Wearing an activity tracker that tracks your physical activity and receiving exercise-specific feedback is linked to greater results in fitness effectiveness, weight reduction as well as other outcomes for health for those who suffer from obesity.
Along with the use of an activity tracker for your body Researchers found that the supervised, personalized exercise associated with better results in fitness efficiency, loss of weight as well as other outcomes for health in obese people, when contrasted with exercise that was unsupervised.
The research results were released by Frontiers in Public Health.
Research has shown that exercising with supervision on site is associated with better health outcomes for a variety of ailments, when compared to exercises that are not supervised. In addition, wearable fitness trackers are gaining popularity to help manage weight however there is not much evidence of their effectiveness.
Because there is no research comparing the efficacy of exercise that is remotely controlled with self-directed exercises based upon the use of mobile devices for health (mHealth) like wristbands, researchers carried out an investigation to determine their effectiveness in weight loss among those living within Chongqing, China who were overweight or suffering from obesity.
After the conclusion of the following-up, the nonrandomized controlled clinical trial included 31 participants from the intervention group as well as 28 participants in the controlled group. Both groups consisted mostly females and had a mean (SD) time of 38.3 (8.5) years within the intervention group, and 40.8 (8.7) years in the control group.
All participants were aged between 18 and 65 years, had a body mass index (BMI) between 24 and 40, had no habit of routine exercise, and were at low to medium risk of cardiocerebrovascular disease. The participants did not participate in any other fitness programs in the course of the study and did not adhere to any diet or taking a medication to lose weight.
Participants who were in the intervention group received three essential elements of management. They received a personalised exercise plan as well as a heartbeat tracker, the mobile phone app that pairs with it as well as access to a chatroom online.
The exercise plan was based on the person’s heart rate Reserve (HRR) and the definition of effective exercise was as a heartbeat that is between 40 and 60 percent of HRR. Participants were required to perform efficient exercise at least three days each month for 12 consecutive weeks regardless of type of exercise.”
The paired app offered visual feedback and performance records for the exercisers as well as exercise information. The data were automatically synced on the cloud service and made available to researchers.
The researchers also guided exercise for the group in intervention by assessing daily performance in exercise and provided the participants with individualized instructions, reminders and encouragement through chatrooms as needed.
For the controls, researchers did not offer the individualized advice. Moreover, participants were not blinded, and were unaware of how they were treated in the same way as the control.
Both intervention and control groups experienced the same rate of attrition during the 12-week follow-up. However, those who were under supervision had superior exercise results, such as an active every day, exercising effectively day and the rate of efficient exercise, in comparison to participants who were not supervised.
Average (SD) daily exercise day for the week was 3.5 (0.8) for the group that was undergoing intervention, and 2.6 (1.0) within the group that was a control.
The effective exercise day for the week was 2.6 (0.6) as well as 1.5 (0.6) and the effective exercise day was 74.6 percent (11.1 percent) and 60.0 percentage (11.7 percent) between the groups of control and intervention and control groups, respectively.
Furthermore, the average lost weight of -2.7 (2.8) kg for the treatment group, and -2.0 (2.9) pounds in the controls group ( P= .23).
“Compared to the control group, those in the intervention group showed improvement in their kidney function, liver function and blood sugars at rest and total cholesterol as well as triglyceridelevels,” researchers also discovered. “mHealth-based controlled exercising is much more beneficial improving health outcomes than self-directed exercise based on mHealth among obese and overweight people.”
The authors say that exercise supervision in person is expensive and time-consuming, however remote supervision is achieved through wearable devices and communications technologies that are more flexible and savings in resources.
“Physical activity trackers that are remotely controlled exercise can be integrated into a health and fitness program to boost the benefits of self-directed exercise using wearable devices for obesity and overweight people,” they concluded.
Reference
Hu Y, Zhang Y, Qi X, et al. A supervised mHealth workout improves health-related factors better than self-directed workouts A controlled clinical study. Front Public Health. Published online August 5, 2022. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.895474
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