Mind the training wheels!

Awhile back, I stopped tracking fitness activities with my Apple Watch and Apple Fitness App. As a long time distance runner who tracked miles and pace for over 20 years before there were tracking apps (I stopped running at the age of 62, started at 18), letting go of fitness tracking was a big step. I still ‘exercise’ >2 hours / day on average in different activities, including bicycle, yoga, pilates, walking and of course hiking – After about a month with no fitness tracking, only setting a timer for duration – without recording a thing, I realized that fitness tracking apps are training wheels.

Image generated by MSFT Copilot.

These tracking apps (and a bunch of other apps) help you learn how to get in a routine, a pattern, and how to break through inertia of not doing it. My focus is what’s important – where, what and how I focus my awareness and mental energy. I realized after turning off the app, my focus shifted – to my muscles, to small tightness areas, to stretches not far enough, to breathing, my heart rate, and most importantly, to the exercise itself in that moment.

Too often with the tracker, my focus seemed to be on the tracking outputs, the progress toward artificially set goals – not my physical and mental health in that moment. A friend who is as serious about bicycling as I was running, did a similar act and only tracks distance for equipment maintenance, not himself. Both of us were amazed at how this simple change made our exercise more meaningful and enjoyable.

These apps are training wheels. Use them if you need them, but eventually, take the training wheels off, and just ride! …. feel the difference! Mindfulness of a different sort.