Fitness

The Case for Ditching Your Fitness Trackers

Published

7 months ago

December 12, 2025

The Case for Ditching Your Fitness Trackers

Credit: René Ramos/Lifehacker/ZaZa studio/Adobe Stock/Andriy Onufriyenko/Moment/Vadym Kalitnyk/iStock/Getty Images

I have a love-hate relationship with the smartwatch on my wrist. This relationship is no doubt shaped by the fact that I write about fitness tech for a living, but I know I’m not alone in succumbing to an obsession with numbers from my wearables. Did I hit 10,000 steps? What’s my resting heart rate today? Is my sleep score better than yesterday’s? When did progressive overload turn into screen time overload, too?

The fitness tech boom is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon—and with it, we consume a constant stream of promises that this data will make us healthier, stronger, and faster. With the sheer amount of health insights potentially available to us at any time, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I’ve watched my least health-anxious friends become consumed by metrics they’d never heard of two years ago. They’re tracking bone density trends, obsessing over cortisol levels, panicking about stress scores that fluctuate for reasons no algorithm can fully explain. I can feel my fitness trackers pull me away from genuine wellness and into a mental health disaster. The good news: When I look up from my screens and start talking to real people, I see I’m not alone in wanting to unplug and push back against the overly quantified self.

A growing anti-tech fitness movement

When I put out a call on Instagram asking people about their relationship with posting workout data and fitness content, I received hundreds of responses from people exhausted by the performance of fitness. Even if your only audience is your own reflection, simply owning a wearable can create a real barrier between feeling good about your body and your fitness journey. Did I work out enough today? Will my friends see that I skipped a workout? Should I push through injury to maintain my streak?

For these reasons, celebrity trainer Lauren Kleban says she doesn’t like to rely on wearables at all. “Counting steps or calories can quickly spiral into a bit of an obsession,” says Kleban, and that “takes the joy out of movement and away from learning what’s truly best for us.” She says her clients want to focus on their mind and body connection, now more than ever. There’s a real, growing desire to rebuild a sense of intuition that doesn’t depend on feedback from a watch.

Similarly, Marshall Weber, a certified personal trainer and owner of Jack City Fitness, says that he’s “definitely been surprised by the growing push towards unplugged fitness,” but that he “totally gets it.” Weber says he’s had clients express feeling “overwhelmed with their Fitbit or Apple Watch micromanaging their training.” When every workout becomes about numbers and keeping up with an average, it’s all too easy to lose touch with your body. “The anti-tech movement is about taking back that personal connection,” Weber says. After all, when was the last time you finished a workout and didn’t immediately look at your stats, but instead just noticed how you felt?

This is the paradox at the heart of fitness technology. Tools designed to help us understand our bodies have created a new kind of illiteracy. Maybe you can tell me why you’re aiming for Zone 2 workouts, but can’t actually recognize what that effort feels like without a screen telling you. In a sense, you might be outsourcing your own intuition to algorithms.

If nothing else, the data risks are real. (Because if you think you own all your health data, think again.) Every heart rate spike, every missed workout, every late-night stress indicator gets recorded, stored, and potentially shared. Still, for me, the more insidious risk is psychological: the erosion of our ability to know ourselves without consulting a device first.

What do you think so far?

How to unplug and exercise intuitively

So what does unplugged fitness actually look like in practice? It’s not about rejecting all technology or pretending GPS watches and heart rate monitors don’t have value—I promise. Look, I crave data and answers as much as—and maybe more than—the average gym-goer. I’m simply not woo-woo enough to ditch my Garmin altogether.

Instead, I argue for re-establishing a hierarchy in which technology serves your training, not the other way around. “Sometimes, the best performance boost is just learning to listen to what your body is saying and feeling,” says Weber. But what does “listening to your body” actually look like?

