Heading off to college isn’t generally conducive to improving physical health. While the “freshman 15” may be a bit of an exaggeration, college students are generally sorely tasked to maintain healthy lifestyles.
For active outdoor recreationalists, being on an unfamiliar campus is a disruption, while indoor fitness fans will need to make plans to implement new routines based on their gym locations. Between taking on classes, added stress, and having their workouts thrown into disorder, college students face an uphill battle in staying healthy. Even online students should anticipate their health to be challenged due to adding on new responsibilities.
Fortunately, technology can be a great asset in the quest for wellness. Whether you’re buying for yourself or for a student heading to college, this list of fitness accessories will help you approach the upcoming school year with good health as an achievable goal.
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1. Best Accessory for Future Cyborgs
Another Apple that helps keep the Doctor away
If you’re the type who wants to do it all with a wave of your hand, the latest Apple Watch is a step in that direction. Along with essential fitness functionality like tracking workout progress, the Series 6 offers a wide range of services, from monitoring the heart and making emergency calls after hard falls to enabling instant payment at checkouts and syncing your Music Library to listen to music wirelessly with Bluetooth-enabled earbuds. Workout data transfers seamlessly to the iPhone Fitness app, letting you see your performance over time.
2. Best Fusion of Classic Elegance and Modern Technology
A classic style that Rose to Gold status
Choosing to don a fitness accessory doesn’t have to mean foregoing classic style thanks to the Samsung Galaxy’s new line of band options. The best-selling Galaxy Watch in Rose Gold combines the elegance of men’s luxury watches with sleek technology capable of producing a range of highly realistic watch faces. Perhaps best yet, the watch has a number of built-in stress-countering apps to help students find balance between exams and personal wellness.
3. Best Budget Fitness Accessory
It looks great and will get you Fit 2
Going to college is already an expensive proposition, so it might make sense to opt for a solid budget fitness band that still offers some valuable tools for students. The Samsung Galaxy Fit 2 (available in red or black) offers statistical readouts for all workout activities, letting you easily time your workouts, track calories burned, or monitor your water intake. The device is smart enough to automatically detect what you’re doing when you’re doing it, making it ideal for on-the-go students.
4. Best Training Companion
What’s a Charge 4?
Fitbit is synonymous with wearable fitness tracking for a reason. For each of the 15 activities the Fitbit Charge 4 tracks (including running, biking, swimming, and yoga), you can easily set goals using the built-in apps. During workout sessions, the Charge 4 clearly displays your progress and lets you know when to kick it into a higher gear. The newest model is ideal for runners, as it includes an onboard GPS to help you map circuits and monitor your performance.
5. Best Retro-ware
It is the chosen watch
Synth-wave and the retro style of the 80s is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and the Amazfit Neo Smartwatch is a direct representation of that. With a pixelated readout on a monochrome screen as its default display, it nevertheless is capable of technological wizardry with built-in biosensors that capture heart rate, steps, and performance during walking, running, and cycling sessions. Adding a splash of gamification, users are given a vitality index score that changes based on their personal characteristics and their activity.
6. Best App-Enabled
This Fitbit Alta help you track your goals
While Apple users won’t go wrong with their choice of an Apple Watch, the best overall fitness and activity tracking for its app-enabled functionality is the Fitbit line of products. The Fitbit Alta is a minimal form wearable accessory that easily syncs its data wirelessly with virtually any device – from computers to over 200 kinds of smartphones. Students who value knowledge will have plenty at their fingertips with an array of activities and biomarkers tracked and clear readouts through the SmartTrack dashboard.
7. Best Rugged Accessory
It T-Wrecks the competition
Not all learning takes place in the classroom. For students who are equally at home in the outdoors and value accessories that can withstand high impacts and challenging conditions (including being 50 meters underwater), the Amazfit T-Rex Smartwatch is the way to go. This military-grade watch is not only tough, it aims to help its users become tough, with 14 sports modes and various activities tracked.
8. Best for Just Steps
Omron-nom
For the privacy-sensitive student who is looking for a simple, reliable step-tracker, the Omrom Hip Pedometer is a solid choice. The device utilizes smart sensor technology to accurately track steps in all forms and speeds while attached to your hip (along with monitoring calories burned and distance traveled). Every morning, it resets automatically so you can start your workout anew. Make sure to record your data within seven days, however, as it won’t store it longer than that.
9. Best for Amazonians
The Band 5: Even better than the band Maroon 5
The Amazfit Band 5 is an Amazon product, meaning it pairs with your Alexa device to provide on-the-go voice-powered assistance. It also happens to be specially designed for women warriors, with a minimal profile that keeps it lightweight on the wrist. A special function tracks menstrual cycles, granting the empowerment of knowing when to expect physiological shifts that could impact academic and workout performance. Other functions include monitoring oxygen saturation and even the length of REM cycles during sleep.
10. Best for cross-trainers
Watch where you’re going
If the student you have in mind is an athlete of multiple persuasions, the Garmin Vivoactive 4 is an excellent mid-range choice for a wearable workout companion. The watch face provides an animated display for everything from yoga to strength training to golfing. More than 20 individual sports apps come preloaded on the device, each of which tracks your performance and lets users save and share their best results.
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