Tabata Arm Workout + TomTom® Spark 3 Review

Hey guys! How are you this lovely Tuesday? I hope you’re in the mood to sweat because I have a fast-paced upper body workout to share with you today! It’s a tabata workout but this one incorporates weights, so it’s a sweaty one that will leave your biceps, triceps, chest and shoulders burning. I did this workout last week during Chase’s naptime and even though it’s technically a 32-minute workout, it took me roughly 37 minutes to complete if you factor in short breaks and a little bit of lag time due to re-racking and changing weights.

Upper Body Tabata Workout

To complete this workout, you’ll cycle through eight rounds of 20 seconds on followed by 10 seconds off of each exercise listed in the graphic below. Once your eight rounds are up (this will take a total of four minutes), you’ll move onto the next exercise in the list!

At first glance this workout may seem easy because you’re only working in 20 second bursts but it’s deceptively hard because you’re essentially spending four minutes working one muscle group before moving onto the next one. It’s also easy to feel a little flustered when you’re trying to set weights down, rest and pick them back up in only 10 seconds. It’s important to keep things safe and move at a pace that’s comfortable and maintainable for you while still challenging yourself. If you have to skip a round, do it and don’t worry about it. Simply jump back into the workout on the next round!

Here’s a rundown of my heart date during the workout as well as my total calories burned.

You can see it peaks right around the time I did overhead presses and pushups! Phew! (Though I was more than happy with a quick workout, you can pair this one with my 25-minute treadmill HIIT workout if you’re looking for an added cardio challenge.)

I was able to easily check out my post-workout data (the diagram shown above!) thanks to the MySports app I downloaded to sync with my new TomTom^® Spark 3 Cardio + Music watch that I received last month to try and review on the blog. I’ve been wearing it during my workouts and walks with Chase and Sadie and wanted to share a little bit about the watch with you guys today since I know there are a billion fitness watches on the market and it can be hard to figure out which one might be best for you.

TomTom^® Spark 3 Cardio + Music GPS Watch

• Set Up

First, let’s talk set up. Setting up the watch was pretty darn easy and I was able to bypass most of the tutorials since set up was pretty intuitive and user-friendly. (Call me impatient but I usually try to figure out set up for electronics myself and only consult manuals or tutorials if necessary.) I plugged the watch into my computer, downloaded the app on my phone to sync everything up and used it for a few days before plugging it into my computer again to import music. A pop-up box made this process easy as well and took me through the entire process.

• Tracking + GPS

The reason I wear a fitness watch to begin with is all about the tracking. I think it’s interesting to be able to monitor my heart rate during a workout and love checking out my stats at the end of a workout to see my peak heart rate, calories burned, etc. (A huge plus for this watch is also the ability to monitor your heart rate without the use of a heart rate monitor strap.) There are five different heart rate training zones on this watch.

The TomTom® Spark 3 works well for this basic-level tracking and offers various sports modes you can select depending on the exercise you plan to perform, including running, indoor/outdoor cycling, swimming (it’s waterproof up to 130 feet), treadmill, and gym workouts. The watch also tracks your steps and serves as a pedometer which is great if you make daily step goals. I don’t usually focus too much on this anymore, but after Chase was born and before I was ready to kick things up a notch at the gym, walking and hitting step goals (10,000 steps per day) was one of the main things I focused on for fitness. I also think tracking my steps in the winter is more motivating since I tend to be more sedentary in the colder months and checking my steps every so often helps me feel a little more motivated to take Sadie on a longer walk or increase my activity a bit.

As far as the accuracy of the tracking, I’ll be honest when I say that the first workout I tracked seemed way off but every subsequent workout I did after the funky first one seemed dead on. I can’t explain the first workout issue other than to write it off as a fluke! All of the other workouts I tracked seemed much more accurate, including the above upper body tabata workout.

The route exploration feature of the watch seems extremely accurate and includes pace, distance, time and speed data. Also, as someone who loves hiking, I think it’s incredibly cool that this watch allows you to upload trails to the watch by importing a GPS-exchange format file onto the watch. You can also transform a previous outdoor activity into a trail or running route on the watch so you can easily follow it again in the future. I love this feature for travel running and hiking in areas that may be a little unfamiliar.

• Extra Features

Though I think some of the neat GPS capabilities could really fall under the “extra features” category related to this watch, I think the ability to upload music to the watch is the most unique thing about it! The main reason I was excited to try the TomTom^® Spark 3 watch was definitely the music capabilities!  The Spark 3 allows you to upload 500+ songs directly onto the watch and listen to them using the Bluetooth headphones that come with the watch.

This is wonderful if you don’t want to have to run or walk with a phone to listen to music and reminds me of my college days when I used to run with a tiny MP3 player loaded with music. I do wish there was a speaker option so you could play the music out loud from the watch (it can hook up to a Bluetooth speaker but I’d love music to blast from the watch itself since I typically play my music out loud without headphones when I walk outside with Chase for safety purposes).

The music aspect of the watch was pretty darn seamless once I got it set up, and though you cannot stream music from the watch, it is compatible with iTunes. I was able to upload a ton of my favorite workout music directly onto the watch. It was great to feel like I could just grab my watch and headphones and head out for a workout without the need to bring along a bulky phone. This was especially handy for a workout I did at the gym during my time in Jacksonville when I was able to work out freely without worrying about the cord from headphones whipping around during some of the more dynamic exercises.

Another special feature is the way the watch syncs with the MySports app. Prior to using the TomTom^® watch, I used another fitness watch that worked with an app and while I loved the watch, it was pretty fickle when it came to syncing with its designated app. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the TomTom^® Spark 3 synced almost instantly after my workouts!

• Battery Life

The battery life lasts quite a while — up to 10 hours! I did notice that the battery drains faster when I used the GPS and music capabilities but it never ran out on me during the day. I typically charge it at night after wearing it during the day anyway and haven’t had any battery issues during my workouts or day-to-day activity tracking.

Question of the Day

• Do you use a fitness tracker watch or heart rate monitor during your workouts? What features are most important to you in a quality fitness watch?

For me, a quality fitness watch MUST be user-friendly, accurate and have great battery life.

***

If you’d like to follow TomTom on social media, you may find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of TomTom. The opinions and text are all mine. Thank you so much for your continued support. I truly appreciate it!