Apple Watch Series 4 Review ../#

Apple Watch Series 4 review: The go to gadget for fitness and marathon training

Every January, Mumbai gears up for its annual marathon. Over the years, I’ve realized that participating in a marathon needs a great deal of drive and determination. Something that lasts from the time you register for the event starting July, a good six months. This weekend, thousands of determined citizens from across the city, including various nationalities would take the road less traveled. Whether purely for fitness or with determination to win a race, whether young or old, they all would show up, take the first step and continue forward till the finish line.

Health: The primary purpose of the Apple Watch

Apple aims to drive adoption of the Apple Watch as a health product. It’s a small package with sensors squeezed in to keep you updated on every aspect of your health. It helps you keep track of your breathing cycles and condition it with some effective breathing exercises using the Breathe app by Apple.

In addition to Breathe, the App Store has several other apps such as Nike+, Strava, iHydrate and more to track various aspects of health. And just like any fitness band or smartwatch, it has standard features such as pedometer (count steps), overall activity tracker such as movement, standing, and exercise, besides GPS to track your route on a map.

The highlight of the device is the onboard ECG system, thanks to the electrical heart sensor that Apple has managed to implement. Unfortunately, this is not active in India just yet. Regulators in India would need to approve this feature for it to be made available. Considering its implications on healthcare, it could come in handy. The service is available in the US market for now.

Fitness: Enabled by sensors and algorithms

Besides health, the Apple Watch pays close attention to your fitness and motivation levels. It includes dedicated activity settings for outdoor walk, stair stepper, outdoor run, outdoor cycle, indoor walk, indoor run, indoor cycle, elliptical, rower, hiking, yoga, pool swim, open water swim and high intensity interval training. As far as walking, stairs and running is concerned, the Apple Watch is accurate in counting steps unlike a lot of the other fitness bands available in the market.

While you could get your hands on a fitness band at a much lower price, you certainly can’t rely on it for keeping a track on your steps or rate of acceleration or deceleration. Even the heart-rate serves as a very important metric in determining how effective your exercise and fitness regime is turning out to be.

Training: Subtle reinforcement to keep you going

As we gear up for marathon day, it’s important to remember that the marathon is only the culmination of months of intensive preparation and training. It starts with long walks for training the cardiological system. This could begin at anywhere between 10-20km per week and could go up to 50km per week. It’s not uncommon to do upwards of 10km in a day either. However, in order to reach such levels of intensity, it’s important to closely track your vital parameters and increase your intensity at a gradual pace. Apple’s effective algorithms ensure that you get messages and alerts like a coach would continuously nudge you.

It’s necessary to also have a record of your progress, something you can refer to and track the impact your workout has on your heart rate. This is a continuous process that takes months. The Apple Watch proves largely accurate in tracking pace, steps as well as heart rate and serves as a ready reference in real time.

In addition to activity, your diet and water intake are crucial. Keeping a track of your food and water intake so you maintain optimum levels of water in your system, as well as leanness helps you with significantly higher levels of endurance. But what gains even more importance is your motivation level.