Are Fitness Wearables Helping or Hurting Your Progress?

00:00Wearables can be an incredible tool. They can also be another way to be absolutely obsessive, anxious, and disconnected from your own body. And for women especially, women who may have already, may already have like a complicated relationship with food or with a scale or with their body or with performance or their perfectionist mindset. If that's you, like we need to take this seriously. Like orthosomnia, researchers have coined this term for people who have become so obsessed with getting a perfect sleep score that the anxiety around it starts disrupting their sleep.

00:32Like you're laying in bed and you're stressed out about whether you're going to hit your deep sleep number or not, your deep sleep quota. And like that is the opposite of what this is supposed to do for you. Like if you're doing these things as a punishment, that means that these tools aren't helping you in your journey. Hey, hey, everyone. What's going on? Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

01:06I'm your host, Nikki Stott. And welcome, my friends, to episode number 344. And today, we're going to get into something that I know every single one of you either owns or has thought about buying or has contemplated your relationship with it. And that's your wearables. So we're going to talk about whether you have an Oura Ring or you have an Apple Watch or you got a Whoop or you got Garmin. Whatever's on your wrist or whatever's on your finger, that's a topic that we're going to dive into today.

01:38Because here's the thing. This technology is literally the number one fitness trend right now. Like 2026, 2025, 2024. It's a number one. Out of everything happening in this industry, this is what the experts are pointing to. Either the wearables, the trackers, the devices. And I think that there's a really important conversation that we need to have around this type of technology, especially for women who are, you know, doing the work, who are showing up, who are tracking their macros,

02:13who are already in the gym and they're getting it done. Because adding more data to the picture can either be like an absolute total game changer, or for what I think is going to be speaking to majority of the women listening to this episode right now, it can be an absolute spiral show. Like it can send you into a mental spiral. So with today's episode, I want to break down like what's actually worth paying attention to, what's just added noise,

02:46and how to use these trackers and these wearables as a tool without it letting it like ruin your entire life. Like if you are someone that, you know, knows and has a good relationship with these trackers, like amazing, I commend you to encourage those around you in your space. That a probably majority of you guys listen to this episode that let these wearables either just navigate how you show up for your day. If you look at it in the morning and see how your sleep score went, like you have an emotional pull to it,

03:17just like how I've talked about on an episode where you have an emotional relationship with the scale. The same thing goes with these trackers, okay? They can send people into absolute spirals. So first, I kind of just like, let's just first talk about how far this technology has come, because like it's actually kind of wild when you break it down. Like, I was doing some research on this and a few years ago, a fitness tracker was like counting your steps and maybe it was paying attention to your heart rate.

03:47But now, these devices are tracking your HRV, your heart rate variability, which is, you know, I'm going to break that down in a second. They're tracking your sleep stages. They're tracking your body temperature. They're tracking your cycles on a monthly basis. And they're so accurate, it's scary. They're checking your blood oxygen, your recovery score, your stress levels. Like, your watch knows more about your body than most people do, which is wild to think about.

04:18And I think it's absolutely wild, but at the same time, I also think it's like really cool. And it's also very overwhelming, right? So I want to just break down like the metrics that I think are actually worth, that actually matter, especially if you are in the fitness space, if you're working out, if you're going to the gym, even if you're just starting out and you're like, I feel so overwhelmed by all of these things that my device does. I think this is a really good, like, what do I actually need to pay attention to? So first is that heart rate variability, your HRV.

04:52This one, I talk about this all the time. I have watched my HR, I pride myself on my HRV, but ever since I've been taking, this is just a little side note, because I've shared with you guys that I have been diagnosed with a low thyroid. So I have been taking thyroid support medication in the morning and I recognize, and I've also been talking to my doctor about this, but taking that affects my HRV. So I've watched my HRV be like these, and by the way, they are completely individualized

05:24to the person. So I'm not going to say my numbers, but I've watched them be so incredibly like super human numbers to being more on the lower side of things. And that's okay. There's a reason why. But all of that to say, like HRV, if I want to break it down for you guys to understand what it is, it's a variation between each of your heartbeats. So having a higher HRV generally means that your nervous system is recovered and it's ready to go hard.

05:55You had, you, the stress levels of your body are being maintained well, and your nervous system is able to essentially recover well. A lower HRV means your body's telling you that it needs more time. So think of it as like your body's readiness score. This is probably the most useful metric on any wearable right now, which is your HRV. It's how, it's basically speaking into your body's, how, how does your body handle stress? Is it high? That means your body handles stress really well.

