Everything is being reduced to numbers which my math department friends down the hall cite as evidence of the advancement of the species.
But old school sports writers and fans rail against the overuse of analytics in modern sports when starting pitchers are pulled while throwing no-hitters, football teams go for it on certain 4th downs and the Boston Celtics hoist fifty 3-pointers in a game.
But numbers and analytics in athletics aren’t all bad. I have found myself quite taken by the stats my watch provides. I don’t know if the gamification of health is, well, healthy, but there is something about seeing progress or an effort audit for the week.
Studies have shown that just three hours per week of exercise in the warmup (Zone 1), light (Zone 2) and moderate (Zone 3) can dramatically help with overall health and a lot of this data is available on watches.
A brisk walk or Rucking (a cool new word in the fitness industry that means putting stuff in a pack and walking) takes care of that. It more than doubles calories burnt and the weight forces the back, shoulders and core to engage for stability. Add too much weight and there can be risks, of course, but the biggest risk we can take with our bodies is to sit at home and do nothing. Thanks to information and technology, it’s never been easier to get little wins or at least get a better idea of your fitness level.
I found it was pretty easy for me to do a few hikes, some walks and create an inaccurate assessment of my winter fitness levels. But stats have kept me more honest. What I thought were gaps of a day or two were ending up more like two weeks because if the weather was bad and I didn’t get out for a big hike on the weekend, I’d wait until the next one. Two weeks with my heart not breaking 150 beats per minute became unacceptable once it became easy to see what type of exercise would reach it and how often I wasn’t even breaking 120. A passive attempt to meet ambiguous goals without statistics is a recipe to languish.
Last weekend I went up my new favorite mountain just to go. The trail is an improved game trail which provides a sense of rawness that isn’t available on a trail with signs and gravel. Tenacious huckleberry and blueberry bushes cut back the previous year grew green shoots in defiance then went dormant for the cold months.
That evening I looked at the numbers from the hike: 29:10 in Zone 1, 37:25 in Zone 2, 18:12 in Zone 3, 21:14 in Zone 4 and a minute and a half in Zone 5 when my beats per minute broke 163.
What do those numbers mean? Nothing really. No one cares about my time up a mountain. No one cares about my zone breakdown but there is a level of satisfaction that comes with putting a numerical value to a workout. I had fun. It felt good. The value is in the feeling of the pursuit and the numbers reinforced the effort and quantified the experience.
It is understandable if someone doesn’t have the owner’s manual for their truck memorized. But understanding at least the basics of the user manual for our bodies is probably a good thing. A new watch or app won’t change your life, but sometimes the right investment and attention can help create or sustain momentum.
Most of us can use that during winter.
• Jeff Lund is a freelance writer based in Ketchikan. His book, “A Miserable Paradise: Life in Southeast Alaska,” is available in local bookstores and at Amazon.com. “I Went to the Woods” appears twice per month in the Sports and Outdoors section of the Juneau Empire.