If you’re like me, and need to rebuild a connection with your body from the ground-up, try these approaches:

Start with tech-free workouts. Designate certain runs, yoga sessions, or strength workouts as completely unplugged. No watch, no phone, no tracking. Notice what changes when there’s no device to check.
Relearn your body’s signals. Can you gauge your effort level without looking at a heart rate monitor? Do you actually know what “recovery pace” feels like for you, or are you just matching a number? Practice assessing fatigue, energy, soreness, and readiness without checking your watch.
Replace metrics with sensory awareness. Instead of tracking pace, notice your breathing pattern. Instead of counting calories burned, pay attention to how your muscles feel. Instead of obsessing over sleep scores, ask yourself a simple question in the morning: how do I actually feel?
Set goals that can’t be gamified. Rather than chasing step counts or streak days, aim for qualitative improvements. Can you hold a plank with better form? Does that hill feel easier than last month? Are you enjoying your workouts more? These are the markers of real progress.
Create tech boundaries. Maybe you use your GPS watch for long runs but leave it home for everything else. Perhaps you track workouts but delete the social features. Find the minimum effective dose of technology that serves your goals without dominating your headspace.
Reconnect with in-person community. The loss of shared gym culture—people actually talking to each other instead of staying plugged into individual screens—represents more than just nostalgia. There’s real value in working out alongside others, in having conversations about training instead of just comparing data, in building knowledge through shared experience rather than algorithm-driven insights.

The bottom line

Unplugging is easier said than done, but you don’t need to go cold turkey. Maybe in the new year, you can set “body literacy” as a worthwhile resolution. At the end of the day, exercise should add to your life, not become another source of performance anxiety. It should be energizing, not exhausting—and I don’t just mean physically. The never-ending irony of modern fitness culture is that in our pursuit of optimal health, we keep inventing new forms of stress and anxiety. When all forms of wellness come with trackable metrics and social pressure, I think we’ve fundamentally missed the point.

Fitness

Why 21-15-9 Might be the Smartest Workout Format in Fitness – and How to Use it to Drive Muscle Growth

Published

9 hours ago

July 5, 2026

Press Room

Why 21-15-9 Might be the Smartest Workout Format in Fitness – and How to Use it to Drive Muscle Growth

CrossFit means a lot of things to a lot of people – because it’s made up of a lot of things.

Since the rise of the fitness giant, countless brands, events and training methods have sprung up around it – not claiming to be CrossFit, but looking suspiciously CrossFit-esque.

There are, however, a handful of things that are uniquely CrossFit: the ‘Girls’ benchmark workouts. The Hero WODs and, of course, its signature rep schemes.

Chief among them is ’21-15-9′.

The 21-15-9 rep scheme may just be the single most CrossFit thing in existence. But what exactly is it? Where did it come from? And why might it actually be better at building muscle in a hurry than its conditioning roots would have you believe?

Let’s have a look.

What Is 21-15-9?

If you’ve never encountered it before, the format couldn’t be simpler. Choose two exercises (occasionally more) and perform 21 reps of each, then 15 reps of each, then nine reps of each, completing the entire workout as quickly as possible – with good form.

Probably the best-known example is ‘Fran’: 21 thrusters and pull-ups, followed by 15 of each, then nine. On paper it doesn’t look especially intimidating. In practice, it’s one of the most feared benchmark workouts in fitness.

Where Did it Come From?

Unlike many modern training methods, 21-15-9 didn’t come out of a study. It came from the gym floor.

CrossFit founder Greg Glassman has explained that the format emerged through years of coaching and experimentation in the 1990s. Rather than chasing a perfect sets-and-reps prescription, he was looking for a workout that allowed athletes to maintain a high power output from start to finish.

The thinking is surprisingly elegant. You begin with 21 reps while fresh. By the time you reach the set of 15, your ability to produce force has already fallen. By the final nine, you’re significantly more fatigued – but the workload has dropped by almost the same amount.

Instead of grinding through increasingly miserable sets of the same length, the workout ‘meets you where you are’, reducing the work required as your capacity declines. The result is a workout that encourages you to keep moving instead of standing around trying to recover.

The numbers themselves are also remarkably practical. Forty-five total reps per movement provides plenty of training volume without turning the session into an endurance slog, while every set divides neatly into thirds if you need to break it up.

