Sport puts up a fight
Whether you're cycling, jogging, swimming or climbing stairs, with a connected watch you can keep track of your activities. And in times of confinement, Garmin provides some surprising figures.
About a month ago, Garmin published its first sports report in the US, showing striking trends and developments in relation to activity and exercise by connected watch users.
The company is now doing the same for Europe, or more specifically for the five EU countries most affected by the coronavirus crisis, namely Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK. To illustrate its findings, Sweden - where restrictions are much less severe - was also included in the data collection. However, no figures are available for Switzerland.
Looking at the data from millions of Garmin connected watch users, it is noticeable that the company uses its own analysis methodology. Simply looking at the total number of steps doesn't say enough. Although this number is falling in all countries, this set of data alone does not indicate that people are moving less. Take the example of a hypothetical woman in quarantine in a 120 square metre flat in Italy.
Although she takes a very low number of steps a day because of her confinement, she could very well cover 20 kilometres a day on her stationary bike. Has her activity level decreased as a result of the pandemic? No. On the contrary, she's doing even more sport. She has, however, modified her routine to take account of the circumstances.
To get a true picture of the situation, it's important to dig deeper into the data by looking at it carefully from the right angle. Garmin wearables incorporate over 20 different sports activity profiles. Combined with a vast global database of users, this range of features shows if people are doing sport and which.
Light on a whole bunch of data
According to Garmin, each of the displays below shows sports activity data for the six European countries involved in the study. National restrictions due to containment came into force in Italy on 9 March, and, for the other countries, on the following days. In order to obtain a coherent and clear picture, Garmin took 9 March as the central point, including the five weeks before and the five weeks after to determine the percentages of increase and decrease. Although this approach is not reflected in the diagrams, the trend has been compared with the 2019 data for the same period. In this way, the usual seasonal trends can be distinguished from those triggered by COVID-19 events.
Cycling
The hypothetical scenario presented above appears to be the surprising reality in France, Italy and Spain, where strict containment guidelines apply. Comparing the phases before and after this containment in France, Garmin notes a significant increase in activity of 157%. Spain and Italy also set records for exercise bikes, with 273% and 309% respectively. The scale of this change should not be underestimated; we are witnessing a historically strong increase in an activity that generally declines in the spring, never seen before.
What's interesting here is that a lot of people pedal their exercise bikes using connected training rollers such as those from Tacx. They synchronise their activities with a third-party platform such as Zwift, which allows users to virtually criss-cross the world's roads with other users. Ready-made formulas such as "Keep your distance while sticking together" seem to be proving true for cyclists these days.
The increase in exercise bike users is reflected in Garmin's finding of an increase in average distance per ride. Spain, for example, saw a 41% boom. Despite a slight fall in the overall activity trend, Germans are still making longer journeys, with the average distance per trip increasing by 12%. In Sweden, the March 1 peak corresponds to the Vasaloppet, an annual cross-country ski race presumably supplanted by a stationary bike session.
In Germany, the UK and Sweden, cycling tends to be done outdoors. In Germany alone, Garmin recorded a 153% increase in the number of outdoor cyclists. In 2019, over the same period, the increase was just 36%. It's entirely possible that psychological factors such as the desire to be more active in the face of adversity have something to do with it. In addition, this trend line also showed the extent to which exit restrictions in France, Italy and Spain were respected.
General physical training
But what about other practitioners? Not everyone enjoys cycling after all. To answer this question, Garmin uses its activity data from fitness functions. These include activities carried out with one of the following sports profiles pre-installed on a Garmin wearable: elliptical training, indoor cardio training, indoor rowing, stepper and weight training. Here too, the results are surprising.
Italy shows a 105% increase in sporting activity when comparing the periods before and after confinement. Similarly, users in France, Spain and the UK exercised more, with increases of 80%, 93% and 8% respectively. All this suggests that even those living in countries whose governments have decreed very stringent containment measures still found a way to get moving.
Golf
To play golf, you have to go to Sweden. In fact, the post-winter assault on the green is, at present, even stronger than in 2019. The country has seen a marked increase of 741% in golf as a sporting activity, a result that is all the more remarkable when you consider the 26% in the UK, where the sport enjoys widespread popularity, but where the British Open, scheduled for June, was recently cancelled.
Jogging
According to Garmin, running is the most popular springtime activity. In Spain and Italy, where outdoor bans are at their strictest, outdoor running has plummeted, by 68% and 42% respectively.
A closer look at these data reveals that users in countries with the strictest social distancing have adopted the treadmill, including virtual ones. The Italians, Spanish and French are downloading a record number of activities, with increases of 130%, 84% and 18% respectively.
What about joggers in Germany, Sweden and the UK? The Garmin data shows that things are different. In these countries, outdoor runners cover shorter distances. One might conclude from this that the Germans, Swedes and British have restricted their movements outdoors, despite more permissive confinement restrictions. While indoor running is registering an increase in most countries, jogging is still relevant, albeit a little closer to home.
Swimming
What's interesting about the swimming data, according to Garmin, is that its decline goes hand in hand with the introduction of exit restrictions. Once confinement was decreed by each country, people stopped going to the pool. In Sweden, where more lenient restrictions are in force, the drop in activity describes a smaller decline.
Staircases
Let's turn now to going up and down stairs, an activity that you wouldn't immediately think of in the context of a global pandemic. According to Garmin data, stair-climbing is particularly common in Spain, France and Italy.
It is important to note that stair climbing differs from stepping, an activity previously represented in the results. Garmin is referring here to people who go up and down the stairs in their building or home. In France, this activity has increased by 103%, in Italy by 572% and in Spain by 900%.
This is perhaps the most fascinating and also the most encouraging turnaround of all the activities. A record number of people refused to let their fitness suffer because of the restrictions caused by confinement. No fitness equipment available? No problem! There's always the stairs.
Conclusion
We love sport, crisis or no crisis. Garmin knows what you've been up to this spring, but voluntarily shares some data with the rest of the world. However, there is a degree of uncertainty in their findings. After all, who wears a connected watch? Those who enjoy sport in general. And what about the data of those who don't? After so much indigestible data, how about letting off a little steam, with or without anything around your wrist?
Want to know what I've been up to at Galaxus over the last two years? Then take a look at my author profile!
From radio journalist to product tester and storyteller, jogger to gravel bike novice and fitness enthusiast with barbells and dumbbells. I'm excited to see where the journey'll take me next.