The exercise technology that helped us stay in shape under quarantine

With all the mental burdens that accompanied life in 2020 – including gyms closing their doors – many found it difficult to get back to normal exercise levels. Here in the The Verge, we handle it as you might expect: with technology that could allow or motivate us to get some activity. These are the gadgets, apps, games and services that we use to sweat a lot and still maintain security, and that can prove to be useful if your New Year’s resolution involves exercise.

Beat Saber

I named Beat Saber my favorite game of 2018, but I lost a lot since then, until Oculus launched Quest 2 in October. It is the first virtual reality headset I like to use and I used SideQuest to add fake custom tracks that support my embarrassingly limited musical taste, turning my Quest into a unique purpose beat saber machine. (Do I probably owe royalties to Muse and the New Pornographers or something? Look, I really like the unofficial beatmap from The Mary Martin Show’s Expert.) Pro: I remember I have a body again. Against: I’m fine. Go shoves it in my head every morning. – Adi Robertson

Nike Training Club and Reddit

I’ve been a Nike Training Club user for a while, but this year I needed it more than ever, as my bike ride has disappeared and my step count has plummeted. The Nike app offers a collection of exercises that you can filter based on the amount of equipment available, how much time you have, whether you are after a strength or cardio workout and so on. This year, my filters were “none”, “all the time in the world” and “I’ll take whatever I can”, respectively.

What I like most is how simple most exercises are, which leaves me free to relieve exercise boredom by listening to podcasts while exercising. Instead of having to listen to motivational tips from a personal trainer along with his instructions, the Nike app mostly shows simple videos of each exercise and leaves my mind free to roam. (The app also includes more traditional training videos, but they never clicked on me.)

At the beginning of the year, I also really enjoyed the group work with my flatmates. Here, the routine developed by the Reddit Bodyweight Fitness community was invaluable. It includes strength exercises that you can do with a minimum of equipment and different variants of each one to allow you to adjust your difficulty. Although you don’t need much to start with, we found that adding a pull-up bar, gymnastic rings and resistance bands was a relatively affordable way to give us a lot more exercise options. – Jon Porter

Instagram

While I normally keep my social media habit limited to Twitter, one of my first strategies for staying active while at home was to collect exercise posts at home with Instagram’s Saved Posts feature. Fitness instructors have always shared some content on Instagram, but closing gyms and fitness studios has brought a wide variety of free guided exercises to the app. It’s not Pinterest, but my Saved Posts collection allows me to keep easy exercises at hand and eliminates one of my many excuses for not moving: I rarely know what I’m doing when it comes to working out.

As the year dragged on, I lost my health rhythm on Instagram, but I still collect and classify exercise posts. Obviously, there are less physical benefits, but I still find that very comforting. – Ian Campbell

Garmin Fenix ​​6X

Image: Garmin

I know I am trying to fate by saying this, but my fitness improved dramatically during the pandemic. I was motivated by boredom and, frankly, by the fear of dying, but also by a Garmin Fenix ​​6X Pro Solar watch that does it all. It also helped that my local government promoted safe and socially remote physical activities outdoors, instead of issuing a strict order to stay at home.

Before fitness equipment started to run out on Amazon and beyond, I was able to put together a set of adjustable resistance bands that I read about on Wirecutter and a luxurious pair of Crossrope weighted jump ropes. In March and April, I worked on these items pretty much every day while I was isolated at home. The Garmin watch did a good job of automatically tracking my push-ups and biceps, but it was much less capable of detecting other movements, failing miserably to track my Crossrope sessions, for example. Crossrope makes an application with paid membership levels, but I found it superfluous for my needs. Although I am not at the level of a professional boxer, I managed to perfect several jumping skills, such as crosses, doubles and a variety of jumps to keep the repetition interesting.

I also started practicing yoga at that time to help maintain my sanity and increase flexibility. Although the Fenix ​​6 can guide you through lively yoga sessions, as an absolute beginner, I found it impractical and disturbing to watch my wrist to study the mechanics of the pose. YouTube is a much better living room trainer. I completed Kassandra’s 30-day challenge (Adriene is very talkative to me) and yoga is now part of my normal routine.

With the beginning of spring, I started running outdoors through the glorious streets and parks of the city of Amsterdam, without tourists. Here, the Garmin watch stood out. I was motivated to run faster and for longer using Garmin’s PacePro feature to inject my Spotify playlist, real-time training and step-by-step navigation into my AirPods Pro headphones. Soon I was hooked on setting new records personal and reduce my fitness age in competition with my running friends who prefer Garmin watches to anything else.

In the summer, I was using Garmin Fenix ​​6 to monitor my kitesurfing sessions, biking all day and swimming in open water in the ocean. In the fall, I started playing golf, motivated by Garmin’s overwhelming ability to track every shot played on hundreds of golf courses around the world. The Fenix ​​6 is not accurate enough to track strokes, but it does an amazing job of monitoring each shot from tee to green, allowing you to measure club performance, keep score and see trends after each round.

The Fenix ​​6 proved to be a stick for every job and a master in some, motivating me to try new activities like mountain biking to see how it adapts. After nine months of intense and uninterrupted use, the watch now says that my physical age is 20 years old. As a 53-year-old gadget-obsessed human trying to survive a virus, this is something I’m proud of. – Thomas Ricker

Apple Watch, Nintendo Games and Fitbod

Mynd af Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

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

I was also able to find a copy of the Wii Sports Resort at a local game store, so I didn’t have to pay the eBay money changer prices that started popping up around March (hardcore players weren’t the only ones dealing with it) . It’s not really what I would call training, but it’s fun and gets my wife and I off the couch. I would rather be playing Beat Saber? Yes, but I couldn’t get my hands on the VR equipment I wanted this year. This is on the list for 2021, when we can find the PC hardware again.

Screenshot by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

For a Nintendo game that actually provides a workout that I will come to Ring Fit Adventure. I increased the maximum difficulty and immediately regretted it … but moving on has been rewarding, and I feel like I really did a workout. It’s not the breathtaking workout and sweating everywhere I got exercise videos or Apple Fitness Plus on YouTube, but I usually get sore the next day.

Finally, although I don’t call adjustable dumbbells “tech”, I have paired mine with the Fitbod app, which tracks your workouts and builds sets based on which muscle groups are fresh. Combined with the fact that I now have a complete set of weights that can fit in a small apartment, I do more strength training now than I have ever done in the gym. – Mitchell Clark

What exercise?

I entered the pandemic with the best of intentions and a number of devices at my disposal: a virtual reality headset with exercise games, a motorized standing table, a genuinely good road bike, a smartwatch and even a series of relatively new power tools (leaf blower, hedge trimmer, high pressure cleaner) I bought with the intention of cleaning the yard.

Instead, I went on to become a television addict all year long.

Should I have used the table foot feature … twice? I had some intense VR sessions from Pistol whip, of course, but the staying power was not there, and I’m not sure to play Half-life: Alyx you’ve seen me break a sweat. Hell, I used an automatic tire inflator the only time I went to the park with my bike to try out an amazing new phone holder. I cleaned all the leaves in the yard twice, I suppose. But to tell you the truth, I probably burned more calories by breaking a mountain of Amazon cardboard boxes than any other activity this year.

However, there was a good reason for not feeling so motivated: after years of failed diets, I finally lost some weight during the shelter at the site. Using a smart scale equipped with Wi-Fi and the MyFitnessPal app, I mentally scolded myself to weigh and record calories almost every day for several straight months, limiting myself to 1,600 a day. I lost 11 kilos and I’m not so hungry anymore! Imagine if I had also exercised. – Sean Hollister