Tech, Fitness, and Wearables | Episode 188

Ryan Purvis: Hello, and welcome to the Digital Workspace Works podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host, supported by our producer, Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field, stories from the front lines, the problems they face and how they solve them, the areas they're focused on from technology, people, and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to the scripts for the Digital Workspace inner workings.

​How are things?

Heather Bicknell: Good. You're a little quiet. Let me see if I can fix that.

Ryan Purvis: I mean, I've got this microphone and thing attached to my desk. I think I've used it probably once this year. I just use my Apple airpods all the time.

And I was hoping I bought a new pair because my, so I've got three pairs. My first pair, the one ear pods gone. But to be fair, it's a pair that's lasted a very long time because they've gone swimming, they've been put through the dryer, they've been put through the washing machine. You know, so they survived.

So a lot of support for the product. So, but I bought a second pair because I obviously damaged the first pair. I figured they were going to break at some point. And that pair I've had for a long time and been working well. But then you know that, have you ever heard the military adage, two is one and one is none.

So because my right ear pod is starting to go on my first pair, and I had the second pair. I realised that I really had one pair so that's bad for business. And I damaged my ankle ages ago and it's been giving me a lot of trouble. So I went for physio last Thursday and I left my only working pair of AirPods in the physio room and they of course closed.

So, the next morning I had to go fetch another pair. And that night when I realised I left them behind, I was like, no, no, I have to order another pair now because it, I can't afford this problem. And the thing is for me, I just don't wanna use another type of headphone or apod, I'm so used to the Apple ones, I just don't wanna use another one.

So, if I ordered another pair, they've arrived now and then what I was hoping would happen is if I, if I leave the second pair on my desk. And I put them in my ears, it would automatically connect to the laptop when I use Teams. And then the third pair, the new pair, I keep in my pocket like I normally do and use them on my, iPhone and about.

But that didn't work. So there's still some work to be done there, I guess, to get them to... Because every time I come back, I've got to reconnect my AirPods to my laptop so I can use them for a team call, which just adds another three steps to my, my life. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're doing it 10 times a day, it's a lot.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah, I think that.

Ryan Purvis: How are you?

Heather Bicknell: I good, good, good. With you on the multiple headphones journey, I think I'm on my third pair of AirPods. Actually missed the first gen because they felt like they fit my ears the best. And the other ones are really kind of bulky. I guess I have like a small inner ear. I don't know, but I have a harder time keeping them in.

So I've actually for exercise have switched to bone conducting ones. Kind of wrap around your head, because I don't have any fear of them falling off. And then, also it's kind of nice not to have the feeling of like something inside your ear when you're sweating. So highly recommend.

Ryan Purvis: You see, that doesn't bug me at all. The whole inside you. In fact, it's become a little bit of a protection from the other people mechanism because you know, you've got people that drop their weights, which really irritates me. And I don't know why it irritates me. It must be some psychological condition. Cause to me, like if you're lifting heavy weights, half the challenge is to put it down quietly. Cause that means you're controlling it. That means you can actually lift the weight, but what a lot of these guys will do is I like overload deadlift and then I'm like, lift it up and then I'll drop it down as fast as they can and all you hear is this.

Which again, to my point kind of goes, well, then if you can't put it down slowly, then it's too heavy, like rather do 20 reps with a quarter of the weight. Then do two reps at the extreme rate.

Heather Bicknell: Gotta get that PR, Ryan. What's the highest PR?

Ryan Purvis: Yeah, but you can, and there's science that backs this up, that it's not about how heavy it is as long as you've got the same volume. So if you do 10 reps at 100 kilos and you get 1000 or you do 20 reps at 50 kilos, you'll get the same muscle growth and the same muscle endurance. Obviously there'll be slight differences, but the point is that either way you'll get the muscle stimulation you're looking for.

But you're right. I mean, there is also evidence that if you lift heavier you will see more, response. But I just think about injuries and I think about damaging the floor. And you know, a lot of these gyms on the first floor, the second floor. And I just think, you know, when this engineer designed this floor, were they thinking about people dropping weights on this specific spot?