(Although I’ve got to be honest, I’m a 20-15-10-5 man myself, just for the sake of round numbers.)

Why Does it Work So Well?

Although there isn’t research showing that 21-15-9 is somehow the magic formula, there are obvious reasons why it consistently produces brutally effective workouts.

Descending reps help maintain intensity. As fatigue accumulates, reducing the target allows movement quality, bar speed and overall work rate to stay higher than they would if you simply repeated the same number of reps over and over.

It also tends to land in a physiological sweet spot. Most 21-15-9 workouts take between three and eight minutes, depending on the movements and the athlete. That’s long enough to create a serious cardiovascular challenge while still requiring meaningful force production throughout. You’re taxing your anaerobic systems hard while relying on your aerobic system to help you recover just enough to keep going.

Finally, there’s the psychological trick. The hardest-looking part comes first. Once you’ve survived the opening 21, every remaining round appears more manageable. ‘Only 15 left.’ Then, ‘Just nine.’ In reality, you’re becoming more fatigued with every rep, but the shrinking target keeps you attacking the workout instead of pacing too conservatively.

Why it Might be Surprisingly Good for Building Muscle

Perhaps the biggest misconception about 21-15-9 is that it’s ‘just cardio with weights’.

Choose the right load and something interesting happens. Very few athletes complete every round unbroken. Instead, the workout naturally evolves into a series of short, broken sets separated by only a few seconds of rest.

Your 21 might become 11-5-5. Your 15 becomes 8-4-3. Your final nine might stay unbroken – or become 5-4.

In effect, you’ve accidentally turned the workout into a form of rest-pause training.

Those brief pauses allow just enough recovery to squeeze out more high-quality repetitions before fatigue catches up again. By the latter stages of each mini-set, you’re repeatedly working very close to failure, recruiting the high-threshold motor units with the greatest potential for muscle growth.

It’s a similar principle to rest-pause training, myo-reps and cluster sets: all methods used to accumulate hypertrophy-friendly volume while keeping the load relatively heavy and the rest periods brutally short.

You’re basically speed-running a large number of hard, growth-stimulating reps in a very small window of time. Could this help explain why elite CrossFit athletes often carry an impressive amount of muscle despite spending relatively little time performing traditional bodybuilding splits?

It’s certainly plausible, although the ‘elite’ part often selects for athletes with the greatest muscle-building potential.

Much of their training isn’t simply conditioning. It’s high-density resistance training performed under accumulating fatigue, with only fleeting recovery between efforts. In other words, they’re often doing something bodybuilders have deliberately programmed for decades: packing a lot of hard work into a very short period of time.

That’s not to say 21-15-9 is superior to a well-designed hypertrophy programme. If your sole goal is building muscle, there are more efficient ways to do it.

But if you’re looking for a workout that develops fitness, tests your mettle and still provides a meaningful stimulus for strength and size, it’s easy to see why this deceptively simple rep scheme has remained one of CrossFit’s defining fingerprints for more than 20 years.

Best Bodyweight 21-15-9 Workout: ‘JT’

If you’re looking for an interesting twist on the 21-15-9 format, look no further than Hero WOD ‘JT’, which concentrates the muscle-building potential of the format into a brutal upper-body workout.

Created in honour of Petty Officer 1st Class Jeff Taylor, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2006, the workout strips away barbells altogether and relies solely on three bodyweight movements:

21-15-9 reps of:

Don’t let the lack of equipment fool you. The volume – 45 reps of each movement, 135 reps in total – combined with the descending rep scheme makes this a brutal upper-body test, hammering the shoulders, chest and triceps while demanding serious muscular endurance.

Better still, it perfectly demonstrates one of the biggest strengths of 21-15-9. As fatigue mounts and the sets naturally fragment, the workout begins to resemble one giant rest-pause set, allowing you to accumulate a huge number of hard, near-failure reps in less than 10 minutes.

