The Smart-phone as a Physical Fitness Monitor - Validity, Sensitivity and Motivation InterWalk

Low physical fitness may cause several life style related diseases e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. It is important to develop reliable methods for measurement which can be used to follow the development of the physical shape both on an individual level and on at population level.

Associated with the development of new training method known as Interval Walking we developed an application for smartphones. The use of the application InterWalk was meant to increase physical activity in patients with type 2 diabetes. The application should both be able to, 1) be a personal trainer when doing interval walking, and 2) measure the individual physical fitness performed as a walking test. The latter function was developed to make the training more personal and individal adapted, so that the training was neither too hard or too easy.

It is necessary to test the walking test against a golden standard for measuring physical fitness and that the test in the application is able to measure and register changes in physical fitness.

Our hypothesis is that the individual test, in the InterWalk Application is reliable and able to register changes in physical fitness in patients with type 2 diabetes. The purpose of this project is investigate the reliability of a smartphone-based test of physical fitness, and to investigate whether the test is able to register changes in physical fitness during the project time (3 month). A secondary aim is to investigate whether individual support during the training period, affect the individual effort and time of interval walking per week.