Runner's World, Sweat Science blog, Alex Hutchinson from
I’ve done enough “real” VO2 max tests—the trips to the lab, the expensive and cumbersome equipment, the brutally exhausting treadmill protocol, and in one case, the puking in the corner afterwards—that I’ve been intrigued to notice the recent trend of GPS watches and heart-rate monitors promising to estimate my VO2 max for me. Could it possibly be that simple?
I’m clearly not the only one wondering, because I noticed at least four presentations at the recent American College of Sports Medicine conference addressing that very question. Overall, the results look better than I might have expected, but there are some differences between the various approaches taken by different watches.
Over the past year, it has been difficult for some companies to find success in wearable devices. TomTom now appears to be leaving that market, announcing last week that it was cutting 136 positions as a result of reorganizing its consumer sports business.
TomTom reconfirmed its strategy of focusing on navigation and GPS technologies instead.
Popular Fitbit devices are vulnerable to hackers, according to a new study that reveals how personal information can be stolen from the fitness bands.
Computer researchers at the University of Edinburgh intercepted messages from the Fitbit One and Fitbit Flex wristbands, which calculate activity including steps, distance travelled, calories burned and sleep duration.
The team accessed personal information from the devices as it was sent to the company’s cloud servers for analysis. The researchers said the problem could be used to falsify activity records or steal personal data.
… Before looking forward, we asked [Shelten] Yuen to look back to those early years to find out whether James, Eric and the team really believed they would be where they are now 10 years down the line with a family of wearables that are worn by millions of people across the world.
“When I met James and Eric and we tried to think about what Fitbit could be, we envisioned a world where these sensors would be ubiquitous and all over the place”, he said. “It was about using sensors throughout your life and to really help motivate people to reach peak fitness or to reduce the chances of diseases. Thinking practically, I didn’t think Fitbit would be a household name and just all over the world as it is today. It’s been a phenomenal ride and really speaks of the right timing and that Fitbit basically made this space.”
A mobile hypertension prevention program (HPP) delivered through Noom’s mobile health coaching service appears to significantly benefit users with consistently high blood pressure, according to a study conducted by the company and recently published in the Journal of Human Hypertension.
In fact, greater engagement with the HPP resulted in even higher reductions in weight and blood pressure, suggesting that Noom’s platform could be an effective intervention for those with hypertension or prehypertension.
“This is the first study to demonstrate that adults can lower their blood pressure to the normal range by using a mobile platform,” Dr. Tatiana Toro-Ramos, study author and senior academic researcher at Noom, told MobiHealthNews.
When fitness trackers alone fail to get families moving enough, turning step counts into a competition might help people get more exercise, a small experiment suggests.
Researchers gave fitness trackers to 200 adults and asked them to set daily step count goals to increase their activity levels. All had at least one other family member participating in the experiment, and half of the families were randomly chosen for a team competition with prizes tied to achieving daily and weekly step goals.
… Recently, researchers have begun to investigate other ways for these industries to trace items, including systems that can snap photos of labels or identify shipments by other visual cues. Now, an MIT group thinks they have an even better answer.
A team led by Fadel Adib, a principal investigator at MIT Media Lab, attached an RFID relay to a drone that he says could fly around and scan all the RFID tags on every box in a warehouse, and transmit that information back to a reader.
Valencell is a strong proponent of the fact that the best heart rate sensors on the market are developed with a systems approach. What exactly do we mean by systems approach? A systems approach is one that recognizes the hardware, software, testing & integration of heart rate sensors technology must work together be designed and implemented to work together to achieve high performance. It doesn’t work to have the hardware designed by one company and the software algorithms and assessments designed by another company. It’s like trying to put together a car with a Ford engine, a Chevy transmission, and a Tesla chassis. It might look like a car, but it won’t perform very well.
Indoor riding may not provide the same thrills as outdoor riding, but it’s a solid training option for the winter period. Depending on where you are in the UK, you can lose anything from a few days of outdoor training opportunities up to several weeks in the off-season due to frost, ice and snow. Turbos and rollers are, therefore, the safest and most convenient alternative.
Running is one of the most accessible forms of aerobic exercise: You can do it almost anywhere without needing a gym membership or expensive equipment. But although you can run while wearing just about anything, that doesn’t mean you’ll have a good time doing it. We spent more than 90 hours researching and testing running gear and enlisted the help of a current collegiate track coach (and former podiatrist), a former Runner’s World editor, and several of the most passionate runners on our staff to help us find the best gear to get you up and running.
… Because we’re constantly putting ourselves through hours-long runs, rides, hikes, and more, we know a good or bad gel when we taste one. Our staffers surveyed upwards of 15 flavors from four different brands, and, frankly, we can’t recommend many of them. We’ve sacrificed our taste buds, subjected ourselves to severe cases of dry mouth, and endured bizarrely textured mouthfuls of syrupy stuff all in the name of creating a foolproof roster of gels that are actually good. Don’t stray from this list and you’ll be rewarded with midrace fuel that tastes good and gets the job done.
