Hot Take: I Think Wearables Are Trash

Wearable fitness trackers are everywhere right now.

Apple Watches.
Whoop bands.
Oura Rings.
Garmin watches.

People are tracking their steps, heart rate, sleep cycles, recovery scores, HRV, calories burned, and activity minutes. For many athletes, the data from these devices has become the ultimate authority on how they should train, rest, and live their lives.

But here’s my hot take as a coach:

I think wearables are trash.

Okay… maybe that’s a little aggressive.

But let me explain.

Why People Love Wearables

Most people start using a wearable device with the best intentions.

They want to understand how they sleep.
They want to track recovery.
They want to know how many steps they get in each day.
They want to make sure they’re staying active.

And honestly, that’s great.

The data these devices provide can be fascinating. You can see trends in your sleep, understand your activity levels, and get feedback about how your body responds to training.

But here’s the important thing to remember:
At the end of the day, that information is just data.
Nothing more.

The Problem With Fitness Trackers

Computers (like your wearable) don’t have feelings.

They don’t have emotional intelligence.
They don’t have energetic awareness.
They don’t understand your stress levels, your life demands, or how your body actually feels in the moment.

They just spit out numbers.

And over the years, I’ve noticed something interesting with athletes who rely heavily on wearables:
They start trusting the device more than they trust their own body.

If the watch says they didn’t recover well, they feel anxious about training that day… even if they woke up feeling strong and energized.

If the tracker says they slept great, they assume they should feel amazing… even if they’re actually exhausted.

The data starts to override personal awareness.
And that’s where things start to go sideways.

My Personal Experience With Wearables

I’ve tried them myself.

I have an Oura Ring (that I am wearing right now).
I’ve worn a Whoop.

And I’ll say… there’s nothing inherently wrong with these devices. The technology is impressive and the information can be useful.

But when I first started using a wearable regularly, I noticed something.

I started gamifying my life.
I wasn’t just training or living normally anymore… I was chasing better scores.

If my recovery score was low, I’d stress about it.
If my sleep score was poor, I’d worry about how the day would go.
Even on days when I actually felt great.

Other times the opposite would happen. I’d wake up feeling tired or run down, but the wearable would tell me I was “fully recovered” and ready to tackle the world.

The numbers didn’t match how I actually felt.

And that’s when it clicked for me.
The device didn’t know my body better than I did.

The Layer That Most Devices Miss

This disconnect becomes even more obvious when we talk about women’s physiology.

Women don’t operate on a 24-hour hormonal cycle like men do. We operate on a roughly 28-day cycle.
Energy levels shift across phases of the cycle.

During the follicular phase, many women feel energized and capable of higher intensity training.

During the luteal phase, energy may dip and recovery needs increase.

Around ovulation, strength and performance may peak.

A wearable device might detect some changes in heart rate variability or sleep patterns, and maybe it even tracks your cycle by day, but it still doesn’t fully understand the hormonal and energetic shifts happening in the body.

Because no device can fully capture what your body is experiencing.

What Actually Matters for Health and Fitness

When you strip away the technology and noise, the fundamentals of health and fitness are surprisingly simple.

You don’t need 40 different data points to get healthier.

You need to focus on a few core behaviors:

-Move your body regularly
-Prioritize good sleep
-Eat nourishing food
-Stay generally active throughout the day

That’s it.

If you want to track something, keep it simple.

Steps.
Activity levels.
Time spent moving.

Those can be useful.

But the most important metric is something no wearable device can track: How you actually feel.

Trust Your Body

Your body gives you feedback constantly.

Energy levels.
Mood.
Motivation.
Fatigue.
Recovery.

Learning to listen to those signals is one of the most valuable skills you can develop.

And ironically, sometimes over-relying on technology disconnects people from that internal awareness.

The best athletes I’ve coached over the years don’t just follow numbers on a screen.

They understand their bodies.

They know when to push.
They know when to pull back.
They know when movement will help them feel better.

That kind of awareness is far more powerful than any recovery score.

Trust Your Body More Than Your Device

Technology can absolutely be helpful.

But it should support your awareness of your body, not replace it.

No watch, ring, or tracker knows your body better than you do. It doesn’t know how you feel when you wake up in the morning. It doesn’t know when your body is asking for movement, or when it needs rest. And it definitely doesn’t understand the complexity of real life… stress, work, family, hormones, and everything else we navigate.

At the end of the day, the most powerful tool you have is learning to listen to your own body.

The goal of fitness isn’t to chase a better score on your watch, it’s to feel stronger, more capable, and more energized in your real life.

So I’m curious… Do you use a wearable? And do you find it helpful, stressful, or somewhere in between?

Drop a comment below and let me know. I’d love to hear your experience!

– Coach Jill
Cobra Command CrossFit