How Fitness Trackers Can Fuel Stronger Leadership
The Power of Consistency, Insight, and Physical Readiness
My fitness routine helps me maintain endurance levels that allow me to go the extra mile each day for my team and mission. However, my fitness tracker helps me monitor those levels and reminds me when to rest so I don’t overdo it. Combining the two can be a competitive leadership advantage.
I grew up in a beach city, and my introduction to physical fitness began at a swim camp where I developed my love for the water. Swimming, running, and other sports-related activities were staples of my upbringing and have remained present in my life through high school, college, and since joining the military. Over a decade ago, I purchased my first Garmin watch to help with my running training as I aspired to run longer distances. In a short period, it became an element of my daily attire. A fantastic GPS device, I used it for myriad journeys across the trails and dirt paths of Kenya’s remote countryside, where it never left my wrist. In one year in Kenya, I ran nearly 1,500 miles with it, sometimes logging upwards of 28 miles daily.
I purchased my second Garmin watch a few years later. That one was considered cutting-edge as it was Garmin’s first watch with an optical heart rate sensor. At that point, I was much more comfortable with my running cadence and found the optical HR capability on my wrist to be a nice touch. However, I’ll admit that I didn’t know how to use it for my training, and as I continued to increase and pile on the mileage, I became more prone to injury. In reflection, I wish I’d monitored my physical fitness loads more closely because persistent injuries forced me to reduce my running distances until I eventually stopped altogether.
In the following years, I maintained my fitness levels through swimming, cycling, and rowing and was onto a third Garmin that was better for tracking swimming activities. But if there’s one thing you can bet your mortgage on, it’s that Garmin and its competitors will frequently roll out new technology. So, I bought a fourth Garmin after going overseas on a military deployment, and looking back, that watch and its insightful technology changed my viewpoint on physical readiness as it applied to leadership.
With its full-time optical heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, sleep tracking, intensity minutes calculation, body battery calculation, rest recommendations, and a seemingly indestructible casing, it was the perfect accountability tool to help keep me in great shape and, as a result, ready to lead. Every day, upon waking, I knew where my body stood because it would tell me. And if the watch thought my body was overtaxed, I listened to the watch’s recommendation to take a rest day from physical fitness activities. The results from that discipline fueled me to be better for myself and my team, and considering the circumstances, I needed to be given our myriad challenges.
By now, this may read like a sponsored advertisement for Garmin, but I promise it’s not. Because, in all fairness to their competitors, Garmin is not the only game in town. Over the last several years, I have owned and worn many other manufacturer’s devices and comparable technology, including Polar, Coros, Whoop, Oura (I have worn a version of the Oura ring every day since October of 2019), and the Apple Watch. I could quickly write another article on my experiences with the other devices because I’ve certainly put them to the test. But I’ll leave that to DC Rainmaker.
Irrespective of wearable technology, leaders need to be physically and mentally ready, and there are countless examples of how strong leaders have baked a component of physical fitness or other readiness-related activity into their daily routines. On one of my deployments, for example, the commanding officer of our large base had an immense amount of leadership responsibility. Yet, she prioritized time to run every evening because it likely was the best time to implement her fitness routine. Countless other notable leaders had routines while leading at high levels, too, such as Admiral Nimitz, who worked out twice daily!
A fitness routine doesn’t mean being a world-class bodybuilder or an Olympic-level athlete, nor does it mean being able to blast through a 5k, half-marathon, or full-marathon run. But, if you don’t already know, the newest fitness trackers will give users an idea of how they would perform in those kinds of events based on the device’s assessment of the user’s fitness readiness. And that’s the real key here — based on assessing fitness readiness. To assess current fitness levels accurately, fitness should be done routinely, and the device should be worn consistently, including while sleeping. Regardless of brand, the more it’s worn, the better it is at reading physiological changes in the body over time, assuming it bears the technology (and accuracy) to do so.
Today’s fitness trackers commonly offer similar health-related metrics and tracking like sleep analysis, 24–7 heart rate, blood oxygen (SpO2), heart rate variability (HRV), and other health-related categories. The metrics help paint a picture of how the body is doing and are essential for knowing how ready one is to tackle the day upon waking. Further, countless studies have examined the relationship between fitness and brain activity. For example, I can feel the difference in my thinking when I’ve exercised versus when I haven’t, and some of my best ideas have come during physical fitness. But knowing whether I should or shouldn’t work out upon waking is essential to me because, as a leader with sizeable responsibility, I cannot afford to get injured, which is a real possibility if I overdo it.
So here’s the bottom line: regardless of which fitness tracker you choose, if you decide to use one, wear it daily to get the most out of its platform and assess your readiness to be best prepared to perform and lead. Additionally, in a world of chaos where every day brings new challenges with different priorities competing for our attention, try doing the one thing that can help combat the noise and endure the day’s challenges over the long term: some form of fitness. And lastly, if you implement a degree of physical activity to improve your readiness, try doing it routinely to improve your ability to consistently go the distance and deliver the results your teams and organizations need of you.
Disclaimer: I am not a physician or medical professional. My writing only shares my experiences and thoughts on the relationship between physical fitness and leadership. Please consult a medical professional if you have questions about your ability to follow a physical fitness routine.