Cell Phone During Workout Curbs Your Concentration, Fitness

Highlights

• The use of cell phone may distract from or interfere with physical activity behavior and planned exercise.
• Using a cell phone for talking or texting during treadmill exercise significantly reduces the average speed of that exercise.
• Conversely, using a cell phone to listen to a self-selected playlist of music significantly increased exercise intensity.

Talking or texting on a cell phone during a workout will lower the intensity of the workout and also affect balance. The first known study to examine the effects of cell phone use on postural stability, titled, The impact of different cell phone functions and their effects on postural stability, shows that cell phone texting and talking can have a negative effect on one’s balance during everyday activities.

The cell phone provides constant access to entertainment activities traditionally associated with increased sedentary behavior like surfing the internet, watching videos, playing video games and sedentary behavior is negatively associated with physical activity and fitness. But, the cell phone is a mobile device and therefore can be used while standing, walking, and during some forms of moderate-intensity physical activity.

Michael Rebold, Ph.D., assistant professor of integrative exercise science at Hiram College said, “If you’re talking or texting on your cell phone while you’re putting in your daily steps, your attention is divided by the two tasks and that can disrupt your postural stability, and therefore, possibly predispose individuals to other greater inherent risks such as falls and musculoskeletal injuries.

Texting or talking on the phone during any part of your workout, is a sign that the workout is not intense enough. Exercise requires a mind/body connection and the use of cell phone seriously disrupts the communication signals between the mind and the body.

The study, which examined 45 college students, showed that cell phone texting during exercise significantly impacts postural stability by 45 percent, when compared to no cell phone use.

Constantly checking your phone doesn’t allow you to get into your workout enough to relieve stress, instead, it just adds to it! Workout is the time to build strength, stamina, destress, and improve health.

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Talking on a cell phone while exercising reduces postural stability by 19 percent. Listening to music on a cell phone, on the other hand, has no notable impact on postural stability during exercise, the study showed.

Reference

1. Michael J. Rebold et al., The impact of different cell phone functions and their effects on postural stability, Performance Enhancement & Health (2016).
2. Michael J. Rebold et al. The Impact of Cell Phone Use on the Intensity and Liking of a Bout of Treadmill Exercise , Plos One (2016), 10.1371/journal.pone.0125029.

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Source-Eurekalert