Every day there are more wearables dedicated to physical exercise we have in the market, most of them aimed at cardiovascular activities such as running, as they are the easiest to quantify. However, they are making a hollow deserved the wearables for strength training, that we can do with weights at the gym or our own body weight outdoors.
If a couple of weeks ago we told you about the sensor Beast, a quantifier to evaluate the speed of our real – time surveys, today we bring you another wearable that focuses more on the “how” than the “how”. With you, a new device oriented strength training: Atlas Wristband2.
What exactly Altlas Wristband2?
Atlas is a wearable Wristband2 specifically designed for fitness training that can use both in the gym and in our workouts outdoors. Its design, similar to a wrist watch something unusual dimensions, allows us to carry on the wrist (is designed for use on the left wrist or the non-dominant hand) from which recognizes almost all of our movements.
Image Source: Google Image
The first thing that strikes us this wearable is its unusual design: on one hand we strap , made of plastic and available in two different colors inside (green and yellow, while the exterior is always black) and the other hand we have the sensor itself, with a touchscreen OLED 128×64 pixels. The two parts of this wearable are joined by a strong magnet that keeps moving do the exercise you do.
To charge (via a microUSB input that connects to the computer or current) we have to separate the sensor belt. It takes relatively little time to load, no more than a couple of hours, and its lithium polymer battery has a range of about four hours or five hours recording workouts; ideal for charging on Sunday and have it ready for the whole week.
Atlas Wristband2 records all our movements in the wrist is involved through its three sensors: an accelerometer three – axis gyroscope and three – axis inertial sensor. It also has an integrated optical heart rate monitor that measures our heart rate continuously while you are training. It connects via Bluetooth to the specific application on your mobile phone, and we will need to press the sync button (it does automatically) when we want to synchronize. The good part is that we need not carry the mobile over to train with this bracelet.
Atlas Wristband2 bracelet is water resistant to 30 meters or 3ATM and, although first we may seem a bit “mazacote” (its thickness is 1.4 centimeters) the truth is that it is not uncomfortable once set, because it is fairly light. Part of the screen is directly supported on the forearm, but as it is not annoying.
How to start training with Atlas Wristband2?
The first thing to do before we get to train with Atlas is download the specific application (free and available for Android and iOS) and calibrate the screen of our wearable to define each of the three areas where we can press. Once this is done, we filled our profile data in the application, which will serve for the estimation of calories expended during exercise (along with the choice of exercises themselves and heart rate).
One of the good things of this wearable is that operates autonomously and do not need to carry the mobile up to record workouts. In this sense perhaps they would like to in future updates will include some memory to put music and connect bluetooth headphones, as many of the people who train they are wont to do accompanied by their particular soundtrack.
In our bracelet we see that we can make two different types of training: guided routines or guided workouts or train for free or freestyle.
Guided workouts are those that are already pre-loaded into the application and with which we can start training immediately. We just have to select the training that we will perform in the app among many containing, pair it with our bracelet and now we can go to train without any other gadget above, only with the bracelet.
The bracelet is on your screen telling us what exercise you have to do, how many reps, how many sets and how long rest between them. We must only look at the screen to know what that touches us and do so, as it automatically recognizes bracelet with our movements and is counting reps each. The only thing we have to do is enter the weight will move, and modify each year or each set if necessary. Upon completion of a series, the bracelet vibrates to warn us, so that is not necessary for us to count repetitions.
Within guided training, we can also make our own training routine with exercises that and come pre-loaded into the application (which include tips and explanatory video) or with which we go “teaching” new. All we have to do is, before training in the app, go selecting the exercises, sets and repetitions that we include in our routine (weight, as in the previous case, we must introduce it in situ, if we make any change). Once designed our routine, we synchronize the bracelet to charge it and now we can go to train.
The other mode of training that has Wristband2 Atlas is perhaps the most innovative in wearables training: training freestyle. With this type of training, we will do the exercises you want and bracelet automatically recognizes the exercise without us to tell anything (except weight, as in the previous case): it alone identifies each year thanks to the various wrist movements and account reps and sets.
It is important that before you start training in style freestyle we select the exercises that we believe we can do in a given time and load up on the bracelet. In a first version of the bracelet only they could carry 15 years in the way freestyle, but we can now load all you want. What I did was load them all in anticipation that it might need, but is not strictly necessary; for example, there are pre-loaded with TRX, exercises and if we know for sure that we are not going to do because we do not work with that material, because no need that we load.
Upon completion of our routine, just we have to “tell” by the side button to Atlas Wristband2 and synchronize with the app at that time or later, because the training is stored in the bracelet. And the application can see a summary of all our routine (this will be discussed in more detail when we talk about the mobile application).
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Undoubtedly, what can differentiate Atlas Wristband2 other similar bracelets is their way of learning: through this function can “teach” bracelet to recognize new exercises that are not pre-loaded into memory and so include them in our future training routines. A very useful feature that allows us not simply pre – loaded exercises and even include exercises designed by ourselves.
To enter the learning mode in the app simply go to the library of exercises and select new exercise. The app will ask the name of the new exercise and how many repetitions will do to save it (the more repetitions we make, the better we will ensure that the recording of the movement is correct). Then we put the bracelet and started recording (and notify you when we’re done).
Once the exercise movement is recorded on the bracelet, the app will ask us to define what muscle groups work in this exercise and about to what extent (to know what the target muscle exercise and what are the synergistic). From this same edition screen, we can synchronize our list of exercises to be available in our sessions freestyle.
An app that not only monitors: talks about the quality of our training
The Atlas app (available for iOS and Android) is the key to using the bracelet properly. From the app you can not only prepare our training: we can also see all our summary of the session once we have finished with information on many aspects of this.
On the main screen we access after you synchronize the app with our bracelet to download the training we just can see, in a first screen, how many calories have about burned, our average heart rate during training (remember Bracelet it has an integrated heart rate monitor), which has been the duration of training and what muscles have worked, with a percentage of each large muscle group (abdomen, arms, back, chest, buttocks and legs).
A little further down the list of exercises that we performed, each with its repetitions and the kilos we have loaded (this can edit a posteriori, so it is not strictly necessary to be putting all the kilos that move during our training appears but we can do at the end) and a note in the form of letter that tells us how it has been the technique of our movement (a is outstanding, B and C is good is improvable). The technique is indicated in relation to the recording of the exercises we have done previously in the section of “learning” or according to the technique used by the experts of Atlas (in the case of pre-loaded in the app exercise).
In the tab “cardio” we can see the complete evolution of our heart rate during training, exercise and exercise. This is very useful to know which of our heart rate zones are working at all times, giving us an accurate idea of the intensity with which we trained.
In the “tab focus” We can see what kind of training we have done (aimed at burning fat, toning, what they call transform and I translate also as toning or hypertrophy) depending on the speed of our surveys, the number of repetitions and rest time between each set. These are three variants to take into account during our training, and can define the purpose of it. Through Atlas, once we know these data, we can re-orient them to maximize our training and orient our specific goals.