You see joggers and co-workers sporting them on their arm and you see them everywhere in sports stores... and now you think to yourself, it just may be time to get one for myself so I can track my progress and keep the momentum up so that I can become the best me that I can be! But how to choose the right watch for you from all the ones available out there?
What’s important and the first thing for you to consider is your athletic profile and select a type of watch to match it. Right now, you’ll find 2 different types of sports watches on the market : activity tracker and fitness watches. Fitbit, Garmin and Polar all give you many different options to choose from within these two different types of watches.
If you want to get in shape or are trying to be active daily by walking to work, climbing stairs or playing recreational sports, an activity tracker by Fitbit or Polar is the best option for you!
Very easy to use, the activity tracker is discreet and is made to be worn all the time, just like a regular watch. These trackers give you the date and time, a tally of the number of steps that you take every day and the number of calories that you burn. They also track your heart rate, your sleep (on some styles) and a significant number of them now feature a wrist heart rate sensor. It’s a wonderful partner who will be there for you in your quest to become more active, get back into shape and develop better lifestyle habits.
One interesting feature is that when you are idle for too long, your watch will start vibrating to remind you to get moving! It’s a great way to be reminded that it’s time to fill up your water bottle or to go see a co-worker who sits at the other side of the floor.
A fitness watch is the better choice for you if you have specific fitness objectives in mind and you are wanting to do targeted training. Women often choose a sports bra with a built-in tracker so they can avoid irritation or injury. More and more styles also feature a wrist heart rate monitor so that you no longer need to wear a chest strap. This is a popular choice because it is much more user friendly. There are two different types of fitness watches that would be great options depending on the sport you choose to get into.
These watches are usually lighter and feature a built in or connected GPS depending on the style and price of the watch. It’s also possible to store music on some of these watches so that you simply only have to have the watch with you when working out. All these watches can monitor your heart rate from your wrist and the body strap is oftentimes sold separately. Triathlon watches will have a body strap to monitor the heart rate when under water.
The GPS fitness watch is the ultimate sports watch for the serious athlete who plays a range of sports. Medium to higher-priced fitness watches with a built-in GPS feature a menu for different sports (running, cycling, hiking) so you can monitor your performance for each sport in order to catalogue your training. This type of high-tech watch has a built-in heart rate monitor and activity tracker. These features allow you to quantify totals for all your training sessions and, among other things, to calculate your average distance, your top speed and total distance tracking. By syncing the data to the software provided or to popular online services, you can get detailed graphs of your activity.
If doing performance training or training for a sports event like a marathon, a triathlon, a cycling event or a snowshoe race, a fitness watch can very easily become your best friend.
This type of watch is more shock resistant and some of them include topo mapping features, can calculate altitude data and also include a barometer.
Once you have determined which type of watch best matches your athletic profile, there’s really no good or bad choice! For the mostpart, fitness watches and activity trackers are compatible with the most common platforms: iOS, Android, macOS and Windows. They also have similar functionalities. You can make your selection based on the appearance of the watch, pricing or your personnal preferences as to how you plan to use it.
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