Feeling is an excellent metric for recovery. If your feelings after exercise start to trend downwards, something is not right. You may be pushing too hard, not recovering well enough or might be getting sick. Consider taking a break or doing something different for a change.
But in addition to helping you track your recovery, feeling data reveals more. Here are six interesting findings about Suunto community, based on the data from Suunto app database.
1. Activity type does matter: The best feelings on average are recorded after dancing, downhill skiing, horseback riding, badminton and snowboarding.
2. Two activity types stand out as exceptionally poor: The feelings after running and trail running are clearly below other activity types.
3. Weather does not have a big impact on the feeling – unless it is a torrential downpour: The activity type, for example choosing cycling over running, has a much bigger impact.
4. Gender makes a difference: Women have more (or at least as much) fun as men in all other activity types except soccer.
5. Age does not matter: The age of the athlete did not have a correlation with the mood after exercise.
6. Country heavily impacts the mood: People exercising in Austria, China, Croatia, Poland and Serbia are generally feeling exceptionally well after a training session, while France, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden are in the opposite end of the list with much poorer feelings after working out.
In addition to fun facts, the data also reveals interesting trends: As an example, the feeling in cycling, swimming and walking rose to a new, higher level in March 2020 and has stayed on that higher level. Changes in other activity types since Covid pandemic started have not been as clear.
Happy adventures – and keep on tracking your activity feelings for your own wellbeing and our shared interest!
Lead image: Harald Wisthaler
Bikewash image: Anthony Bonello