We spend a lot of time talking about the power of social connections when it comes to getting fit and losing weight. But it’s not only people who can help you reach your goals. We live in a golden age for technology, and nowhere is technology potentially as impactful as in the health, wellness, and medical fields.

Technology is everywhere. And technology can help you get fitter faster. We use it to communicate, we use it to entertain ourselves, we use it to shop, share memories, and to educate ourselves. When you really think about it, there are very few aspects of our lives that haven’t been transformed by technology. We have faster access to more information than any generations before us.

Gone is Blockbuster Video, replaced by Netflix. Gone are volumes of encyclopedias, replaced by Wikipedia and Google.

While we might wax poetic and experience nostalgia for the places and things replaced by technology (and while we certainly argue that not all technological advances are for the best), we’d be foolish to not take advantage of any technology that can help us live healthier, happier and longer lives.

You don’t listen to music by popping a cassette tape into your walkman anymore. You don’t call an 800 number for the time and temperature anymore. So why are you still wandering into your local gym without a plan and expecting to reach your goals? The ways in which technology can help you be more effective and efficient in reaching your goals are endless. But we’re going to share 5 ways you can start using technology TODAY to get into the best shape of your life without wasted time and effort.

One. Document your progress.

It might be a number on the scale. It might be before and after photos. It might be a physical exam at your doctor’s office. Whatever you do, make sure you choose something you can measure that matters to you.

And then measure that to chart your progress and document your achievements. At Elevate Fitness Clubs, we believe a 3D Body Scan is the absolute best way to document your fitness journey because a few short minutes can give you hundreds of pieces of personalized information to track from your starting weight to your body composition to your posture. This method is incredibly accurate and offers the most data to work with that we’ve come across so far, and the 3D imaging is super motivating.

Documenting your progress allows you to objectively compare before and after measurements and see real progress in black and white.

Two. Use technology to make a commitment.

Sign up for training sessions or Bootcamp or classes and do it digitally whenever possible. Then share your reservation via social media. A huge number of people who fail to reach their fitness goals site lack of accountability as a major contributor to their inability to reach their goals. Find a class or club that allows you to simply register for an activity online and then hit the ubiquitous social-share buttons to keep yourself accountable for getting your workouts in.

Three. Use technology to be more effective in the moment.

We used to workout and then wait for results to see if our workouts were effective. Now we can use science and technology, in the form of heart rate training so we know IN THE MOMENT that we’re doing exactly what we need in order to meet our goals.

Even better is that many of the heart rate training options also track your calories burned, eliminating the all-too-common practice of overestimating the number of calories you can consume based on how many you THINK you’ve burned while working out. Heart rate training allows you to monitor and adjust your effort in real time, making sure that not a minute of your workout is wasted.

Four. Use technology to reward yourself.

Whether it’s promising yourself a special treat after logging x number of workouts or using an automated reward program like Perkville, find a way to reward yourself for the behaviors that you know will help you reach your goals. For example, Elevate Fitness Clubs in Syracuse will reward you with points that can be redeemed in a plethora of ways (e.g. online shopping, travel discounts, etc.) for things like checking in to the gym, taking classes and meeting with your trainer. Positive reinforcement works when you’re training dogs, and it works when you’re trying to build the habits that will get you to your fitness goals.

Five. Get Your Nutrition in Check.

This last one is for folks who are looking to lose or maintain their weight. Most of us don’t spend hours preparing the perfect, well-balanced, nutrient-dense meals.

Now, meal preparation IS gaining in popularity, but even if you’re prepping, chances are it’s easy to slip up and make mistakes in your diet that are counterproductive to your fitness goals.

That’s why we suggest using an app like MyFitnessPal to track the calories you consume, which when paired with the monitoring of your caloric expenditure through heart rate training, can ensure that you’re achieving the ideal caloric balance or deficit each day. The saying is, you can’t out-train a bad diet, and a little support from simple tech will make sure you don’t end up trying to do just that!

Until technology reaches a point where we can download an app and set our fitness levels in the settings, we still have to put in some good old-fashioned sweat to get to where most of us want to be. But while we’re sweating it out, why not let technology do some of the work for us so that we can focus on what really matters – living a healthy lifestyle so that we can enjoy life.

So whether you’re going to use a little A.I. (artificial intelligence) or the other A. I. (actual intelligence) – there are plenty of resources available to ensure that you have the help you need on your journey.

Not a member of Elevate Fitness yet? Try us out for FREE with no obligation!

It’s a popular question, and those of us working in the fitness industry hear it all the time: “How hard should I be working out to get the best results?” And if your guess is that the answer to this question varies based on your individual goals and starting point, you’re absolutely right! BUT, we can simplify things a little bit and help you answer two really important questions to help you ensure you’re making the right amount of effort to reach your goals.

Those questions are:

1. How hard you’re actually working. This is important because the same workout can feel like an entirely different effort level on different days depending on how resting you are, your energy levels, how long it’s been since your last workout, etc. So first, you need a way to determine exactly how hard you’re actually working from workout to workout.
2. How hard you should be working based on your unique goals. And preferably, we’d like a way to determine this regardless of your starting fitness level, age, gender, etc.

