The exercise technology that helped us stay fit in quarantine

With all of the mental burdens of living in 2020 – including gyms closing their doors – many have struggled to reach their normal exercise levels. Here has The edge, we faced it as you would expect: with technology that could allow or motivate us to do business. These are the gadgets, apps, games, and services that we used to sweat while staying safe, and could come in handy if your New Years resolution involves exercise.

Defeat Saber

I named Defeat Saber my favorite game of 2018, but I’ve been tough ever since, until Oculus released Quest 2 in October. It’s the first VR headset I love to wear, and I used SideQuest to add custom bootleg tracks that support my embarrassing musical taste, turning my Quest into an almost single-use beat-slashing machine. (I probably owe Muse and the New Pornographers royalties or something? Look, I really like the unofficial Expert beatmap from “The Mary Martin Show.”) Pro: I remember having new a body. Con: I get OK Go stuck in my head every morning. – Adi robertson

Nike Training Club and Reddit

I’ve been using the Nike Training Club for a while now, but this year I needed it more than ever as my bike ride disappeared and my step count dropped. The Nike app has a collection of workouts that you can filter based on how much equipment you have, how much time you have, whether you’re looking for a strength or cardio workout, and more. This year, my filters were “none”, “all the time in the world” and “I’ll take what I can” respectively.

What I love most is the simplicity of most of the workouts, which leaves me free to ease the boredom of the exercise by listening to podcasts while I work out. Instead of having to listen to a personal trainer’s motivational snippets along with his instructions, Nike’s app mostly shows simple, looping videos of each exercise and leaves my mind free to roam. (The app also includes more traditional workout videos, but they never clicked with me.)

At the start of the year, I also benefited a lot from my group work with my roommates. Here, the routine designed by Reddit’s Bodyweight Fitness community was invaluable. It includes strength exercises that you can do with minimal equipment and different variations of each to let you adjust their difficulty. While you don’t need a lot to get started, we found that adding a pull-up bar, gym rings, and resistance bands was a relatively affordable way to give us a lot more options. exercise. – Jon Porter

Instagram

While I generally keep my social media habit limited to Twitter, one of my first strategies for staying active while staying at home was to collect home exercise posts with Instagram’s Saved Messages feature. Fitness instructors have always shared content on Instagram, but the closure of gyms and fitness studios has brought a slew of free guided workouts to the app. It’s not Pinterest, but my collection of saved posts allows me to keep easy exercises handy and eliminate one of my many excuses for not moving: I rarely know what I’m doing when it comes. ‘s about training me.

Over the year, I fell off my Instagram health boost, but I continue to collect and sort exercise posts. Obviously, there are fewer physical benefits, but I still find it very calming. – Ian campbell

The Garmin Fenix ​​6X

Image: Garmin

I know I’m tempting fate by saying this, but my fitness has improved dramatically during the pandemic. I was motivated by boredom and, frankly, the fear of dying, but also a Garmin Fenix ​​6X Pro Solar do-it-all watch. It has also helped my local government to promote safe and socially remote outdoor fitness activities instead of issuing a strict stay-at-home order.

Before fitness gadgets started selling on Amazon and beyond, I managed to amass a set of adjustable resistance bands that I had read on Wire cutter and a luxurious pair of weighted skipping ropes from Crossrope. During March and April, I worked with these objects pretty much every day while I was confined at home. The Garmin watch did a good job of automatically tracking my push-ups and bicep curls, but it was much less able to detect other movements, failing miserably in tracking my Crossrope sessions, for example. Crossrope is creating an app with paid subscription levels, but I found it superfluous for my needs. Although I’m not quite at a professional boxer’s level, I’ve managed to hone several jumping skills like crosses, doubles, and a variety of jumps to keep the repetition interesting.

I also started yoga around this time to help maintain my sanity and increase my flexibility. While the Fenix ​​6 can guide you through lively yoga sessions, as an absolute beginner I have found it inconvenient and disturbing to keep glancing at my wrist to study the mechanics of poses. YouTube is a much better salon coach. I have completed the 30 Day Kassandra Challenge (Adriene is too talkative for me) and yoga is now part of my regular routine.

