Do you really need an Activity Tracker for swimming?

“Without data you are just another opinion”. That was what was going round the head of our main character, as he hung desperately to the lane rope like a boxer gone 10 rounds with Muhammed Ali, desperately making use of the small amount of oxygen left in his lungs to remember a couple of numbers…

But let’s get back to the beginning of the story, because it will be up to you to help write its ending.

On Monday I will start swimming. Seriously.

Our main character, like many others had a hundred reasons for why they were unable to swim on a regular basis, including his all-time favourite, ‘I’m just too busy’… but in reality, he was just plain old lazy!

Not an easy one to digest, but his inner athlete took it on the chin and headed directly to his local pool to purchase 15 pool entries, a pseudo-professional swimming kit, including two pairs of uncomfortably skimpy briefs, a silicone cap and a mirrored pair of race goggles, designed to convince himself that he meant business.

The first four weeks were extremely tough, but after a couple of months’ he recognized a notable improvement in his stamina and performance within the water. He began to enjoy the benefits swimming brought to him: his back pain faded, his breathing became deeper and more controlled and the allergies that once plagued him were not so intense. He slept more soundly at night and the comfort layer that covered his stomach, grew thinner.

He was getting used to his new found fitness, and began wanting more, and so like Eddie Morra in Limitless, he went off in search of NZT-48 and began reading up on how to improve, how to swim better and for longer.

The problem

No matter how simple he set his training, he was always up against the same old problem: he still had to keep count of the number of laps, strokes he took, not just on a daily basis, but week after week. This was way too complicated for somebody as absent-minded as our character.

The four-week speed in which it took him to reach a healthier being, had kidded him into a “false improvement rate”, as from then on in, he struggled to make or recognize any further improvements. Needless to say, his excitement was turning to boredom and his swimming, simply a way to keep up with his fitness.

In reality, this was just the opinion of an amateur swimmer with no stamina, who could only obtain the feeling of improvement from hanging desperately to a lane rope after half killing himself.

The solution?

Having always been technologically-minded, he turned his attention to online searches, in the hope for something technological that could measure the quantity and quality of his swimming.

After all, nowadays no respectable runner would be without an activity tracker, i.e. a device that records every single parameter useful for monitoring and improving performance.

Unfortunately, choosing an activity tracker within the swimming world is more complicated and it is easy to get confused between “waterproof devices” and “devices designed for monitoring your swimming”.

What we need here are the real experts: you.

It will, indeed, be up to you to write the ending to this story, helping our main character (who, as you will already have guessed, is the author of this article) search around and make the right choice – which will be revealed in our next post.

So do you really need an activity tracker for swimming?

Which one do you use and which is the best in your opinion?

Post your comments below or write directly to f.antoniello@arenawaterinstinct.com !