First, let’s agree that being able to answer these two questions as simply and quickly as possible would lead to a more effective program increasing your likelihood of reaching your goals and doing it in the most effective and efficient way possible. If we could answer these questions, we could crack the code and make exercise easier to plan, execute and increase our results. What’s not to love about that?

Okay, we’ll let’s answer those questions, then, shall we? Here we go …

1. Use a heart rate monitor. Wearable technology is getting smarter by the day, and at this point, you should be taking advantage of it during your workouts because it can tell you exactly how hard you’re working – objectively. No more wondering whether you went as hard as you think you did or wondering if you could have worked harder in that class or session. Not only is this technology getting better by the day, but it’s also getting less expensive by the day, too.
2. Very generally speaking, you can use the following chart to determine how hard you should be working based on your goals:

The really great thing about heart rate monitors is that you can get super specific about your goals and your zones. You can adjust the components of your program that need to be adjusted to enhance your results. A lot of heart rate monitors (and certainly those we use at Elevate Fitness) will even tell you how many calories you’ve burned during a workout. If you’re using a calories-in/calories-out strategy, this information is golden!

For a  limited time (as of this posting on January 25, 2019 this offer is active, but it may end at any time, so check with the club to see if it’s still an active offer) you can get a FREE personal training session when you by a heart rate monitor from Elevate Fitness. You can use that session to set up your device and design a program using this information to reach your goals!

Not a member of Elevate Fitness yet? Not a problem, try us out for FREE:

Technology is everywhere. And technology can help you get fitter faster. We use it to communicate, we use it to entertain ourselves, we use it to shop, we use it to share memories, we use it to educate ourselves.

When you stop and really think about it, there are very few aspects of our lives that haven’t been transformed by technology. We have faster access to more information than any generations before us.

Gone is Blockbuster Video, replaced by Netflix. Gone are volumes of encyclopedias, replaced by Wikipedia and Google.

While we might wax poetic and experience nostalgia for the places and things replaced by technology (and while we certainly argue that not all technological advances are for the best), we’d be foolish to not take advantage of any technology that can help us live healthier, happier and longer lives.

You don’t listen to music by popping a cassette tape into your walkman anymore. You don’t call an 800 number for the time and temperature anymore. So why are you still wandering into your local gym without a plan and expecting to reach your fitness and wellness goals?

The ways in which technology can help you be more effective and efficient in reaching your goals are endless. But I’m going to share 5 ways you can start using technology TODAY to get into the best shape of your life without wasted time and effort.

1. Document your progress. It might be a number on the scale. It might be before and after photos. It might be a physical exam at your doctor’s office. Whatever you do, make sure you choose something you can measure that matters to you. And then measure that to chart your progress and document your achievements. Personally, I think a 3D Body Scan is the absolute best way to document your fitness journey because a few short minutes can give you hundreds and hundreds of pieces of personalized information to track from your starting weight to your body composition to your posture. This method has the least room for user error, and the most data to work with that I’ve come across so far, and the 3D imaging is super motivating. Documenting your progress allows you to objectively compare before and after measurements and see real progress in black and white.
2. Use technology to make a commitment. Sign up for training sessions or boot camp or classes and do it digitally whenever possible. Then share your reservation via social media. A huge number of people who fail to reach their fitness goals site lack of accountability as a major contributor to their failure to reach their goals. Find a class or club that allows you to simply register for an activity online and then hit the ubiquitous social-share buttons to keep yourself accountable for getting your workouts in.
3. We used to workout and then wait for results to see if our workouts were effective. Now we can use science and technology together to use heart rate training to we know IN THE MOMENT that we’re doing exactly what we need to be doing to meet our goals. Even better is that a lot of heart rate training options will also track your calories burned eliminating the all-too-common practice of overestimating the number of calories you can consume based on how many you THINK you burned while working out. Heart rate training allows you to monitor and adjust your effort in real time making sure that not a minute of your workout is wasted.
4. Use technology to reward yourself. Whether it’s promising yourself a special treat after logging x number of workouts, or using an automated reward program like the Perkville program, find a way to reward yourself for the behaviors that you know while help you reach your goals. For example, Elevate Fitness Clubs in Syracuse will reward you with points that can be redeemed for rewards for things like checking in to the gym, taking classes and meeting with your trainer. Positive reinforcement works when you’re training dogs, and it works when you’re trying to build the habits that will get you to your fitness goals.
5. This last one is for folks who are looking to lose weight or maintain their weight. Most of us don’t spend hours preparing the perfect meals with well-balanced macros and nutritional content every day. Now, meal preparation IS gaining in popularity, but even if you’re prepping, chances are it’s easy to slip up and make mistakes in your diet that are counterproductive to your fitness goals. That’s why I suggest using an app like MyFitnessPal to track the calories you consume, which when paired with the monitoring of your caloric expenditure through heart rate training, can ensure that you’re achieving the ideal caloric balance or deficit each day. The saying is, you can’t out-train a bad diet, and a little support from simple tech will make sure you don’t end up trying to do just that!

Until technology reaches a point where we can download an app and set our fitness levels in the settings, we still have to put in some good old-fashioned sweat to get to where most of us want to be. But while we’re sweating it out, why not let technology do some of the work for us so that we can focus on what really matters – living a healthy lifestyle so that we can enjoy life.

Not a member yet? Try Elevate Fitness for FREE!