All About Sport Watches
sports watch
There are all kinds of sport watches. Some sports watches are stylish, some are casual, some are sporty, and some are even down right boring and ugly.
There are even ultimate sport watches for hard core outdoor enthusiasts. These sport watches are really wrist mounted computers. They feature an altimeter, a compass, a GPS navigation device, and they are also a barometer watch.
Depending upon their intended use, a sports watch can cost anywhere from a few dollars up to many hundreds and some can even cost even thousands.
Sport watches a little history …
Sport watches and all wrist watches, in general, evolved with the advent of the technology of miniaturization which didn’t occur until the 20th century.
Before that we were kept on time by pocket watches, and usually only men carried pocket watches, though there where some women’s watches that were worn as a pendant or attached to a necklace or gold chain.
Additionally, pocket watches unlike our mass-made sport watches of today, were only available to the wealthy and were passed down from generation to generation. Usually, the oldest male in the family inherited the coveted and prized gold pocket watch. Many times the pocket watch was the only item of value in the entire family.
Although we humans have been fixated on time forever, it wasn’t until the 1400 hundreds that clocks were invented using a mechanical spring mechanism. The spring mechanism was not as accurate nor as durable as our modern clocks and watches made using quartz crystals.
However, while they were typically big and cumbersome, they were certainly a big improvement over the sundial, which had been used for centuries.
Where would our lives be today without the ability to keep track of time? It seems that our lives, in every area, are literally run with time constraints and considerations, but it was not until the inception of sport watches and their convenient and affordable ability for keeping easily viewable track of time down to the precise second, could the general population have access to the convenience of a sport watch as a personal athletic training assistant.
You could accurately say that sport watches have revolutionized the way athletes train for almost any sports activity or organized team sport. For example, football players train everyday to become faster runners. Their quickness and speed on the field is extremely important to their eventual individual success and that of their team.
Watch the NFL quarterbacks, they practice to be able to release the ball quickly. The ones that can pinpoint a likely receiver quickly and throw the football with speed and accuracy are the truly successful quarterbacks.
Sometimes, you will even hear the announcers quote the time it takes for a particular quarterback to release the ball. These release times are usually calculated by someone’s use of a sports watch.
Football is not the only sport that makes use of sports watches. Cycling, track and field, basketball, swimming, hockey, rugby, speed skating, and really, I can’t think of one sport that doesn’t use sport watches on a daily basis to train to increase speed and thereby enhance athletic performance. There is even a GPS Watch to help you get from one location to another.
Lets focus for a minute on the use of sport watches in swimming. Yes, if you are a swimmer you can absolutely use a sports watch to improve your performance. You can time individual laps, or relay laps with fellow swimmers, but a competitive swimmer will use a sports watch in other ways too.
Warming up is important in all sports and so it is in swimming. Typically, before every serious workout, swimmers will spend a certain number of minutes warming up and stretching. Cooling down is very important as well, and again this is another use for your sports watch.
Benefits of Sport Watches
One of the major benefits of the sport watch as far as athletic training goes is that the athlete can train on his own without the necessity for having some one with a stop watch to oversee his or her training.
The invention, the convenience, and the economical availability of sports watches today has enabled many, many more athletes to excel in their chosen sport.
Previous to sport watches, only the best of the best were able to train and access consistent one-on-one training in order to increase general speed and performance in general.
What are some of the other ways a sports watch can help improve your performance? Of course, you can figure it out if you are a cross country runner, marathon runner, speed skater, or let’s face it a runner of any kind you are trying to beat your previous actual running times, but sport watches are also used to cut an athletes time in countless other ways as well.
For example, in a triathlon, how long does it take to change from the cycling segment to the swimming element? The triathlon tests an athletes endurance over the multiple sports of swimming, cycling, and running in succession. The triathlete trains constantly to reduce his overall event time by reducing the time it takes to change from one element of the competition to the next. He literally could not do without his sport watch.
All sport watches, if used properly, should help you improve your performance. A perfect sports watch is one that assists you while you’re in a workout, but at the same time it looks great and keeps accurate time when you are in your casual clothing.
For that reason, most sport watches are purchased with a dual purpose in mind. Athletes want an accurate personal training aide and they want a sports watch that looks good too.
The right sport watch is every bit as important to the athlete as the right sport headphones for running are. Runners and athletes in general need equipment that is both comfortable and does the job it was intended to do.
Features Of Sport Watches
While we usually think of sport watches being used for improving athletic performance, the most widely used function of a sports watch is to insure your heart rate is at the target range at the proper time of your workout.
The beginning of your workout requires a specific heart rate, while the meat of workout demands a different heart rate. Then, of course, the cool down is just as important as you must keep your target heart rate at a much slower rate.
In today’s market, you can find lots of sport watches to choose from. As we’ve already said, they can range from the ultra expensive, high end designs from Rolex and Omega to the more athletic and sports popular brands like Seiko and Timex.
Different sport watches come with different features. Readily available today, there are sports watches that come with stopwatches, dual time zones and some will even advise you as to where you are on the planet using a built in GPS function.
The wildly popular global treasure hunting game of geocaching has inspired engineers at Garmin to produce a strap on wrist GPS that also doubles as a sports watch. How convenient this new wrist strap on GPS is to the frequent geocacher.
He doesn’t have to worry about dropping the device as he makes his way through rough terrain or crossing rivers, nor does he have to concern himself with digging the GPS unit out of his backpack, and all the while he is able to keep track of the time via his GPS, which also doubles as a sports watch.
For that matter, even our modern fashion watches have GPS functionality which provides the wearer with automatic time updates with the help of an efficient satellite network.
Highly adventurous people can also find a variety of specialized sport watches for their use. As examples, the Swiss Army dive watches and the Citizen Dive watches are used by divers the world over.
These are just a few of the types and uses of our modern day sport watches that are making it so much more convenient to train, work, and find our way around this wonderful planet of ours.
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