IF you’ve made a new year’s resolution to get fit, using tracking apps and gadgets could help you stick with it, writes Shane Richmond. The return to work after the festive season brings a barrage of predictable questions: How was your Christmas? What did you do for new year? And, inevitably: have you made any resolutions? Whether you’re giving up drinking or taking up jogging, making resolutions is easy. What’s difficult is sticking to them but technology can help. There are simple solutions, such as Lift, the free iPhone app that helps you stick with new habits by tapping a green tick for each day that you meet your goal. Other users can offer encouragement but often simply maintaining the streak, day after day, is enough. Getting fit is probably the most common new year’s resolution and there are increasing numbers of wearable gadgets that can help you to improve by tracking your performance. Nike’s Fuelband, worn on the wrist, tracks your movement through the day and tells you how many ‘Nike Fuel’ points you’ve earned. It can also count your steps with reasonable accuracy: about 10,000 per day is considered the benchmark for a healthy lifestyle. Similar gadgets, such as Fitbit’s One or Jawbone’s Up wristband, add the ability to track your sleep - monitoring how restless you are and, therefore, how deeply you are sleeping. The Fitbug tracker, backed by the people behind the Holmes Place and LA Fitness gym chains, can even give you money off your insurance for meeting certain fitness goals. It can sound a little gimmicky but the first time you notice yourself walking up the stairs rather than taking an escalator, you realise that the desire to earn just a few more points has made you more active. Competing with others is a good motivator too. Two friends of mine used to compete for the best Fuelband score. One started taking late-night walks, scoring a few crucial points when it was too late for the other to catch up. Childish, yes, but it did make both of them more active, which is the point. In professional sport, where these technologies have been used for a long time, measuring performance and identifying areas of possible improvement can be the difference between first and second place. McLaren Applied Technologies, the technology arm of the Formula One racing team, worked with several parts of Team GB in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. The company helped to improve performance in cycling in particular and its services are used by many professional sportsmen and women.
