I RUN almost daily, early in the morning before the day starts (and everything else that comes with it). Many people find it amazing, even laborious, that I can squeeze in morning runs on weekdays.
My motivation is to get my mood right at the beginning of the day and I can say this for sure, that I am more patient and happier on days that I run.
But how do you keep yourself motivated if you are new to exercise?
For Motion Lab founder Joseph Lau, keeping track of your activities through the collection of fitness data can make you feel good about your exercising efforts and help you stick to your resolve.
"Take your fitness age, for example. If you have a fitness age that is younger than your actual age, it shows that you are fitter than your physical age," he says.
"Fitness age" is measured based on your Body Mass Index (BMI), age and level of activity. First coined by researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, fitness age also takes into account your respiratory health.
"You want to be fitter as you grow older, and this is one way to monitor that," Lau says.
Lau's Motion Lab is created to help people move better and allow them to take small steps to maintain fitness.
"We don't follow trends, we know what works for the body and we go back to basics," he says. "We do mobility and integrated bodyweight training so you can get in motion the way your body is designed to move," he says.
TRAIN AND TRACK
Lau says collecting fitness data through devices allows new exercisers to scale their training and track their improvements because "more data equals better decision-making".
He says workouts don't always have to be high intensity to reap benefits. "There are different benefits of training in zones 2, 3 and 4, and you must not discount the benefit of low aerobic exercises."
Lau has led a workout session at the recent launch of the Garmin Venu Sq 2, an upgrade of Venu Sq that is designed for those new in using smartwatches to collect data on their health and fitness.
The new gadget has new features, including updated intensity minutes — calculated when your heart rate goes up while exercising — to give users a better idea of when and what activity of the day that requires them to put in effort.
Lau says what's even more important is the watch's Sleep Score Monitoring feature. It enables you to analyse the quality of your sleep and by doing so, you can adjust your routine to either wind down at the end of the day, or take it easy the day after if you did not sleep well.
"I think sleep is underrated because it is the cornerstone of your health. It's when you sleep that you reset your emotions and your body recharges itself. Constantly having low quality sleep can impair your bodily functions and make you unhealthy," he says.
Sleep Score Monitoring allows users to see their sleep quality and get insights into how they can do better. Users can also keep track of the different sleep stages like light sleep, deep sleep or REM, as well as heart rate, stress, pulse oxygen and respiration.
Garmin has also added other functions to the Venu Sq 2. Its new HIIT profile for high-intensity interval training can track Amrap, Emom and Tabata, besides allowing for customisation.