Feb 19, 2014

Our Top Five Favourite Fitness Gadgets

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When your office has as much chocolate as ours does, it’s pretty important to make sure your physical output is extended beyond the area you can roll to in your desk chair.The avalanche of fitness apps, gadgets and monitors is making it easier than ever to stay motivated; setting goals, teaming up, and tracking your progress makes fitness fun.

So as we squint our eyes to see spring approaching, and swimsuit season just around the corner, here are our top five faves for fitness gadgets.

1. TempoRun
A Brunnel University study concluded that running to the tempo of your music can increase your cardiovascular output by up to 15%.  So we were delighted to stumble on TempoRun, which has fast become our favourite way to sync your footsteps to the the perfect beat.With their TempoLevel system, TempoRun categorizes your music library into levels based on different tempo intervals. So when you’re on a specific level, all songs will share a similar beat, allowing you to match your running pace to that beat creating a more fluid and exhilarating run. A little Kayne, anyone?

2. Strava Run GPS Running Tracker
Strava’s tag line – Prove It –  is enough to get us up off the couch. An active community of athletes from all over the world, Strava is a top contender in the world of social fitness.  Connecting and competing with other Strava community members via your mobile and other online apps, you can track your runs or bike rides, analyze the quality of your performance, and join online challenges to see how you stack up against friends.From showing maps of your routes to providing key stats like distance, pace, splits, elevation and calories burned, Strava puts you in control of your performance, and adds an element of healthy competition to traditionally solo sports.
 
3. FitBit
An all purpose, wearable fitness assistant, FitBit helps you track steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, stairs climbed and active minutes throughout the day. You can set fitness goals and custom programs and monitor your success as carefully as you like. The think we love most is how FitBit covers each of the four major areas of a healthy lifestyle, and holds you accountable in each: Activity, Food, Weigh and Sleep. After all, those eight flights of stairs aren’t quite as impressive combined with those eight slices of pizza. Tsk tsk.
 
4. Waterfi iPod Shuffle With Headphones
We’re obsessed with Waterfi’s new Dual Layer waterproofing technology, which allows you to listen to your iPod underwater! Using a two-step process to make electronics waterproof and corrosion proof, Waterfi products are waterproof down to as deep as 210 feet underwater and insulated up to 40,000 volts.  Now you can get your groove on as you swim some laps or just mellow out with some beach tunes and float the day away.
 
5. Zeo Sleep Manager Pro+
You know those people who wake up at the crack of dawn bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after only a couple hours of …. wait … no, we don’t know any of those people either.We all know that a good eight hours is a crucial contributor to good health, mental wellness and general fitness, which is why we’re digging Zero Sleep Manager Pro+.  Solely focused on zzzz’s, the Zeo Sleep Manager combines a comfortable headband with a series of apps to measure sleep patterns and stages: Wake, REM, Light and Deep. Then you get customized data and advice to help you maximize your sleep, with a graphical representation of your night, compared y with previous nights and with your age group’s average.