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A very limited study using the Apple Watch monitored a group of Super Bowl LVII fans to see what roaring success and/or crushing defeat did to their heart rates.
You can't in all honesty call watching Super Bowl a workout, and nobody's activity ring closed while they were in front of the TV. But a study using the health features of Apple Watches has shown the game's highs and lows are dramatically reflected in fans' heart rates.
Or they are for most people. One person in The Philadelphia Inquirer's just-for-fun sampling of 18 fans, turned out to be not that fussed about sport. The others were all definitely fully engaged, although you can also tell from the heart rate patterns who was a Philadelphia Eagles fan, and who backed the Kansas City Chiefs.
In case you're like the one person in the sample who wasn't paying attention, the Chiefs won. If you're like those of us who tuned in only for the halftime show by Apple Music with Rihanna, one passionate Eagles fan reportedly got even more excited by the music than the show.
This fan's heart rate "stayed high above the normal range of 60 to 100 beats per minute," says the newspaper, "and was very volatile, rising and falling with every play." Across the game, her heart rate dropped to around 70 bpm at one point, but was generally over 100 — and peaked at 130 bpm while she danced to Rihanna.
There is some disappointing news for people who don't care about sport and took the halftime show as a chance to visit the restroom or grab a cold one from the kitchen. If all you enjoy about the Super Bowl is the ad breaks, The Philadelphia Inquirer has no data for you at all.
Not even for when the "Breaking Bad" cast was reduced to shilling for snack food.
