5 tips to get more from your fitness monitor

At FistrapsUK we offer the best range of straps for fitness monitors and smart watches. From Garmin watch straps to Fitbit, and including Apple watch straps among many, many others, we want you to keep your fitness watch at it's best all year round.

Changing up the watch strap on your fitness watch is a superb way to keep looking fresh from the box every single day of the week. If you’ve just decided to upgrade the watch straps with Fitstraps you’ve probably decided to stick with the current model of fitness watch you have and get the very most from your watch.

Well, we can help you with this, with our 5 best tips to get the very most from your Fitness watch

1  Improve your step-tracking accuracy

None of us are exactly the same, we all have different bodies, different stride lengths and different walking styles. Just as there is no size fits all for fitness, the same applies to your fitness watch. The great news is you can increase the accuracy of your fitness watch to suit your body by adjusting the step tracking accuracy.

Whether you have a Garmin, Apple or a Fitbit watch this setting will be found within the account section within the app. As a standard your stride length will be set to automatic, you just need to switch across to manual and then insert your stride length. Then BINGO you are instantly monitoring your step count more accurately than ever before.

2  Set your goals

Why not take advantage of your fitness watch's goal-setting features. Whether you are setting a step goal for the day, or training for something specific like improving your running time or distance goals.

The awesome thing about fitness watches is that they can track so many different things. Even when we don’t have a specific goal in mind, there will always be something we're interested in hitting. Whether it is seven and a half hours sleep or 10,000 steps. However, we always feel that these features work best when we only focus on 1 or 2 at most clear goals at a time. Rather than overloading yourself with goal after goal and target after target, just pick 2 or 3 than you are interested and stick with them.

3  Save your battery

Did you know that 51% of people looking to upgrade their fitness watch said the reason for this was they were looking for a model with a longer battery life?
Facing the ongoing task of keeping our watches fully powered all day long is just part of the struggle of a fitness watch user unfortunately. However we have uncovered a few power saving super tips that will keep your fitness watch going that extra bit longer by tweaking the power settings on the below to extend your battery life.

• Heart rate monitor – A great feature of many modern fitness watches if you actually use it. If not ditch this setting for a while and squeeze a couple of extra hours out of that watch each day.

• GPS rate – These can be amazingly accurate in logging your location and giving you exact times of your runs. However if you’re only out for a casual evening run to get your heart rate going and not fussed about times. Then why turn this setting off and reap the battery sized rewards.

• The Backlight on your watch screen- If your screen is on full blast all day this will eat into your battery like no other. Make sure your watch face is only lit up when you need it.

• Smart notifications- Unless you really need them, ditch them until you’ve finished your workout.

4  Customise your workout options on your menu bar

As fitness watch users, we all love different sports and activities, whether you’re  a 3-run a week Garmin watch warrior or a gym loving Apple watch user. Why not make tracking your workouts the easy part. Customise your workout options on your menu bar and add the sports and activities that you do most often. That way getting your stats uploaded with be easier than ever and you can save your energy for your workout.

5 Make sure your watch strap fits comfortably

Whether you have an Apple Watch Strap or a Garmin Watch Strap or indeed, any fitness monitor, comfort is always the key. When you grab yourself a replacement Watch Strap from Fitstraps you always ensure the highest quality, however finding the right fit for your wrist is so important - to make sure that your watch always feels great on your wrist and stays in place.  

We recommend using a tape measure to get the sizing for your wrist completely accurate. The sizing for each replacement watch strap will be found at the bottom of the relevant watch strap description on each page.

Watch this space for further motivating tips and how to get more from your fitness monitor,