This article is part of Men’s Health’s ‘Men’s Health at 30’ series, which examines the transformation of men’s wellness since 1995. In this piece, tech writer and veteran ultrarunner Kieran Alger shares hard-earned wisdom.
The Early Days: No Apps, No Problem
It’s 1997. I was a young man, fresh out of my first year at university. After eight months of a diet heavy on kebabs, excessive drinking, and inadequate sleep, I’d gained a considerable amount of weight. I wasn’t comfortable with my body, and something had to change. The problem? I didn’t know how.
Information about exercise was scarce, and personal trainers were costly. The internet was in its infancy. There was no Google, no YouTube, and no smartphones or training apps. I turned to the pages of Men’s Health magazine and put together a basic plan. I started running, used the rowing machine, and did exercises with weights. I moderated my drinking and improved my diet, as best a broke student could. It worked. I lost weight. Looking back, what’s striking is how basic it all was. I didn’t know how far I’d run, or if I was training in the optimal heart-rate zone. There was no app logging my food intake, and no online community for motivation. It was just me, figuring it out.
The Tech Revolution: From Footpods to Rings
Fast forward thirty years, and it’s hard to imagine attempting the same without leaning on technology. Fitness tech has transformed training. I’ve spent the last two decades following this revolution.
I recall how exciting it was to run with a Nike+ Sensor footpod for the first time, an iPod strapped to my arm, with wired headphones. It was something extraordinary to have skip-free music and track how far and fast you had run. I reviewed early trackers – hulking GPS sports watches. I stuck biosensors to my biceps. In 2006, people looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Why would anyone want to monitor their movements?
Then came the Nike Fuelband, likely the first wearable to make tracking popular. It was the original gamifier of daily motion – the predecessor to Fitbit, Whoop, and other modern fitness trackers. Suddenly, fitness was a competition, against yourself, friends, and family.
We’ve seen even greater changes since. We’ve gone from simple step counters to tiny smart rings packed with miniaturized sensors. We have body-composition scales, glucose monitors, and metabolism readers. We’re a generation of optimizers, conducting self-studies and obsessing over data. All of this gives us a stronger sense of control over our bodies. These days, it’s tempting to judge workouts not on how they make us feel, but whether they move a metric on a screen.
The Human Element: A Matter of Balance
But back in 1997, I wasn’t preoccupied with VO2 max or Strain Scores. If I was tired, I rested. ‘Did it make me feel good?’ was a more important question than ‘Was it optimal?’. Today, perhaps we risk placing too much faith in technology, losing sight of the simple, consistent habits that generate real results. The worry is that technology can nudge us into focusing on the 1%, overlooking the 99% that comes from consistent effort.
We’re increasingly encouraged to blindly trust our trackers, giving them more power to influence our daily decisions. This shift will accelerate with the advent of AI. Smart coaches are already serving up workouts based on yesterday’s biomarkers, with algorithms interpreting your data and telling you what to do. And most of us don’t know how these machines reach their conclusions.
The funniest thing? Thirty years of playing with the latest fitness innovations has crystallized something I already knew back in 1997: there is no silver bullet that’ll replace simply showing up and putting in the work. But, if used judiciously, fitness gadgets can be a good instructor.
Tech can make chasing your goals more exciting. It’s also worth noting someone still needs to create a trustworthy rep and weight counter!