You know, 10 times in a row causing, you know, fractures in the cement and the steel, you know, it just makes me wonder, like, did people think about that stuff? I think about that stuff.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah. Hopefully there was some design of the gym for impact would hope. It's funny cause I, just did a strength workout last night and I just realised I'm not sore today.

So that is a win. Cause I was in a powerlifting for maybe a year and then I injured myself because I was doing a progressive overload program and just, you know, kept the way it's going up and up and up. And then just little imperfections in my form because I never, I didn't do any like personal training or coaching or anything like that.

So it was just, you know, reading tips on the internet. yeah,

Ryan Purvis: The Internet is always right. So, I mean, it's, it's always right. It tells you everything you need to know.

Heather Bicknell: Always, you know, I can't, check my own form. So, just gotta assume it's right. So, yeah, eventually I injured myself. So, I had to take a step back from that, then got into cardio for a while.

So I've been running and then, trying to balance the two, which, you know, I know is the best in theory, but it's always tricky because then it feels like you are doing neither extremely well, when you're trying to fit both in. But it's about health, I guess, at the end of the day, right.

Ryan Purvis: Well, yeah.

I mean, I don't think... I know what you mean about the cardio thing. Like if I go to gym, I just feel wrong if I don't lift some weights and you know, I use Fitbot for my training programs. So that used to include the cardio, but I've taken that out. Now I do the cardio as a separate thing because what I was finding is when I did the cardio as part of the program and I set the program to be 60 minutes long, it would take 20 minutes of the 60 minute weightlifting out.

And use that for cardio. And I didn't want that. I wanted the 60 minutes of weightlifting. So now I'll do cardio separately and I'll do the weightlifting separately. And what I found doing that is like if cardio is a necessary thing, you really need to max out a lot to actually see benefit.

Like it's fine to do the slow walking and all that kind of stuff, like the sort of zone two stuff. You should do that, but you should also max out because that's how you improve your VO2 max. And that's how you, you know, get fitter and fitter. And it does make a difference if you do the cardio before or after the workout.

So I do the cardio before the workout. Cause usually it's not, that hectic for me. Like I'll do like a, sort of a ladder up to the top and then I'll come back down for 20 minutes just to get my 20 minutes in and then I'll do the workout. But if you're trying to build muscle and stuff, you should do your workout first and then do your cardio at the end.

So what I've been doing now is I do the 20 minute thing because that's the 20 minutes I'm just going to do. Then I'll do my workout and then I'll do a finisher exercise, which is like burpees or, okay, given my ankle's not sore. I do burpees or something like that just to get to that point where you're really sucking in air.

And you only have to do like five minutes of that because by the time you've done 20 minutes of cardio, 40 to 60 minutes of weight training, and then you do the finisher, you are finished. There's no, there's no doubt that you have worked out nothing. And then, you know, you go, sometimes I go and swim for, for 20 lengths or 30 lengths.

And my test is if I can go underwater, we've got a 20 minute pool at the gym. My test is if I can do that first push off underwater, the whole entire length that I haven't pushed hard enough at the gym. Because I know when I've guessed it, if I can't, I haven't got anything left in the lungs to go the whole length.

And it's kind of a very stupid measure, but I just like it as my measure because some days I can push off and I can do that entire length without problem. And some days I'm halfway and I'm literally swimming as fast as I can. Holding like, cause you're holding your breath, but I get to the other end.

And unfortunately, because I'm underwater, there's no data. I can't see what my Oura ring is saying. I can't see what my Apple watch is saying. Like there's nothing to, they can't measure because obviously the water is in between the contact points and the skin. But I would be fascinated to know, like, what's my O2 at that point?

What's my heart rate? What's whatever. And I had a swimming coach once upon a time. It PE teacher, but he coached swimming. And he said, there's that first instinct for your brain to tell you to breathe. And if you swallow and you ignore that first instinct, you can go further. But the problem is your brain won't tell you again to breathe.