If your goal is building an impressive upper body while developing serious work capacity, there are few bodyweight workouts that deliver quite so much bang for your buck, making ‘JT’ one of my personal favourites.

fitness magazine cover featuring a muscular man with kettlebells

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

Fitness

10 minutes of swimming might not sound worth it – but I tried it for 2 weeks and found the benefits of a quick dip

Published

19 hours ago

July 4, 2026

Press Room

10 minutes of swimming might not sound worth it – but I tried it for 2 weeks and found the benefits of a quick dip

The concept of ‘exercise snacking’ has never been more popular. Not only is it convenient and accessible, but there is solid scientific evidence that short bursts of physical activity can yield real benefits for our health. But can a swimming workout be an effective ‘exercise snack’?

A study published in the European Heart Journal found that just 15 to 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week (almost as low as two minutes a day) was enough to significantly lower the risk of heart disease, cancer and early death. The study defined vigorous activity as any exercise that leaves you out of breath and raises your heart rate, including swimming.

But does ‘exercise snacking’ really work in the pool? Unlike a short run, walk, or online workout at home, going for a swim requires a bit of effort beyond the swim itself, so we often want to spend longer in the pool to make the most of it. However, head of swim for David Lloyd Clubs, Nuala Muir-Cochrane, believes short swims are worth it: “If you only have 10 minutes, consistency matters more than volume. Even two or three short swims per week can improve swim fitness noticeably,” she says.

With that in mind, I added some 10-minute swims to my routine of strength training and yoga workouts for two weeks to see if it made any difference to my health and fitness. Here’s what I discovered, plus what experts told me about optimising a short swim to either energise, recover or relax.

Benefits of 10-minute swimming workouts

1. Aids muscle recovery

To make the most of my short pool sessions, I often paired them with a gym visit, realising that I’ll need a post-workout shower anyway, so I may as well take a dip first. According to Francesca Bagshaw, performance physiologist at Nuffield Health’s Manchester Institute of Health and Performance, a short swim is perfect for recovering after the gym, a run or exercise class because it combines low-impact movement with increased circulation.

“After a hard session, muscles can feel stiff and fatigued due to microscopic muscle damage, inflammation and metabolite build-up,” she explains. “Gentle swimming helps stimulate blood flow without placing additional mechanical stress on joints and muscles,” Francesca recommends keeping the intensity low to moderate if recovery is your goal, to promote mobility, relaxation and circulation, without additional fatigue.

Samantha Russo, master swim coach for Virgin Active, adds, “In the pool, the water holds most of your bodyweight, so your joints get a break, but your muscles are still working gently through a big range of motion. Because water gives soft resistance in every direction, an easy swim is like active stretching with a built-in massage for the muscles, so you loosen up rather than lock up.”

2. Supports muscle building

Water is around 800 times denser than air, making swimming (or any movement in water) an effective resistance workout. Your muscles need to work harder to propel the body through the water, and multiple muscle groups will be involved, including those in your arms, legs, back and core.

My fortnight of short swims probably didn’t help me gain muscle – the resistance of the water never changes, so practising progressive overload (gradually increasing the weight, as I can in the gym) isn’t possible. I would have to either increase my speed, distance or duration to do this. But I felt that my short swims did support gains from strength training in the gym. Maintaining muscle has been useful for staying strong, not just for my gym workouts, but also for my yoga classes and occasional run.

10 minutes might not seem like a long time, but if you’re headed for the shower anyway, why not throw in a quick workout?

(Image credit: Kerry Law / Future)

3. Boosts energy levels

While it isn’t my preferred timeslot, I would sometimes schedule a short, pacier swim in the morning to boost my mental and physical energy before work. If you prefer morning workouts, you might find that adding a short, fast swim after the gym or an exercise class will energise you for the day ahead.

Samantha is a fan of morning swims: “In the morning, your circulation and nervous system are still in ‘low power mode’, and a short swim acts like a full-body wake-up call,” she says. “The cold water stimulates your skin and nerves, your breathing and heart rate increase, and more oxygen-rich blood is pushed to your brain and muscles. That mix of oxygen, movement and endorphins clears brain fog and lifts your mood far better than a cup of coffee.”

