What is a GPS Watch, What Does it Do, and How Can it Help Me With My Fitness Program?

GPS watches advance a arrangement of all-around accession satellites to absolutely clue how far and how fast you are running, biking, or swimming. Anytime. Anywhere in the world. It will admeasurement your real-time speed, boilerplate acceleration and best speed. It calculates your pace, boilerplate clip and best pace, advance your conditioning distance, and aswell functions as a connected odometer. Whether you're affairs one for yourself or purchasing a allowance for anyone else, we're actuality to advice you accept what you're buying. We'll adviser you to bout the appropriate technology for your advised use or to aerate your training or exercise experience.
What does a GPS watch do and how can it advice me with my exercise program?
The aboriginal affair that comes to people's apperception is that a GPS watch will acquaint them the administration they're branch (i.e. North by Northeast) or artery abode agnate to what a car's aeronautics arrangement does. This is not true. Although GPS (Global Positional System) watches use the aforementioned principles, it is not about as sophisticated. Like your car's aeronautics system, it communications with the satellites in apogee about the apple to actuate your exact coordinates anniversary additional while you move. It afresh sends this advice to the watch to account your acceleration and ambit catholic amid anniversary set of coordinates.
So why does this amount to me if I'm a runner, cyclist, rower, skier or walker?
Because now you can get the a lot of analytical advice about your conditioning that you could never get ahead unless you acclimatized at a clue or some added pre-measured course. Namely, how far did I go and how fast did I get there? A GPS watch will accommodate you with all this information. Here's some archetypal abstracts calm from a runner's workout:
The Boilerplate Acceleration during the run was 7.5 afar per hour.
The Best Acceleration accomplished was 9.0 afar per hour.
The Boilerplate Clip during the run was 8 minute miles.
The Best Clip accomplished was 6.5 minute miles.
The Absolute Ambit was 3.5 miles.
The Absolute Time was 28 minutes.
This is abundant advice to apperceive so you can ambition improvements in your exercise affairs and adviser how you're assuming against affair those goals. And you can go anywhere. You're not accountable by a specific ambit or abstinent course. Just run, airing or aeon anywhere you wish and the GPS watch will accomplish the calculations no amount area you go. This technology works anywhere in the apple because the GPS arrangement is advised to accept advice from up to 12 satellites at any one time that are amid on the aforementioned ancillary of the apple as you. If you're austere about accepting fit or convalescent aloft your accepted exercise regime, a GPS Watch is a abundant training apparatus to own.
So now that you accept how a GPS Watch works and what it can do, accept the archetypal is appropriate for you. Actuality are the capital options to attending for:
Heart Amount Monitoring - Some GPS watches arise with Affection Amount Monitors so you can barometer your affection amount in accession to your time, acceleration and distance. The Timex All-around Trainer and the Garmin Forerunner 405 both action this option. In adjustment to ability your exercise goals, you charge to alternation at the appropriate acuteness level. Affection amount is the alone authentic altitude of your acuteness or action level. That's why application a Affection amount adviser is such a admired allotment of your training.
Computer Interface - So now you accept all this abundant advice in your watch - what do you do with it? Download it, assay it, and trend it by uploading it into your computer! The Timex Abstracts Recorder works in affiliation with all Timex GPS Watches and comes with cable and software. This account is purchased separately. The Garmin 405 provides computer download capabilities and software as able-bodied and are included with the watch. Having this advice accessible on the computer to use with the manufacturer's tailored software makes it all the added valuable.
GPS Transmitter - Garmin's GPS accessory is chip appropriate into the watch which makes the watch a little bulkier and beneath ill-fitted for circadian use. It does accept added appearance about such as Longitude and Latitude coordinates. Timex's GPS accessory is a abstracted basic that is beat on your arm or abrupt to your waist. Therefore the watch is abundant lighter which allows it to be acclimated as an accustomed watch. Timex has now arise its 3rd bearing GPS accessory which weighs alone 2.7 ounces. The antecedent versions were hardly added and appropriate added batteries. Although anybody wants the smaller, lighter GPS unit, there is a trade-off. The abate the unit, the beneath batteries it takes to accomplish and you'll charge to alter them added frequently.
Target Acceleration and Clip Alarms - This affection allows you to individualize your performance. An anxiety will acquaint you if you ability preset high and lower banned for either acceleration or pace. Timex offers this with their 100 Lap models.
Target Ambit Alerts - You can set the watch to active you if you accept catholic a specific ambit or multiples of that distance. For example, if this ambience is set to "1 mile" the watch will complete an active if you accept catholic one mile and afresh again at two, three and four miles, etc.
Speed Smoothing - This affection makes clip and acceleration ethics easier to apprehend while application the watch by "smoothing" out any baby variations in speed. You ability wish to accredit this affection if you are examination clip advice and the displayed numbers arise too "jumpy." Smoothing has no aftereffect on the accurateness of the abstracts displayed, nor any aftereffect on the ambit accumulated.
Lap Memory Recall - This allows you to almanac abstracted abstracts for anniversary lap or ambit interval. Suppose you run a 5 mile chase and you wish alone statistics for anniversary mile as able-bodied as for the all-embracing race. You would abase the LAP button at anniversary mile mark to displace the Lap abstracts functions so at the end you can analyze the abstracts of anniversary lap. Was your 1st and 2nd laps (miles) good, but you achromatic on the endure three? Perhaps you charge to plan on your endurance. Are your laps bigger at the end than in the beginning? Afresh you ability charge a bigger countdown routine.
Timex offers both 50 lap and 100 lap models while Garmin offers 5000 laps for all its models. If you wish to accumulate a brace of weeks of conditioning abstracts on the watch, accomplish abiding it will abutment abundant laps for your purposes.
Auto Splits - This affection will accredit the Chronograph to automatically yield splits based on time or ambit traveled.
Odometer - The watch keeps clue of absolute ambit accustomed by the watch.