And that's usually when people suffocate. I'm always conscious of that, but I'm always thinking like, could I push myself a little bit further? But it's a good, yeah, it's a good measure. I like it as a measure.

Heather Bicknell: You could get a heart rate monitor. You could wear one of those while you swim. I know. I think that

Ryan Purvis: I don't think there's a water.

Well, maybe there is now, maybe the technology exists. But when I was looking at this probably two years ago, there wasn't anything that could do the stuff that I was looking for, cause I wanted to get into long distance swimming. And triathlons and all that kind of stuff. I still might do that.

But at that point there wasn't really a heart rate monitor that was, because the problem is even with the, like the polar heart rate belt or the Suntu heart rate, there's

Heather Bicknell: Yeah that's what I have

Ryan Purvis: still a, there's still an air gap. Because just your body is obviously not a, flat surface.

It's got ridges and stuff. And you know, that's not even if you're, you know, female versus male, you'll have different shapes. So I don't know, maybe something, maybe it's time for something that's in the skin. Just, just inject it in there or something. I don't know.

Heather Bicknell: Well, since we're speaking of fitness and fitness apps and all the rest of it, you know, one of my longstanding complaints, I guess, about Apple.

Apple's fitness ecosystem and the rings, which I feel like they haven't evolved really at all, over the years is it's sort of inflexibility as a system, you know, it's a, daily tracker. So I guess to me that the ring system is sort of, you have to treat it as like a baseline and consider that either what do you take a rest day, either you've set your Rings so low that, you know, your rest day, you can still hit your rings with, you know, maybe a walk or something, without like a ton of intense exercise, or you have to accept that you're going to break a streak, right?

And that you can't, you know, a rest day means that the rings..., or you never rest if you are Ryan.

Ryan Purvis: But funny, you mentioned this I'll tell you my funny story of Sunday. So, I don't know what was wrong with me on the weekend, but I was absolutely, absolutely exhausted. And I'm back on the caffeine now.

So I'm having caffeine in the mornings. But so I thought maybe I said a bit of withdrawal, but I actually had coffee that morning. So it wasn't like on Saturday, but I was still exhausted. And even through dinner, I was having caffeine and I was still exhausted. Just couldn't keep my eyes open. So I might've had a virus or something.

It because it's kind of the same, fatigue you get with, COVID where you just, no matter how much you sleep, you're still tired. And, you know, my Oura ring had said my temperature was up, but I didn't feel anything like I was, I didn't feel bad or, I had a little bit of cough, but nothing, you know, whatever, no joint pain.

But as I said to my wife, I was taking anti inflammatories for my ankle. So maybe I didn't have any joint pain because I was already medicated anyway. So I was exhausted. And as I said, the ring picks it up, but so normally what I do on the weekend, we got a gym on the Saturday, but it was very flat and I couldn't get going and, and whatever.

So on the Sundays, I take the kids to Kung Fu and I take them for a walk. I walk around while they do their Kung Fu. Becuase they go to two separate classes. I take one for a walk. Well, the other was in the class and then I swapped them around and I walked them around. And normally I can do like, you know, three or 4, 000 steps in that period.

But I think I did about 2000, between the two, which is not very good. So anyway, by the end of the day, I looked at my watch and normally I've closed all the rings by 11 o'clock. In fact, it's very rare. I haven't closed my rings by, 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. And I was like, holy cow, I've only got like four minutes of exercise for today.

That's ridiculous. So, and I was feeling terrible. So it wasn't like I go do a workout. My ankle was killing me. So it wasn't like I go jump around and do something. So I thought, okay, what I'll do is I'll meditate because meditation normally counts as exercise. So I sat meditated for 25 minutes and I didn't think anything about it.

I was like, yeah, I've done my 25 minute meditation. I stepped on the couch, you know, I should be fine anyway. So, and all my other rings are closed. So it was just the exercise So the next morning I got up and I was, and, I didn't go to gym in the morning, but I walked the kids to school. I hobbled, hobbled, walked the kids to school and I came home and I'd already closed my rings.

