you ran your fastest 10km, but if you felt like you were going to vomit the whole way through, then there is still something to be improved on, or it could indicate that pre-training fuel needs to be tweaked to optimise performance. 

Every time you train, take note of how the session felt; did you have any aches and pains, were you tired, or did you love every second? It is also worth thinking about whether the session changed your mood.

Sleep can also be recorded in a written journal, though perhaps not quite as scientifically as by an electronic tracker. 

Over time, sportspeople and coaches can identify patterns and trends in all the facts recorded, by hunting down relationships between objective and subjective information. One could say, this allows for a much more thorough and holistic understanding of performance than purely relying on technology to judge the quality of a session.

The Benefits 

1. For mere mortals 

• Simplicity – The impact of exercise, no matter the type, on the mind and body is nothing short of magical. A short sweat can transform a stressful day, or prime you for a successful one. Whilst knowing all the intricate pacing details of a run, or every gram lifted, may appeal to some, for others it distracts from the true goal of a training session. Often our day-to-day work lives are rife with statistics, numbers and scores, all recorded on multiple screens, so there is a lot to be said for merely scribbling down a quick date and session length in a proper notebook. 

• Prioritising mental benefit – Constant bombardment by data from a fitness tracker, and being told how good or bad a session was by a piece of tech, can be disheartening. No matter how clever these devices are, they don’t really know what we are dealing with or batting through just to get to the gym. We all have our own ‘why?’ for training, but the positive effect it has on our mood is unavoidable. Consequently, it seems silly to hyper-focus on complex speed, heart rate or ‘altitude acclimatisation’ data, when really all that matters to us is whether exercise made us feel better. 

• Affordability – Theoretically, exercise is free. There are basic essentials required, such as simple trainers and clothes, but other than that it is fairly accessible. Fitness technology is not an essential, we can easily monitor progress with a notebook, and a timer if we so desire. Unfortunately, we are not all lucky enough to be sponsored for our sport, hence the idea that we need to shell out hundreds of pounds on a high-tech tracking device may be intimidating and act as barrier to exercise for many of us. 

• Its a form of journaling – Journaling is becoming increasingly popular as a method to order one’s thoughts, become aware of any emotions present, and ground oneself ready for the day ahead. Fans of the habit may choose to adopt a prompt, or just let their ideas flow freely onto the page. 

The idea of sitting down of a morning, armed just with your thoughts and a pen, may seem a little intimidating, or a bit ‘fluffy’ for those new to the practice. However, giving a focus to your daily musings can help make journaling more approachable, and therefore evaluating the quality of a training session, both on a physical and psychological level can be extremely mindful. Furthermore, keeping a paper training log forces you to slow down and truly consider how you feel, and encourages acceptance of the way you have performed, without judgement.

To maximise the benefit, you cold try to think of three things about a session that you are grateful for, as many people find this leaves them taking on the day with a positive stance.

• It can boost confidence – In the first instance, maintaining an accurate training log enables athletes of any calibre to monitor and identify achievements, and ensure they are progressively overloading their training. For amateurs with big goals, such as running a marathon or lifting a specific weight, this is an essential part of avoiding plateau, but looking back on diary entries and seeing improvements can be motivating for anyone, and act as assurance that you can accomplish anything you put your mind too. 
• Its a multifunctional wellness tool – There are hundred of variables that interact to determine how ‘well’ we are as an individual. From the absence of illness, to how much caffeine we consume, being ‘healthy’ is certainly not limiting to completing the recommended amount of exercise each day. 

Alongside training logs, a fitness journal can also include records of specific habits, personal to you, that you believe you need to keep an eye on. For example, if concerned that about fruit and veg intake, note down each time you get in one of your 5 a day, or if you rarely go near a glass of water, keep a diary of how many litres you consume, and aim to improve on this over time. 

Staying on top of beneficial habits, can not only improve overall wellbeing, but help optimise performance in training and competition too. 

2. For the pros 

As a performance athlete, its nigh-on impossible to avoid technology completely, and in general, equipment like heart rate monitors and GPS trackers are vital in monitoring their progress. Nevertheless, taking the time to keep a physical training journal too can have its own benefits…

• Psychology and mindset – Some claim that sport is 90% a mental game, hence why countless professionals have a dedicated sports psychologist as part of their support network. Nevertheless, much more time is spent training the body than the mind, and whilst fitness technology can provide an astounding amount of information about one’s physical performance, there is very little they can say about mood.

Including something as simple as an evaluation of how happy someone feels before and after training, can aid coaches and their trainees in spotting any psychological trends which could help or hinder performance. For example, if an athlete says they feel more motivated, and pushes harder when training in a group, incorporating more social sessions into their program could give them an edge on race day.

• It encourages a more holistic life approach – Athletes’ mental health is finally being given the attention it needs, and is being recognised as a key component to success in any sport. The perception of professionals (by both themselves and outsiders) as cold, hard, speed machines, is not only inaccurate, but damaging too. As many feel their worth is purely based on how fast they run, or how far they throw. 

In recent years, there have been numerous individuals who have spoken out about their identity loss, and how it has led to poor mental health, particularly if they are left injured and unable to compete, or have reached retirement. 

Whilst something as simple as a written training diary can’t solve this issue, it can be used to promote a more holistic approach to life. Writing down three things that made an athlete smile ofn a particular day, alongside their training statistics, maybe, can avoid hyper-focus on the physical, and help sportspeople identify with their emotions in a way completely unrelated to the joy they feel when winning. 

• Its a creative outlet that promotes lateral thinking, and could aid with burnout 

The incessant grind of train, eat, sleep, repeat is a fact of life for those with a career in sport. Irregardless of this, there has to be space in the routine for mental and physical rest. As a result of this, a lot of high-level performers adopt creative hobbies to avoid keep their hands busy whilst resting, and assist in keeping burnout at bay. Perhaps most famously, Tom Daley is known for his poolside knitting and crochet projects. 

Not all of us are blessed with artistic talents, yet even illustrating your runs, rides or lifts with some little doodles can help you identify with your imaginative side and find emotional release from the pressure of competition. Furthermore, some research suggests creative pursuits could enhance performance in physical ones…

Many sports, particularly those requiring large amounts of problem solving such as golf, basketball, or hockey, demand athletes to visualise movements and plays, and think ‘outside the box’ in order to outwit opponents. Regularly cultivating creativity nurtures cognitive flexibility, and leaves sportspeople more able to innovate, adapt, and find solutions under pressure. 

In many ways, the process of picking an object to draw, then working out how you will construct pencil strokes to do it, is very similar to the process of identifying a pathway that will allow one to score a goal. Therefore, its easy to see how incorporating a little art into a training journal could improve race-day performance, in conjunction with encouraging a balanced brain. 

In Summary

Metrics, data and scores are undoubtedly an important part of wellbeing, fitness, and professional sport. Nevertheless, they are not enough on their own to provide a full picture of performance or health, whether that is for a ‘gen-pop’ gym goer, or professional athlete. 

Whilst many people may be able to maintain a positive relationship with the information given to them by their fitness technology, others may be dragged into feeling like they are simply never good enough. 

Keeping written diary of activities may seem hyper-simplistic, and unnecessary when we have apps and watches that can provide ample data on heart rate zones, pacing, and performance improvements. Regardless, it is a practice that still holds value in identifying the mental health impacts of training, and formulating a holistic picture of wellness. 

What’s more, there is certainly an argument to say that the amount of technology we have access to these days just overcomplicates sport, and does not leave space for simply exercising because its good for us. 

So, why not grab a pretty notebook, and ditch the digital for a while…