This post is sponsored by Garmin Venu but the content and opinions expressed here are my own. I recently had the pleasure to try out the new Venu, a new fitness watch from Garmin. Although it’s not your coveted Apple or Samsung watch, you wouldn’t be able to know the difference if you asked me. We all know the benefits of staying active; reduction of stress levels, increase in longevity, and even the bettering of mental health. However, finding the motivation to get started is a difficult task that can haunt the best of us all. Take it from an Olympian, working out is not easy. The difference between the weekend warrior and the CrossFit professional is the motivation each person finds. Luckily, with wearable health trackers like the Garmin Venu, finding and maintaining that motivation is a little bit easier. Knowing is half the battle. The more we know about our health stats like your heart rate, sleep patterns and even breathing efficiency, the better we can make a viable routine for staying active. Otherwise, we become bored and discouraged with our fitness plans, especially if we don’t see desired results as fast as we’d like. But, with the new Garmin Venu, I’ve found an effective way to embrace my fitness journey and even make everyday life a little bit easier. Why am I so tired? Sleep is the most important component for me as an elite athlete; it is the main recovery source helping me stay at the level I am competitively. Without quality sleep, our body fails to repair itself properly and we end up doing more damage than good. During this part of my season, tracking sleep is a huge priority. Not only am I tracking how many hours of sleep I get, but the type of sleep I get. Four hours of solid deep sleep is far better than 10 hours of tossing and turning, and my workouts reflect it. Before my Garmin Venu, I used phone apps to track sleep. Probably not the greatest tool since you had to sleep next to your phone all night. No wonder I could never sleep. Now with my watch, I’m able to go back and analyze when I was in REM cycle and how long I stayed in a deep sleep pattern and adjust my workouts accordingly. I can also see how my evening routine affected my sleep so I can be a productive human being. There's nothing fun about being a zombie for half of the day, and a 'stoned teenager' for the other half. Leave your phone (and wallet) at home? I don’t know about you, but my phone is basically my robotic palm, I cannot go anywhere without it, even the bathroom unfortunately. So, any chance I get to leave my phone, I’ll take it. I NEED music when I workout, it is a must for me apparently. I had to make sure that I had the right pockets to fit my phone so I could take my music with me. Unfortunately, it condensed my wardrobe considerably. After I received my Garmin Venu, the first feature I tested was the ability to download music; life is forever changed. No more dropped phones during my running sessions, or bulky pockets during weights because now I have 500 songs and Spotify at my fingertips, literally. Leave your wallet at home? No problem. I’m not sure if we can leave our wallet completely at home yet, but at least you know that if you forgot a card somewhere, you won’t be awkwardly stranded at the cashier. I tried it once where they accepted the method, and I felt like a baller, not gonna lie. Of course, we can’t truly get away from our phones, let’s be honest. If you happen to be weak and neurotic like me, you can still get all your calls and messages sent to your watch. Don’t worry. Accountability Partner Having a workout partner is fun and all, but if you’re anything like me, my workout is my get-away. However, that can mean that you have nobody to push you during the rough sessions. Just when I was about to shut it down early in a recent workout, my wrist vibrated with a reminder that the workout was almost complete. Something as small as that can go a long way. Even something as having loaded workout plans can be a life saver when you are drained from a long work-day and barely made it out your car into the gym. The last thing you want to do is figure out a workout to do. What I love the most is the loaded animated yoga routines right on the watch. I know yoga is amazing with tons of benefits. But honestly, if you asked me the location of the nearest yoga studio, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Now, I could wake up and have my own yoga studio next to my bed. I can start and end my day with a yoga routine; how convenient is that. During an intense day of handling business, we often fail to recognize our stress levels until it is too late. Recently, my Garmin Venu not only measured my stress levels and signaled me that my levels were through the roof, it also gave me options to lower it by a breathing routine. Talk about accountability. Overall, having any type of information at hand is vital to any success, even if that success is just making it through your chaotic day. Today, technology can make us lazy and unproductive, or it can enable us to become our better selves. The Garmin Venu falls in the latter.
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AuthorJeremy Dodson is a Track & Field Olympian who struggles with the idea of perfection, hoping to break the barrier we place on ourselves so that genuine living can take place for everyone. Archives
December 2020
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