I was like, Oh, sweet. Well done. You know, I'm on track for today. I've walked whatever it is. And by the end of the day, I'd walked my 12 and a half thousand steps. And I was like, okay, so this is not too bad. So then I just happened to look at my fitness tracker, for the day. And I was like, yesterday didn't close.

That's ridiculous. So when it looks at all those things, everything is logged there, but it didn't count some of the time for some reason, I couldn't figure it out. So I turned my phone back to Sunday manually. And I ran my, phone five minutes doing something just to get that bloody ring to close.

Because I was, adamant and had to close because as far as I was concerned, I did the exercise for Sunday and he needed to do it. And the only thing I can think is some weird algorithm or some weird overlap caused it not to synchronise because then after I fixed it and put it back to normal, the exercising went up to 40 minutes, not 20, 25 minutes.

So like, that's bizarre. So it's almost like I unblocked something, but I still had to go back in time to fix it because I've got like a three year, unbroken streak.

Heather Bicknell: Wow. That's impressive.

Ryan Purvis: It's put me off any other watches. Like, like I've saw a really nice Samsung watch.

In fact, I've been using Android all for not in the last couple of weeks. And I've been looking at watches for Samsung and I was looking at a really nice, Garmin watch.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah. And

Ryan Purvis: I was like, yeah, but I got to break my thing. Then I can't do the rings. If I do that. And it's like, that's how they hooked me in.

They've hooked me on this gamification of the rings. And I did drop my activity thing from 30 minutes to 20 minutes now. On my rings because I refuse to do not past them. But now there is a, I think I've told you this one before there was IBM did this with their salespeople. I don't know if they still do it, but they give them a really low sales target.

So like, let's say that, you know, it's a million dollars, whatever it is, because they want them to hit it. Because once you hit it, you're more motivated to carry on. And if you put a sales target, that's too far to get to. You'll never get to it. So you get demotivated. And I think it's the same thing. So I put all my stuff really low, but then I hit it every day.

And you know, when I look at it and I've hit it, I'm like, yeah, how many times can I go over it? So sometimes I try and aim for six, eight, 12 times what the exercise thing is

Heather Bicknell: Wow.

Ryan Purvis: Just because, but it's 12 times, 20 minutes. That's not hard. You know, that's walking to my son's school and back, which is, which is a 16 minute walk both ways.

and I do that twice a day, so that's already four. then I go to gym you know, there and back. I also walk to gym now because now I go to a gym that's 24 hours, which I can go anytime. So I go like three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. So that's another, so that's already six times.

Plus gym will be equating to six times on its own. So to do 12 times is really easy in my sort of current lifestyle.

Heather Bicknell: Does it still, I've never, I don't know if I've gone beyond like 3x, 4x. Does it still tell you?

Ryan Purvis: Yeah. Like you did

Heather Bicknell: 12x. I wonder what.

Ryan Purvis: Well, I haven't got to 12x yet because I've now already just dropped it down to 20 minutes.

But I was thinking about it because when I had COVID, I was still, worried about it. So I got up and I walked, et cetera. And like, thought I had is if you went back to caveman times or cave people times, you'd have no choice, but to keep fighting to keep moving if you were sick.

Cause if you were lying there sick in a cave and a saber tooth tiger came along, you know, you're either going to be lunch or you would be gone. So I think you've got it. I think when you're sick, you've got to keep moving, but it's what kind of moving. You're not going to go for a run. You're going to lift the boulders, but you're going to at least be moving.

And I think it's a, you know, no science behind this at all cause I'm definitely not a doctor, but I just think there's some, there's something about convincing your body that by moving, then it has to heal. Whereas if you hibernate and you lie around, like you think about when you're sick, like you're really, really sick and you lie in bed all day long, you don't necessarily feel better unless you've slept.

Like the sleep you have to get, cause you need the sleep to recover. But if you lay in bed all day, watching Netflix, I don't think you're going to recover because you've just basically lay there and you haven't rested, but if you sleep, yeah, fine. But if you get up and you move just a little bit of moving, like just walking around out in the sun, especially, I think that tricks your body into some sort of recovery cycle, I guess.

