Fit Tech Data for Coaching Success

Data is flooding over us and our clients. It’s everywhere. Data is big, data is valuable, and data is—or will be—in every crevice of our day. As fitness and wellness professionals, we have seen wearables and the fit tech data they provide move beyond the purview of the elite athlete to a novelty item, soon abandoned, to a hot commodity among all levels and modalities of fitness. (See “The Data on Wearable Data,” below)

Thanks to the rise and adoption of wearables, especially smartwatches from Apple, Fitbit® and others, we and our clients have never had more data about our activities, sleep and physiology than we do today. Often, the amount of data being generated can be overwhelming and confusing to the point of rendering it useless. Without context, data from wearables won’t help clients—and can even hinder progress. Without the effective application of data, people are just left with a pricey bobble that buzzes and beeps.

As fitness and wellness professionals, we can bridge the gap between fit tech data and doing. Wearables and the data they produce have become an opportunity, if not a necessity, to extend and deepen the client and fitness/wellness professional relationship.

Uniting Fit Tech Data and Coaching

By understanding how to transform wearable data from novelty to necessity for your client—and uniting the world of fit tech and coaching in a meaningful way—you will ignite client engagement and deepen your relationship. You will also elevate and add value to your practice.

To accomplish these goals, we must first understand that these technologies do not provide one-on-one solutions, and data does not provide answers. Rather, these technologies and their data are enablers of a good coach-client relationship and, combined with effective communication, result in empowered coaching. Effective coaching is, after all, based on collaborative rather than hierarchical relations (Wolever et al. 2013).

Here are five ways to marry the science of human behavior and the data of fitness trackers to add value to the coaching experience.

See also: What’s in Your Tech Stack?

1. Cultivate Connection

More than anything, impactful coaching is about connection and trust. Without trust there is no relationship, and our coaching practice defaults to becoming a transactional service. Wearable data is an excellent way to kindle connection through microtouches, providing coaches an easy way to increase emotional connection without investing significant time. With some data being shared in real time, such as during physical activity, coaches are provided the opportunity to “be right there” with their clients to acknowledge completion and progress.

Such communication is as simple as a glance and a tap from a mobile phone. The proximity to the event, the data being shared, and the coach acknowledgement/encouragement is perceived as a reward-boosting connection.

It’s important to note that the benefit of developing connections via wearables is not limited to the client-coach relationship. Increasing connection with others—through building community—is easy with wearables, such as Fitbit, that simplify locating and joining groups of like-minded individuals, offering shared activities and challenges to members.

2. Cultivate Motivation

From our earliest experiences onward, humans are inherently disposed to autonomy and self-efficacy as our pathway to decision-making. Self-determination theory and self-efficacy theory reveal that the key characteristics to achieving behavior change are autonomy, self-efficacy and competence (Bandura 1977; Ryan & Deci 2017).

Wearables are most clearly associated with motivation as they gather data on everything from steps, pace, distance and sleep to our propensity to stand throughout our day. Wearables prompt people to take action with a series of messages and vibrations that arrive on their wrist.

However, people grow weary of the nagging nature of the wearable prompts, just as they do with any extrinsic motivation. How the fitness/wellness professional partners with the client regarding the data is paramount to cultivating effective motivation.

The input we get from data is not a simple plug-and-play (Rutjes et al. 2022). The client needs data to be contextualized for it to be meaningful in the coaching process. Specifically, merely recording a behavior does not reveal why the behavior was performed, whether it was a pleasant experience or a struggle, which belief or contextual situation triggered the behavior, and whether the behavior was beneficial to the client’s goal and narrative.

The inherent value of data is very limited. In fact, the reason data does not have inherent value is because it is objective. Rather, data only acquires meaning when seen through a subjective perception, as part of a dynamic and collaborative process of meaning making—one that involves intrapersonal, interpersonal and data-driven reflections and interactions (Rutjes et al. 2022).

To spark autonomy in a client, avoid leading with an interpretation of the data, and instead prompt them with leading questions, such as “What is the opportunity or challenge here?” or “What excites you about this?” or “What do you want to explore?”

3. Cultivate Self-Compassion

The role of the fitness professional is vital in ensuring data is used for self-compassion, not self-criticism.

Self-compassion is defined as being kind and gentle to one’s emotions and adopting an accepting, nonjudgmental attitude toward one’s own inadequacies and failures, recognizing that they are part of the shared human experience (Neff 2003a). Cultivating self-compassion is critical to facilitating sustainable change with our clients, and data provides an amazing opportunity to do so.

Self-compassion may give rise to proactive behaviors aimed at promoting or maintaining health and well-being. It may also be more effective than self-criticism in motivating behavior, as research has shown a strong positive association with connectedness, self-determination and subjective well-being (Neff 2003b).

The role of the fitness professional is vital in ensuring data is used for self-compassion, not self-criticism. Due to its quantifiable nature, data often feels like a grade to our clients and, for many, can create an environment of rigid self-judgment that is not productive.

Starting the conversation with an open-ended, curious question—such as “What do you find valuable about this?”—attaches no preconceived notion of value to the data, and it prompts your client to determine its relevance and value.

See also: How to Develop Compassionate Coaching

4. Cultivate Strengths

According to Moore (2019), “negativity bias is thought to be an adaptive evolutionary function. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors were exposed to immediate environmental threats that we no longer need to worry about—predators, for example—and being more attentive to these negative stimuli played a useful role in survival” (Cacioppo & Berntson 1999; Vaish, Grossman & Woodward 2008; Norman et al. 2011).

While we do not face the same threats today, people are hard-wired to focus on the negative or lacking aspects first in most situations. Clients will do the same thing when examining their data and attempt to progress by patching holes rather than leaning into their strengths.

As coaches, we facilitate our clients’ recognition of their strengths and become strength spotters. This may take place by highlighting a positive outcome and asking the client: “Which of your strengths did you rely on most to accomplish this?” Or in our role as a strength spotter, we can simply point out: “Your strength in planning and persistence is what propelled you to achieve x.”

5. Cultivate Commitment to Action

Contrary to popular belief, knowledge is not power: It is the application of knowledge that is powerful. Data, in the same way, is valuable only when it leads to and ignites action. Uncovering the personal relevance of the data to your client—as a tool to achieve their self-directed change—is how to cultivate commitment to action.

A coaching key here is listening—to what they say as well as what they don’t say—to provide context for the particular data category’s relevance and importance to the person. For example, one client might value meeting sleep or stand goals, while another may care most about calorie burn or mileage. Deciphering these matters as you collaborate will help you to design action forward. A simple, effective question to uncover an action the client is likely to be most committed to is: “What is your next step?”

A Metaphor for Mentoring With Fit Tech Data

Consider that wearable technology and data can feel like a help or a hinderance for the client, based on how health coaches choose to leverage it. If you are not careful, it will begin to feel like a leash to your clients, limiting their progress. Think about your clients as kites, soaring in the sky, with you using wearable data only to keep them grounded so they can feel supported, yet free to explore.

See also: The State of Health and Wellness Coaching