06:25If it's low, it means your body doesn't handle stress really well. And it's asking for just a little bit more time before you maybe, or asking for a little bit more throughout your day to just slow down to help improve that number. That's one of the first things that I think matters. The second thing I think matters is your sleep quality, not just like your duration. Like we've all heard, get eight hours, get seven hours. But your wearable is now breaking down how much of that is deep sleep, how much of it is a

06:56REM sleep, how much of it is a light sleep, how much, how long is it taking you to actually fall asleep? And this all matters for your recovery, for your muscle repair, for your hormones, for your mood. Not just in the gym for the next day, but just in general, like this is a big one. And again, it doesn't matter about your duration. Like, yeah, like somebody could get eight hours of sleep, but sleep inefficiently, not sleep well, sleep horribly. There could be a lot of disturbances. You only got a little bit of deep sleep and a little bit of REM sleep. You weren't able to effectively stay asleep for those for that duration.

07:31So it's not just about the duration. It's like, what is the actual quality of your sleep, the sleep quality? Another thing is your resting heart rate. This one is simple, but it's so powerful, in my opinion. As you get fitter, as you increase your athletic abilities, as you get healthier, your resting heart rate typically drops. If it spikes unexpectedly, then that's a signal. Maybe you're getting sick. Maybe you're, maybe you've overtrained.

08:02What's pretty crazy is if you eat late at night, you'll see a spike or it takes you longer to fall asleep. That could be a problem to your sleep quality. I could probably talk about that in another episode. But when you fall asleep and you, you get to a resting heart rate pretty quickly, that means you're going to be able to have a recovered, your recovery is, is, is optimal during that sleep period. But if it increases, yeah. So also alcohol will play a huge role. If you have an aura ring, this thing, it's like, it's like staring at you in your face when

08:34you open up the app. If you had a glass of wine, this is, and then you go to sleep and you're wondering why your heart rate is elevated. This is why. And that's a signal. Okay. So it's like, you know, alcohol will do that to your body. Or maybe you overtrained. Maybe it was a leg day. You trained late at night and it's going to take a little bit, a little while for your heart rate to get back to normal. You had to stress a week, right? And your body's holding onto it. So those could just be indicators as to why it's spiking unexpectedly, but it's really good and as simple of a powerful marker to pay attention to.

09:05Now, I'm pretty sure that all of the wearables do this, but I'm not 100%. I know the Aura does this. The Aura Ring focuses on a readiness score or maybe other ones do like a recovery score. Most apps, they put together all of the above that I just said, your heart availability, your sleep quality, your resting heart rate. And they basically say, okay, here's how ready you are today based off of those things. The Aura Ring, like I said, does this really well. I think Whoop does this as well.

09:35But this is basically just like, here's how ready you are to go tackle life today. And I think that's a really cool because it's summing up the three that I just said. So I think that's a really cool marker and I think that matters. So again, HRV, sleep quality, resting heart rate, and your readiness score. Some of the things that I would pay attention to, but some of you guys are like, do I need to track all of these things? Or maybe you're wondering that. And I would say no, but understanding what they mean will just put some power into your hands when you're looking at these tools and these numbers and just being able to understand

10:09what's going on behind the data. Because I think it's really important for you guys to be able to understand, okay, if I'm wearing this now, like, how can I use this data right? Like, is it generally useful? And this is where I want to give credit where credit's due. So I think that a lot of people will wake up in a day, they'll feel sluggish, they'll feel like they're getting sick, they'll feel like whatever is going on in their body and they're unsure what's going on. But if you're wearing this type of thing, it removes the guesswork from your recovery.

10:40Like, how many times have you been like, oh my gosh, should I go hard today? Or should I take a rest day? Or like, I'm just not feeling it. And then you open up these apps, and it's telling you that, hey, I need a rest day. Or worse, you guessed, maybe you guessed with those answers. And you push through a brutal workout on a day that your body was maybe waving a red flag for you to just like chill and rest and take a recovery day. And you ended up then getting burnt out or being injured, right? So it removes the guesswork from your recovery.

11:10Your wearable is literally answering that question for you. Like if your HRV is tanked, your recovery score is low, that's not probably the day to go in and do a PR on a deadlift or lift really hard. Like you could get into the gym and just move your body. It might just be a day for some mobility work. It might just be some a day for a walk, or maybe some extra sleep. And guys, it's not weakness. That's that's a part of the strategy. So I think it's really cool that like these things can literally tell you that. And you don't have to guess.