Heather Bicknell: Good thing to test, test your theories. well, I've been trying. I guess to these, and I think your Oura ring probably does that, but I don't have anything like this. I've been testing out two new apps. So one is called Superset set and one is called Gentler Streak. And they're kind of just a different way to look at your.

Cause I don't have anything telling me training readiness because app doesn't do that yet. I feel like everything I'm augmenting here is something that's like better Garmin feature for forever. But, you know, I'm stuck in the ecosystem, so I'm stubborn about it, but, you know, it's telling me my recovery, how well I slept, which is apparently terrible all the time.

I get really bad deep sleep. but you know, it's telling me I have 77 percent recovery today, despite my low sleep quality, I can still train.

Ryan Purvis: Have you looked at, at sleep plus plus? That's a pretty good one to use.

Heather Bicknell: Just to go deeper on your sleep.

Ryan Purvis: Yeah, what's the god name? I think it's Sleep++ yeah.

Sleep plus plus. So this is written by a guy, Mark Gorman, I think his name he built a few apps. He's kind of like, I'd say he's very, he and I are very similar. Like we like to solve problems about ourselves and, so he built this app to track all his sleep and he built a few other apps.

You know, to do like widgets for his watch. I think it's him. I think he built the watch widget Smith. Or at least he's him and his mates on the same podcast. Anyway. So he's built all these little apps that are like the utility apps. And it's kind of that improvement on Apple that Apple doesn't do.

He's improved it. And, you know, every so often he thinks he says something like he expects Apple to replace the stuff, but then they don't, so his stuff carries on. But he's got his own readiness score now. And it's quite good so when I didn't have the Oura ring, I was using, another app. I can't remember its name now.

And it used to track your movements while you slept. You just put it next to your bed while you're sleeping. But I didn't want the phone next to the bed. So I installed Sleep++ because that could run on the, Apple watch. And it's really good I suggest you try it because he's now put in all the HRV stuff.

I'm actually the first time I'm looking at it today. It's actually improved it a lot. It's just got the weirdest 80 color scheme in the world. Now the interesting thing is it's ready to score for me on Saturday and Sunday is not the same as my Oura rings ready to score. So that's interesting because I would, probably back the readiness score and the Oura ring more.

So my Oura ring said I was actually fine on Saturday and Sunday. I slept really well but my temperature was all over the place. His readiness score, according to his app, at least his, I'm like a 30 out of a hundred. So that is interesting. I'd have to run these two in parallel and see how they track.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah, no, it sounds like an interesting one. I wonder if that's the difference between, cause what I find interesting about all these kind of augmentation apps is that they're still using Apple's data, right. It's coming from the watch. It's coming through Apple health.

Versus the orange different hardware, right? So I guess that makes more sense that, or, yeah, I just wonder if it's the tracking between the sensors of the actual devices, because, what I've noticed, even with these two apps that I've been testing out, one will tell me to push and one will tell me to rest.

And these are using the same data sets. So I, yeah, I'm gonna keep playing with it to see which I prefer.

Ryan Purvis: So that, so that stuff, I don't believe. And it's not because they probably right or wrong. I just think you need to just, you need to make a decision yourself on whether you're going to push or not. And you'll know when you go and do something, if you're not up for it.=.

You know, there's some mornings that I get to the gym, you know, as I say, I go to sort of three, four o'clock in the morning, sometimes five and no amount of music or motivation will get me going. Until I get going. And then all of a sudden it's an hour later, I'm like, actually, no, I'm, feeling really good now.

And the ring would have said, feel like crap today, you shouldn't do this. But I think again, your body just, it just responds to look at some days you're not gonna be able to push hard no matter what you want to. But I think there's a certain psychological benefit to you pushing through your own stuff and it might still be a light workout by your normal means. But it's that, satisfaction of going, you know what? I was feeding crap this morning, but now I've knocked out a good workout. And I do a lot of mobility stuff now. and sometimes mobility takes most of my workout, like 40 minutes.

