ONCE UPON A time, a run was just a run, and a night’s sleep was just another night’s sleep.

Now each activity is a detailed quarterly performance review conducted by a tiny, judgmental rectangle that lives on your wrist. It buzzes to let you know that you’ve “under slept” or interrupts your morning coffee, while you’re mid-yawn, to inform you of your “poor sleep quality” during the night. 

This little device continues throughout the day, buzzing to notify you that you’re “under-recovered,” “need to move more”, and are somehow both “too slow” and “working too hard.” You set off on your run, determined to get out in the fresh air, de-stress and yet, you return with a colour-coded report and mild existential dread.

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Fitness trackers promised to revolutionise exercise, turning us into athletic marvels, but as we wake in the morning to a disappointing sleep score and pause mid-run to argue with pace count, sprinting the last 200 metres to avoid an embarrassing average pace, is it worth asking if your fitness tracker is making your training worse?

Research, however, consistently shows that fitness trackers have positively impacted our awareness and engagement with physical activity. They have their place. I often encourage their use with my patients, tracking their step counts and using this visual feedback to motivate greater engagement in consistent movement and exercise. The good news is, it works more often than not.

The visual report acts as a easily digestible examination of how little the patient may be moving, sparking conversation, helping us identify barriers to exercise while harnessing their abilities.

Wearable trackers encourage consistency with simple measures, providing a platform for self-directed accountability. They help support positive behaviour change. For someone starting out, seeing step count rise or resting heart rate fall can be both motivating and empowering.

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These wearable trackers have had several positive impacts on health and behaviour. Research has found that the use of this technology........

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