11:41You kind of remove that guesswork from the recovery. It also connects the dots between the your lifestyle and your performance. I think this is one of my favorite things that these things do is like, when you start tracking, you start noticing patterns that you never thought that you would you would catch otherwise. Like, oh, when I have that glass of wine or two, my deep sleep drops significantly. Like I'm saying and said, it's like a smack in your face. Like you have that and then you can see the lifestyle pattern of how it's showing up in

12:13the data. Or like, I always have my best workouts after I've hit my protein goal for three days in a row. And then you can see that type of data in the app. Or, you know, I think this is really, really cool is like with the cycle trackers, I can tell you spot on one of my luteal phase because my body temperature increases. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

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13:17Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. Which is really cool. So you can tell these things and you're hot, like you're watching, you can tell how you're like the week before your period, like you're the luteal phase that you're in. Um, and your body temperature increases, your heart rate increases a little bit and that's

13:51because you're getting your period soon. So this is a, your tracker is probably going to tell you, writing a score isn't the best and this is your ability to maybe go a little bit lighter in the gym or just move your body with some supersets, right? This information for me is, and personally it's gold. Like that's personalized data about your body that no generic program can give you is having these wearables. And like I have, I'm wearing the order ring. It's right here. I'm showing you guys if you're watching on video, had this thing before it was even cool. Like before it came into the hot light a couple years ago, like I had this before COVID even

14:24hits. Um, so yeah, I've, this is the only tracker that I've worn consistently. Hey, while you're listening, if you're getting value from this episode, take a moment to tap that review button or share this podcast with a friend. It's a small gesture that goes a long way in helping more women find their way to feeling stronger and more confident in their skin. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to support this show. So yeah, those are a few things I feel like, like that gives you, like give credit where

14:55credit is due. Um, now I want to get to, this is where, what I really want to talk to you guys about, because I don't think people talk about this enough. Wearables can be a incredible tool. They can also be another way to be absolutely obsessive, anxious, and disconnected from your own body. And for women, especially women who may have already, may already have like a complicated relationship with food or with a scale or with their body or with performance. Or their perfectionist mindset. That's something that like, if that's you, like we need to take this seriously and how

15:28I'm going to just, um, lean into you guys a little bit with some, with some love. Because I was, as I was getting ready to record this podcast with you guys, I, I've seen what I want to flag for you. Um, there is this term called orthosomnia, if I'm saying that right. And it's a real thing. Researchers have coined this term for people who have become so obsessed with getting a perfect sleep score that the anxiety around it starts disrupting their sleep.

16:00Like you're laying in bed and you're stressed out about whether you're going to hit your deep sleep number or not, your deep sleep quota. And like, that is the opposite of what this is supposed to do for you. So you like being able to remove yourself from, it's the same thing of removing yourself from the emotional components of what the scale can do. Um, and like recognizing that this is a real thing. And if that's you, it's like, maybe you only wear your tracker for certain nights of the week until you can develop like recognizing, like, this is just giving me more insight into

16:32my body or some of the points that I already shared with you before and why this information is golden. Maybe you can attach, you know, the, the relationship to that type of data that I was just sharing previously. The one where, what is it? The rings or something like that. Um, I got to close on my rings or like, or like the green score. Like you got this tendency, like to feel like you got to close, you got to get that green light. You got to get that green, uh, you got to close all your rings and this like, and then you got to like, you got to, you, the only way that you can do that to walk away from your

17:06workout is you feel okay because you did that. That can strip away your autonomy and your intuition into what your body's actually telling you. Like some days your score, like if you just close it and you don't close it all the way, but you still feel amazing. That's incredible. But some days you're going to close that score and you're going to feel like you push yourself way too hard and you're going to feel flat. Dude, listening to your body rather than paying attention to you, closing your rings is what matters the most. Again, the device is just a data point, not the verdict.

17:37It doesn't, it doesn't tell you what you need to do, which leads into like, uh, data is like a form of control. Like I just want to name this one gently, but directly, if you have ever struggled with disordered eating or over-exercising or using numbers to feel in control, fitness tracking data can feed those same patterns. So like if you're obsessively checking your stats, if you're obsessively closing those rings, if you're feeling anxious when numbers aren't good, or you didn't close your rings, punishing

18:08yourself with harder workouts or pushing yourself to exhaustion when recovery is low, those are not, those are signs that the tool is no longer serving you. Like if you're doing these things as a punishment, that means that this, that these tools aren't helping you in your journey. You shouldn't feel punished by a tool. You're the one in control and you are the one that has the intuition to know when your body has had enough or when it can perform at its best. And these tools should make you excited to know deeper information on your body, not punish

18:43you. If any of this resonates, you guys, I want you to hear me say you are allowed to take that watch off. You are allowed to take the ring off. You are allowed to use the data very loosely. You get to decide what role this plays into your life, not the other way around. And then the one last thing that I want to say about this one is these, the comparison spiral, especially for those of you guys that are in these online fitness communities that are, you know, paying attention to your friends, closing their rings, you know, people share their

