Hey All
It's been quite a while since I shared fitness related stuff on the blog. Lately I tend to just do kickboxing. It's what I love and I've just recently got to a senior grade in it. I love learning new kicks and punches and the workout it gives me but I'm also aware I need to up my general fitness as well. Around Christmas time I decided it was time to see what this whole fitness watch craze was about and after lots of research decided the Garmin Vivosmart HR was the one for me. There was a lot of debate between the Garmin Vivosmart HR and the Fitbit Charge HR (which L now has and I'm sure she'll share her thoughts on it with you).
I do think the fitbit looks better but I preferred some of the functionality of the Garmin (and in the end it was £10 cheaper than I could find the fitbit for!). The Garmin Vivosmart HR comes in three colours in regular size black, midnight blue and imperial purple (which I have) and in the extra large size comes in black.
The display on it is quite large but I like that. It clearly displays the time and date and then when you swipe through shows you steps and what your target it, it does the same for floors climbed, it shows weekly active minutes and how many you should aim for, calories burnt, distance walked and heartrate as well as display average resting heartrate. When connected with a phone you can read new messages and notifications on your phone, control your music and see the weather. I love how many features you can access with just swiping through.
Then by clicking the button which you can see on right of the photo above you access a new window where you can start a run, put the watch in sleep mode (so you don't receive notifications), see alarms set, sync it to your phone, access settings and a few other options.
Here you can see the heartrate monitor. As I have nothing to compare it too as I've never monitored my heartbeat I can't judge how accurate it is but it recieves good reviews and I love that now having this when I exercise the calories I've burnt are now more accurately counted rather than going by what myfitness pal tells me. Another thing I love is that you can connect it to your myfitness pal as well as other apps and it then synchronises that information to what the watch has logged.
The strap on it is secure and fastens like a normal watch. I usually wear it on the 4th or 5th whole from the top so it's a secure fit.
To get the most from the watch you connect it up to the app. The app allows you to see all previous data and addition information such as sleep and calories consumed. You can click on each of the options for more information on them too. You can see alarms through the app which I really like. The alarm feature if something I'm enjoying, I like waking up to a subtle vibrate on the wrist rather than loud alarm sounds. You can also make running and walking tracking more accurate by setting your stride distance. I'm yet to do this as I've not measured mine to know but as I walk it seems pretty accurate at calculating mine. You put in height and weight as you set it up so it goes on an average of those anyway.
Other features I love is that it is waterproof so I don't have to worry about wearing it in the shower and it can track activities such as swimming as it's waterproof to 5 ATMs which I know some of the equivalent trackers aren't.
Overall I love it so far, it's easy and very quick to charge. It lasts a good few days and I if it runs out mid day I charge it for an hour at my desk and I'm good to go again. It really does make me more conscious of how active I am and pushes me to do those extra steps on day's I've not quite made it.
Have you got a fitness tracker? How do you find it?
Love M
xxx