In the spring I started running outside in the streets and city parks of Amsterdam without tourists. Here, the Garmin watch excelled. I was motivated to run faster and longer by using Garmin’s PacePro feature to inject my Spotify playlist, real-time coaching, and step-by-step navigation into my AirPods Pro headphones. I soon became addicted to setting new personal bests and lowering my physical age when competing with my racing friends who prefer Garmin watches to anything else.

In the summer, I used the Garmin Fenix ​​6 to track my kitesurfing sessions, all day bike rides, and open water swims in the ocean. In the fall, I started golfing, motivated by Garmin’s impressive ability to keep track of every stroke made on hundreds of golf courses around the world. The Fenix ​​6 isn’t precise enough to follow putts, but it does an incredible job of tracking every stroke from tee to green, allowing you to measure club performance, keep score and see trends after each round.

The Fenix ​​6 has proven to be a handyman and master of some, which has motivated me to try new activities like mountain biking to see how it fits. After nine months of heavy, uninterrupted use, the watch now indicates my physical age is 20. As a 53 year old human being obsessed with gadgets trying to survive a virus, this is something I am proud of. – Thomas ricker

Apple Watch, Nintendo and Fitbod games

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

When I got an Apple Watch in November 2019, there were two things I didn’t expect: the upcoming pandemic that would make it impossible to go to the gym, and how well the gamified ring system would work on me. . The desire to fill each ring every day (which I did, thank you) made it, at the very least, I get up and walk quickly around my apartment every day.

I also managed to find a copy of Wii Sports Resort at a local game store, so I didn’t have to pay the eBay scalper prices that started showing around March (hardcore gamers don’t were not the only ones to manage them). It’s not really what I would call a workout, but it’s fun and it gets my wife and I off the couch. Do i prefer to play Defeat Saber? Yes, but I couldn’t get my hands on the VR platform I wanted this year. It’s on the list for 2021, once we can find some PC hardware.

Screenshot by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

For a Nintendo game that Actually provides a workout I turned to Ring-shaped adventure. I rode it to the highest difficulty level, and immediately regretted it … but continuing was rewarding and I feel like I’m practicing. It’s not the thrilling, sweaty all-over workout I got from YouTube workout videos or Apple Fitness Plus, but it usually hurts the next day.

Finally, while I wouldn’t call adjustable dumbbells “tech,” I paired mine with the Fitbod app, which tracks your exercises and builds sets based on which muscle groups are cool. Combined with the fact that I now have a full set of weights that can actually fit in a small apartment, I’m doing more weight training now than I’ve ever done at the gym. – Mitchell clark

What exercise?

I entered the pandemic with the best of intentions and an array of gadgets at my disposal: a VR headset with exercise games, a motorized standing desk, a really good road bike, a smart watch, even a range of relatively new power tools (leaf blower, hedge trimmer, pressure washer) then I bought intending to clean the yard.

Instead, I started to become a real couch potato for the duration of the year.

I could have used the standing function of the standing desk … twice? I had a few intense VR sessions of Pistol whip, sure, but the resistance wasn’t there, and I’m not sure if I played Half-life: Alyx never saw me sweat. Heck, I used an automatic tire inflator the one and only time I went to the park with my bike to test out an awesome new phone holder. I raked all the leaves in the yard twice, I guess. But if I’m telling the truth, I’ve probably burned more calories breaking down a mountain of Amazon boxes than any other activity this year.

There was a good reason I wasn’t feeling very motivated: After years of failed diets, I finally lost weight during the in-place shelter. Using a smart scale equipped with Wi-Fi and the MyFitnessPal app, I mentally berated myself for weighing and recording calories almost every day for several months in a row, limiting myself to 1,600 a day. I have lost 25 pounds and am no longer so hungry! Imagine if I had exercised too. – Sean hollister