19:17whoop scores, people share their sleep stats, their HRV numbers. That can very quickly become another version of comparing your body to someone else's or comparing your journey to someone else's. I can't tell you how individualized these scores are. Like it goes, it's just like tracking your macros. Nobody has the same exact macro numbers. They can't. It's physically impossible. Everybody's body is physically different. Hormone profiles made up differently. Our lifestyles are differently, right? Everyone's baseline is different. So like a good HRV for you might be for a good HR for you might be like 80, where for

19:56someone else's, it's 110, right? Context always matters, you guys. All right. So how you guys can actually wear this in a healthy way, like a productive way. So this is what this is some type of framework that I would suggest. Number one, establish your baseline first. Don't freak out about your numbers right away. Like when you first start wearing a device, just observe it for the first two to three, four weeks. Get a sense of what your normal looks like.

20:27Because you're not going to put on this wearable and all of a sudden you're going to have perfect numbers. Your numbers may look different. So it's just like getting and establishing and understanding your baseline. Then what I would say is pick one or two metrics that you're actually going to pay attention to or act on. You don't need to assess over every single number. Just pick ones that feel relevant to your goals. Maybe it's your HRV and your readiness, or maybe it's your sleep. If your sleep is a weak spot, focus on your sleep quality, right? Simple and sustainable here. Pick one or two metrics that actually matter.

20:57Another step that I would say like in this is use it to inform yourself, not to control. The data should not, the data should be one input among several. Like your energy, your mood, your motivation, like those are data points too. If your watch says rest and you genuinely feel great and you want to move, you are allowed to train. If your watch says go, but your body says no, then you're allowed to rest, right?

21:29Just use this data as like to have a conversation with your body, with yourself, not to just like entirely override it. Because you could wake up and like there's days I've done it too. My readiness score has said, oh, like you're at a 71 for the day. What does your day look like today? Can you take it easy? But I'm like, I feel great. Like I'm going to go train. So it's not like they're not, use it to inform, use it to start a conversation with yourself. And then go with what your gut is telling you. Go with what your body is telling you.

21:59And then the last thing I would say is check on your relationship with it. Like every few months, ask yourself honestly, like, is this device making me feel more empowered? Is it making me feel happy? Is it making me feel like I'm learning? Or is it making me feel more anxious? Is it helping me trust my body more? Is it making me trust my body less? If the answer isn't a clear positive, then might be worth recalibrating how you're using it or taking a break from it entirely. Okay? So I know you're going to ask.

22:31Here's like which devices, like a quick breakdown. This is what I'm going to give you guys. On the main options that I would say, which ones to use them for. Oaring is great for your sleep tracking. It's great for your cycle syncing. It's great for your readiness score. I live or die by my ordering. I'll just be honest with you guys. I love it. I am grandfathered in before the subscription even became a thing because that's how much I love it. Your whoop is great for, as what I've heard, is great for like serious recovery tracking.

23:03Like I think it has strain scores or it dives into your HRV a little bit deeper. So it's popular amongst like athletes. I know that this is like only a subscription model. The Apple Watch is great for everyday use. Like I have an Apple Watch too, but I don't use it for any tracking. I know that it's got the ECG in it, which is pretty cool. It can adapt with your whole like Apple ecosystem, which is pretty cool. But other than that, I don't really use it other than clicking the workout to go with my workout and just paying attention to my heart rate during my workout.

23:36So Garmin, I used to be an avid Garmin person. It's great for endurance athletes. It's great for runners. It's got GPS on it, training data, like all that's more technical. It's less lifestyle focused in my opinion. Bottom line, the best wearable is the one that you're actually going to use consistently and that fits your lifestyle. Okay, so there's no like universally like best option. For me, it's the Oura Ring. But for you, it could be something completely different. All right. So I just want to wrap up on this episode, you guys. And I hope that this gave you some or a new way to think about the data that you're collecting.

24:09Or maybe it's inspired you to start paying attention to data, maybe if you haven't yet. The goal is always the same, though, just to know yourself better. That's the goal with them, to train smarter, to build a body and a lifestyle that's actually sustainable for you long term, not just impressive on paper or, you know, you have the perfectionist numbers of the numbers inside of these apps. All right. So if this hit home for you, I would generally love it if you shared it with a friend, a gym friend, or you left a review.

24:40I haven't asked for reviews in a really long time. So if you guys could just take like 30 seconds after this episode, go into the Spotify or Apple podcast platform, leave a review for me. I would appreciate it.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.