An Update On How Tech Is Keeping Me Fit & Sane During Lockdown
In 2021 I wrote this story on how tech was keeping me sane and making me fitter and healthier. I’d like to give an update as to where I am in terms of these efforts as well as the tech that I am using.
In terms of my cycling, I’ve made a couple of changes. The first is that I now ride with a cycling club for the social aspect of riding with other people. This has really helped with my mental health as it makes putting in the miles a lot more enjoyable than riding alone. But what hasn’t changed is that I am on the bike every day. In terms of my indoor cycling, I’ve been using one of the apps that I installed on my Apple Watch Ultra called Athlytic which I covered here previously. Based on the recovery information that the app provides, I can choose what workouts that I do. The app classifies recovery as follows:
Green: I am between 66% and 100% recovered from the previous days activities. Which means I can go as hard as I want today.
Yellow: I am between 34% and 65% recovered from the previous days activities. Which means I should do something easier than a max effort workout.
Red: I am between 0% and 33% recovered from the previous days activities. Which means I should do an easy workout or no workout.
A day with bad recovery means that I will often do an easy ride. Specifically within my zone 2 of my heart rate zones. You can find out more about heart rate zones here. But many competitive cyclists use zone 2 training to help them to build to do more strenuous activities. For example, two time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar is a major proponent of this type of training. You can read what his coach has to say about why this type of training is valuable here. I also use Athlytic to track my sleep and to make sure that I am getting good quality sleep as that helps with recovery. Not to mention tracking stress and my vital measurements like resting heart rate and skin temperature. That way I know if I some sort of sickness or the like coming on.
Besides riding outdoors, I am still riding on Zwift when I ride indoors as that still adds value to my fitness journey. And I am still cross country skiing, though the lack of snow in 2024 has really gotten in the way of that.
Now the whole point of my fitness journey is to get as healthy as possible. Using my Apple Watch Ultra, I’ve been able to collect this data which shows that I am making progress. Let’s start with my resting heart rate:
This is positive as it says that my fitness is improving. And I expect that to improve further as I have often seen my Apple Watch record resting heart rates as low as 58 BPM. Then there’s my weight. It continues to drop:
Like my resting heart rate, my weight trend is also on a downward trajectory. This too is something that I expect to continue to drop as I am slowly but consistently losing weight. In terms of a target weight, I don’t have one other than to get to something below 90 KG. Ideally, whatever my end weight is, it’s something that I can sustain without hopping through hoops to do it.
That’s a quick update on how I am keeping myself fit and sane. I hope it gave you some insight and maybe an idea or two so that you can do something similar. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below and I answer them as best as I can.
This entry was posted on January 6, 2024 at 9:09 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
An Update On How Tech Is Keeping Me Fit & Sane During Lockdown
In 2021 I wrote this story on how tech was keeping me sane and making me fitter and healthier. I’d like to give an update as to where I am in terms of these efforts as well as the tech that I am using.
In terms of my cycling, I’ve made a couple of changes. The first is that I now ride with a cycling club for the social aspect of riding with other people. This has really helped with my mental health as it makes putting in the miles a lot more enjoyable than riding alone. But what hasn’t changed is that I am on the bike every day. In terms of my indoor cycling, I’ve been using one of the apps that I installed on my Apple Watch Ultra called Athlytic which I covered here previously. Based on the recovery information that the app provides, I can choose what workouts that I do. The app classifies recovery as follows:
A day with bad recovery means that I will often do an easy ride. Specifically within my zone 2 of my heart rate zones. You can find out more about heart rate zones here. But many competitive cyclists use zone 2 training to help them to build to do more strenuous activities. For example, two time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar is a major proponent of this type of training. You can read what his coach has to say about why this type of training is valuable here. I also use Athlytic to track my sleep and to make sure that I am getting good quality sleep as that helps with recovery. Not to mention tracking stress and my vital measurements like resting heart rate and skin temperature. That way I know if I some sort of sickness or the like coming on.
Besides riding outdoors, I am still riding on Zwift when I ride indoors as that still adds value to my fitness journey. And I am still cross country skiing, though the lack of snow in 2024 has really gotten in the way of that.
Now the whole point of my fitness journey is to get as healthy as possible. Using my Apple Watch Ultra, I’ve been able to collect this data which shows that I am making progress. Let’s start with my resting heart rate:
This is positive as it says that my fitness is improving. And I expect that to improve further as I have often seen my Apple Watch record resting heart rates as low as 58 BPM. Then there’s my weight. It continues to drop:
Like my resting heart rate, my weight trend is also on a downward trajectory. This too is something that I expect to continue to drop as I am slowly but consistently losing weight. In terms of a target weight, I don’t have one other than to get to something below 90 KG. Ideally, whatever my end weight is, it’s something that I can sustain without hopping through hoops to do it.
That’s a quick update on how I am keeping myself fit and sane. I hope it gave you some insight and maybe an idea or two so that you can do something similar. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below and I answer them as best as I can.
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This entry was posted on January 6, 2024 at 9:09 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.