As far as runner’s go, I am an anomoly and it really isn’t a running thing, it’s a personality thing. Give me things to add, subtract or multiply and my eyes become as glazed as on of the Kardashian’s lipgloss.
By: Christa Davidson
Many of you post monthly mileage updates on social media and my first thought is, “I don’t add up the week, let alone the month,” then my second thought is, “I’m a running weirdo.” Not only don’t I know my mileage at any given time, I don’t really care either because caring would mean tracking and adding. I just run.
It’s as though the folks at Under Armour saw me coming and knew what a numerical numbskull I am when they thought up the newly launched Under Armour HealthBox. They said, “Hey she can’t be the only one who is mathematically challenged. Let’s help these Einstein’s get a grip.” What they have come up with makes tracking all your health related numbers easy-peasy. You don’t have to be a wizard.
Under Armour owns the fitness apps, MapMyRun and MyFitnessPal. These apps combined with UA’s app, Under Armour Record all work together synching your activity and calorie intake. Now with the addition of the UA HealthBox you can also keep track of your sleep and weight without any extra effort.
According to UA, the HealthBox is the world’s first Connected Fitness system designed by athletes. It is a collection of wireless gadgets that collect your data and simultaneously synch it all to the UA Record. The devices in the HealthBox, which is essentially a beautiful box with gadgets in it that are powered by UA’s partner HTC, include a scale, a heart rate monitor and a wrist band.
UA Scale: Wifi and Bluetooth enabled, this scale synchs your weight and body fat percentage to UA Record. The scale recognizes and differentiates up to eight different users.
UA Band:This is a fitness band worn on the wrist and tracks steps, distance sleep, and resting heart rate and automatically synchs to UA Record. You can also use the band to control your playlist when connected to MapMyRun.
UA Heart Rate: This comfortable band with a compact HR sensor that tracks your HR and is connected wirelessly to the UA Band, allows you to monitor during activity. Without even checking your HR numbers, the band displays a green, yellow, orange or red light so you can see at a glance your HR zone.
UA Record: While not contained in the box, UA considers this the fourth product of the HealthBox. This app is available for download to your smart phone and pulls together all the information gathered by the connected devices in one spot for dissemination. It allows you to set daily nutrition, fitness, sleep and activity goals and lets you see your progress.
Using the UA HealthBox for about a month, I am now a numbers genius. I know all of my health stats and because of this I find myself going the extra bit to meet or exceed my goals each day. And essentially, I don’t lift a finger to track it all. I really love this collection of devices. Not included in the HealthBox but considered to be part of the Connected Fitness product portfolio are UA Wireless Headphones, which I haven’t had the opportunity to try but I would love to check out.
While Health Box is available at SportChek in June and Best Buy, later this summer, you can preorder at UA.com and will ship to Canada beginning May 23. As for me, I’m continuing to use the HealthBox devices, so if you have any questions, connect with me on Twitter or Instagram and I would love to share my thoughts with you.
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