Francesca adds, “For best results, morning swims should be kept relatively short and refreshing rather than exhaustive, particularly before work or further training later in the day.”

4. Lowers stress levels

Much has been discovered about the effects of immersion in water, and how it can induce an ultra-calming ‘blue mind’ state. This is partly why I favour an evening swim, not just to avoid the busiest times at the pool, but to lower my cortisol levels and put a full stop to the day. This can have a calming effect on the nervous system, explains Francesca.

“Steady, rhythmic swimming encourages controlled breathing patterns and can help shift the body toward a more parasympathetic, ‘rest and digest’, state. This reduces physiological arousal and can lower stress levels after a busy day,” she says.

“Warm or temperate water can reduce muscle tension and promote peripheral vasodilation [widening of the blood vessels], helping the body feel physically calmer. The repetitive nature of swimming has a meditative effect for many people, supporting mental decompression and reduced cognitive stress.”

Samantha adds that some may find evening swims contribute to a better night’s sleep: “Your core body temperature rises slightly in the water, then drops as you shower and dry off, and that drop is a natural signal to your brain that it’s time for bed.”

5. Burns calories

The number of calories you burn during a swim will depend on various factors, including the duration, distance, intensity and your bodyweight. For example, according to Harvard Medical School data, someone who weighs 155lb could expect to burn approximately 200 calories over a 30-minute low-intensity swim, rising to 360 calories for a high-intensity 30-minute swim.

Just 10 minutes of swimming will amount to a third of that calorie burn, but the ‘afterburn’ – or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) – may help burn a few more. The ‘afterburn’ concept suggests that we consume more oxygen to help our bodies restore and repair following intense exercise, essentially burning calories at a greater rate. However, research suggests this amounts to just a handful of extra calories burnt.

However, I can be confident that spending an extra 10 minutes swimming in the evening burns more calories than my alternative (usually sitting on the sofa watching TV). It’s the same for a 10-minute walking workout.

10-minute swimming workouts to try

Multi-stroke sprint swimming workout

Nuala recommends this swim workout for beginner-intermediate level swimmers. “It improves cardiovascular fitness without the need for a long session, while using different muscle groups through the stroke changes. The easy swim at the end helps recovery and reduces stiffness,” she says.

How to do it:

For the first five minutes, alternate between front crawl, breaststroke and backstroke for one length each.
On every fourth length, sprint at your near maximum effort. Maintain controlled technique even when swimming faster.
For the final five minutes, cool down with gentle continuous swimming with whichever stroke feels most relaxed. Focus on long strokes with steady breathing and low effort.

Maintaining form is crucial, says Nuala: “For front crawl, keep your head still and look slightly downward rather than forwards; in breaststroke, glide briefly after each kick rather than rushing the strokes; and for backstroke, keep your hips high and do small continuous kicks.”

Varied swimming workout

Cheryl Pottinger, swim teacher for Better, suggests this 10 minute routine which goes up and down the speed scale over 300m (in a standard 25m pool).

How to do it:

Warm up with one length of front crawl, followed by one length of breaststroke at normal pace.
For your main set, swim front crawl with a 10 second rest after each practice, starting with one length at your maximum speed.
Follow it with two lengths at 80% of your maximum speed.
Shift down a gear for the next three lengths at normal pace.
Swim the next two lengths at 80% of your maximum speed.
Finish this section with one length at maximum speed.
Cool down with one length in a stroke of your choice at normal pace.

Recovery swim

As a gentle short swim to aid relaxation after a gym session, Cheryl recommends this sequence. It incorporates the lesser known side stroke, which is relaxed, energy efficient and builds core stability as it forces your midsection to engage as you balance on one side.

