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This?article originally appeared on Time.com.
Smartphones could be a valuable tool to get fit. They can?count steps, play fitness videos, help us track our progress and connect us with workout buddies and coaches, both real-life and virtual. However when it comes to phone use during a workout, recent studies suggest reasons why to depart your device alone: Texting or talking on the telephone while exercising can worsen balance and fitness intensity, based on recent research.
One new?study, published in the journal?Performance Enhancement & Health, discovered that texting during exercise impacted balance and stability by 45%, when compared with not utilizing a phone. Talking on the phone made balance 19% worse-less than texting, but still significant enough to bring about injuries, the authors.
“It can lead to you will definitely falling off the treadmill, or if you’re walking outside, falling off a curb and rolling your ankle or tearing your ACL,” says Michael Rebold, lead author on both studies and assistant professor of integrative exercise science at Hiram College.
Another study, published in?Computers in Human Behavior?this past year, found that individuals who texted throughout a 20-minute workout spent almost 10 of those minutes in a low-intensity zone, and just?seven minutes in intense. Those who worked out with no phone spent only 3 minutes in low intensity, and almost 13 minutes in high intensity.
This might seem like common sense; it isn’t news that?cell phones distract us. But Rebold says he would be a bit surprised by the extent to which cell-phone use messed with people’s performance. “The studies were done on university students, and you’d believe that, being born within this digital age, they’d be able to multi-task somewhat much better than that,” he says. “If we’re seeing these severe impacts even on younger generations, I’m able to only imagine how seniors might be affected.”
Both studies checked out very specific measures: One tested 45 people on balance platform, while the other tested 32 people on the treadmill. The researchers are only able to speculate as to how their findings may mean other pursuits, however they say their studies call focus on the potential drawbacks of mixing exercise time with mobile screen time.
The great news is the fact that hearing music on the cell phone didn’t have notable effect on balance, so exercisers should you can utilize their tunes, says Rebold. In fact, his earlier research has revealed that?hearing music?during exercise can boost workout intensity and enjoyability.
Just attempt to have your playlist planned out ahead of time, so you can avoid too much screen interaction while you are actually moving. “Anything that distracts you from the job available, be it texting or switching songs or entering info into an application, is going to take away from your performance and could potentially put you in danger of injury,” says Rebold.
In other words, save your valuable calls, texts, and then any unnecessary fiddling until after your sweat session. And if the buzzing in your pocket is too tempting to disregard mid-workout, try leaving your phone behind.
