[Enquête] Meet smart health connected athletes!

After our survey on smart health connected hospitals we looked at smart health connected athletes. Indeed, there are many smart health connected devices for sport. But ultimately what about their use by athletes? To find out more, we went to meet people for whom life is all about sport.

State of play of smart health connected devices for sport

Athletes are rather spoiled with the new technology, for them many companies market every year tons of smart health connected objects. All more sophisticated than the others, the competition is fierce in this market! We find among these companies Garmin, Withings or HTC. Even the major sports brands have taken an interest in these smart health connected devices which are both the new trend in sport but which are above all very practical when you want monitoring and improve performance.

Of course, it is possible to make a list of all these objects intended for sportspeople: bracelet, armband, combination, watch … There are all kinds but the real question is ultimately whether they are used? By who ? How? 'Or' What ? Why ?

Finally the only way to get answers to these questions is to meet sports professionals, those who spend their days in sports halls or on the pitch.

smart health connected athletes?

We went to meet three sportsmen. One is a fan of running and endurance racing, the other two are geared towards sports halls, more specifically bodybuilding but also swimming.

A presentation is essential, Justine has been a "runner" for 10 years now, she practices sport 3 to 4 times a week and participates in races across France. Yanis is sports coach for almost 15 years and apart from the support he has provided, he has been a fan of bodybuilding, football and boxing. He practices around 6 hours of sport per day. Finally, Gaël is sports teacher in college for almost 10 years and practicing 12 hours of sport per week, in particular swimming, running and tennis.

If our three interlocutors do not use smart health connected devices in each of the sports they practice, they still use them for certain activities. What use do they make of smart health connected objects for sport? If for Justine and Gaël it's a personal use in order to monitoring their progress and goals, Yanis, the sports coach replies: “I use smart health connected devices to monitoring performance: mine and that of my clients. Instead of writing everything, everything is directly recorded! After that there is nothing to watch.

To continue on this idea of data collected, how do athletes use them? Do they study them or look at them without paying too much attention? The answers differ on this subject, Justine replies: “I'm just using it to check my progress, but it's true that I never try to do anything less than the time before. It's motivating !"

For Yanis the idea of ​​always wanting to do more than the previous time also prevails. As for Gaël l’’use of data, that's his thing! "The professor side stands out and it is true that I like to study the data, see what I have done best, check my form. Then what I need to improve, what I need to focus on next time … ", he admits.

So we find different smart health connected athletes, data junkies and performance junkies !

By getting into the habit of these little ones devices that manage everything for us, it’s interesting to know if our athletes could possibly do without it now. "It’s very useful for performances, I won’t do without it! ” says Yanis. As for our two other interlocutors, they agree that this is a trend, but a very useful trend all the same. Gaël also adds: "I would probably be lost, I got into the habit of using them and it is rather practical to rest on these devices rather than to retain my performances or to calculate. We can focus on our current efforts and nothing else. ”

Athletes totally won over by these smart health connected devices, but which ones do they prefer? Justine uses a Garmin watch as well as theRuntastic application and bracelet. Yanis has set his sights on the Beast device, specialized in bodybuilding and rather expensive! For Gaël, the Garmin Swim watch and Instabeat glasses are his partners during his swimming sessions.

Finally, the question of price could not be avoided! So what do they think? For Justine, price is a brake: “It's still expensive, that's why I don't use much!”Regarding Yanis, when it concerns sport it doesn't bother him put the price it takes to be equipped : “It would always be better if it was cheaper, as with everything but it is in my prices when it comes to sport!"

Finally Gaël sums up the situation rather well: “There are different prices after it depends on what you are looking for and the budget you have, not to mention what you want to do with it."

So yes, it is true that we often talk about smart health connected objects for athletes because there are many. On closer inspection, these objects are still well used by athletes who swear by them! Difficult for these sports enthusiasts to carry out their sessions without being smart health connected now that they are used to these little companions.