How to do it:

Warm up with one length of front crawl and one length of breaststroke at a relaxed pace.
Swim the next two lengths in side stroke, one length on the right side and one on the left. This stroke requires balancing on one side of the body, reaching forward with one arm while the other pulls back, and scissor kicking the legs. “Focus on the power in the muscles during the pull and kick, and the stretching of the muscles during the glide,” says Cheryl. Watch a demo here.
Finish with one length of steady-paced breaststroke, and a final length of head-first sculling (lie on your back using your arms to propel you backwards).

Tips for making the most of a 10-minute swimming workout

Make it your post-gym habit: All the effort involved in travelling to and from the pool, let alone changing in and out of clothes, may not feel worth it for just 10 minutes in the pool. So, I often tacked it onto the end of my regular gym session. If your gym has a pool, make the most of it and view it as part of your workout ‘cool down’ and recovery before showering and heading home.
Tailor your swim to the time of day: There are still benefits to be had if you take a relaxing swim in the morning, or a higher intensity swim in the evening, but you might be working against your energy levels. As Francesca recommends, a pacier swim early in the day can boost alertness, while a lighter intensity swim in the evening can aid post-workout recovery and sleep.
Choose quieter pool times: This goes for however long you wish to spend swimming, but having a lane all to yourself allows you to follow a plan without compromise. I find evenings are best for me but check your local pool timetable to avoid sharing space with unexpected aqua aerobic classes or school swimming lessons.
Bring a poolside kit bag: With just 10 minutes in the pool, you don’t have time to keep nipping back to your locker to fetch forgotten kit. Have a small kit bag pre-packed with anything you might need (think spare hairclips and hairbands, anti-fog goggle spray, kickboard and pull buoy if you’re using them), and keep it at the end of your lane (make sure it isn’t a trip hazard).

Fitness

The Fitness Secrets of Wimbledon’s Top Tennis Pros

Published

1 day ago

July 4, 2026

Press Room

The Fitness Secrets of Wimbledon’s Top Tennis Pros

While many of us are far from becoming top-ranked athletes, there’s plenty to learn from the pros when it comes to optimising our health and fitness. From Janik Sinnner’s muscle-building techniques to Novak Djokovic’s devotion to longevity, dig into these tennis pros’ secrets for peak performance.

Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency//Getty Images

CARLOS ALCARAZ

Fitness Game Changer:

Sand Footwork Drills

Any pro tennis player has to play with agility, but Alcaraz can move. To do so at a high level, the 21-year-old performs lateral movement drills in the sand, teaching his feet to drive up from an unstable surface. This can help prevent ankle injuries and build strength in his calves and shin muscles.

Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto//Getty Images

JANNIK SINNER

Fitness Game Changer:

Landmine Rotations

Sinner has historically lacked the physical prowess of his competitors, so the 23-year-old has gone all in on strength and mobility work. He does landmine rotational exercises such as the hollow body landmine press, which builds upper-body power.

Lintao Zhang//Getty Images

NOVAK DJOKOVIC

Fitness Game Changer:

Devotion to Longevity

He’s been around this long for a reason. Djokovic, 37, eliminated gluten and dairy from his diet, started practising mindfulness techniques like conscious breathing and visualisation, and even brought a hyperbaric chamber to the 2019 US Open.

Cameron Spencer//Getty Images

BEN SHELTON

Fitness Game Changer:

Explosive Strength Moves

Known for his consistently fast serves, Shelton, 22, relies on single-leg training, using dumbbells to do lateral lunges, step-ups, and even Bulgarian split squats. He focuses on exploding upward on every rep so he’s ready to attack the ball on each serve.

Darrian Traynor//Getty Images

FRANCES TIAFOE

Fitness Game Changer:

Overcoming Isometrics

Tiafoe spent last off-season doing overcoming isometrics: exercises that force the 27-year-old to hold a position against a load he can’t move. This aids in boosting power and strength and can improve joint health.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

Andrew Gutman, NASM-CPT is a journalist with a decade of experience covering fitness and nutrition. His work has been published in Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Muscle & Fitness, and Gear Patrol. Outside of writing, Andrew trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, helps coach his gym’s kickboxing team, and enjoys reading and cooking.