And just getting that done, that kind of sets me on this endorphin rush to go and do more. And I think that's what you got to track on is like, how do you physically feel and then see if the data. Kind of replicates that later on, if you get what I mean.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah, no, totally. I think, it's definitely not something to, you know, be driven, I guess, solely by the, tech for sure.

I think it's just that desire and I know you feel this way to just the quantified self trying to understand the different inputs and connect patterns. I think, a little bit and then just see from the data, like, you know, tweaking one thing or the other, does that make a difference on, you know, ultimately how I feel, doing things.

Ryan Purvis: Yeah, a hundred percent. Just one thing I wanted to touch on before we go, you send me that link to the, The humane AI open and I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Heather Bicknell: Oh, yeah. No, interesting device. It kind of reminded me of a bit like a smart speaker, smart assistant, as a wearable. Which I'm kind of like, I wonder, I mean, I guess, you know, the phone is, ultimately been the device for still those assistants.

But I thought, you know, interesting to put AI into device form and the I guess the scanning of the environment to kind of get that, assistive technology of, you know, describing to you what's around you. Like there's some interesting things about it. Probably a little early for like a mainstream adoption of that kind of a thing.

What was your impression?

Ryan Purvis: It was funny cause I actually read this in the newspaper, but the article was more about how bad the reviews were, then the actual tech, and it was kind of an inference that just because I accept people doesn't mean it's going to be a good product.

And I can't remember all the details, but I remember vaguely about something along the lines of, how much they raised and how much they spent on developing this thing and how poor a product it actually was, before it came out. And was a little bit harsh. I mean, some of the ideas I thought were quite good, like the whole displaying text on your hand or like on a surface, you could see it.

and I did see a few people walking around with it while we were traveling. So it's definitely, some people have bought it, but when I saw the price tag, I thought, why would you spend 700 on this? Like, I just couldn't see

Heather Bicknell: Plus the 25 dollar a month subscription.

Ryan Purvis: Yeah. I just couldn't see it. And the sort of comparison for me is that the Oura ring, I just though because I bought my wife one.

It's 350 pounds to call it 400. And the yearly subscription costs me 60 pounds. All the data and that was kind of what I was sort of tossing in my head. So, you know, in that context, I'm getting a whole lot of value out of the Oura ring for not the same price. And I couldn't see the value proposition of this thing.

I just really couldn't. So, I'd be interested to see if they carry on. But I got a funny feeling they won't, I think they'll be dead unless they pivot to something else.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah, they might be. I don't know. Yeah. It seems, it's very, it seems like a very prototype ish kind of Google glass, you know, Maybe ahead of its time, but

Ryan Purvis: talking about Google glass, so my RayBans that I use amazing, absolutely amazing.

We did a holiday, went to the Maldives and Sri Lanka. I use those things all day long. Taking photos of everything. To the extent that every time I wear other glasses and I put my finger in and take a picture, I'm like, ah, it's not my glasses. Damn it. That is such a useful gadget because so many times like I take the kids out, we go walk on the beach.

I wouldn't take my phone with me. I would just have sunglasses with me and I'd just take a picture or just take a video. I tried Instagram live for the one video as well. You know, in the middle of a tropical island, I was taking little video snippets and I Instagram. What an amazing toy.

I'm getting my wife a pair now as well because it just is useful and you can listen to music. You can, take phone calls, and it works, really well, even in the wind. So very cool. The only thing is the only thing that overheated in the sun, but it does warn you. It says that this device reaching critical temperature, to continue using this functionality, please cool it down or some nonsense, but it doesn't take long to cool down.

So anyway, got to run, but that was good to catch up.

Heather Bicknell: Yeah, good chatting. Talk to you next time.

Ryan Purvis: Thank you for listening to today's episode. Heather Bicknell is our producer editor. Thank you, Heather, for your hard work on this episode, please subscribe to the series and rate us on iTunes at the Google Play Store.

Follow us on Twitter at the Dww Podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website, www.digitalworkspace.works. Please also visit our website, www.digitalworkspace.works. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues.