As a functional and integrative medicine practitioner, I’ve found wearable technology and health tracking apps invaluable for helping clients achieve their wellness goals. Specifically, the myCircadianClock app allows clients to log details about their sleep, activity, light exposure and eating to gain insight into daily rhythms and patterns. By reviewing a client’s data from the app over time, I can see how seasonal changes may be impacting their health and make targeted recommendations, such as increasing light exposure in the winter or shifting meal times. For example, one client found that eating dinner later in the evening was disrupting her sleep, so we adjusted her schedule to allow for a longer overnight fast. Within a week, her sleep efficoency improved by over 15% based on her sleep tracker data. Health apps and wearables empower patients by giving them more ownership and understanding of their data. Many of my clients find that regularly tracking their metrics helps keep them accountable and motivated to make changes. The visual display of progress, especially improvements in sleep, activity or body composition, boosts confidence in the therapeutic approaches we’ve designed together. While the technologies themselves don’t drive change, they are useful tools for discovery and fostering partnership between patient and practitioner.
At The Athleticus Personal Training Studio, we have been using Trainerize with great success to track clients' progress. Besides the ability to write detailed programs and track reps and sets for each clients, we are able to do some additional things that have been valuable. First, we can see each exercise individually and the client's trajectory of progress. For example, we can take a look at a specific person's deadlifts. In Trainerize, we can see how the deadlift exercise has progressed over time, and show the client clearly and easily that they started with a 65 pound deadlift back in October of last year and that they were able to do 3 sets of 8. Now they are deadlifting 150 pounds for 4 sets of 10! This can help clients who feel as though they have plateaued see that they have in fact been progressing over time! Secondly we use Trainerize to upload our nutrition plans and to connect with other apps to track nutrition, steps walked and heart rate throughout the day. This allows our members to have a comprehensive picture of their activities. Last, we use Trainerize to set additional health goals such as drinking more water and having a device detox 30 minutes before bed. For members that want more, Trainerize has a lot of integrations and even offers a special Athleticus-branded interface. For clients that just want to work out one-on-one with an excellent personal trainer, Trainerize is an unobtrusive tool that they do not have to learn. The Athleticus team has been using Trainerize as our coaching app since opening day and we are happy with the functionality that it provides.
Strava. I find it's got the best user experience from all the fitness apps I've tried. It allow only tracks the metrics that really matter, without superfluous metrics.
Since my client is more into the running aspect and weight reduction, Strava has helped me monitor my client's progress pretty well. You can interact over there as well, see the workout or run history, and the calories burnt. This app is versatile and convenient for anyone to use and also for tracking your or your client's fitness record.