FITNESS TRACKER S
Want to get healthier in 2019? Then a fitness tracker is a budget-friendly way to keep an eye on your activity levels and more. Helen Webster tests six...
Serious about hitting your 2019 health and fitness goals? Then starting to track the different elements of your training and the improvements that makes to your body is a great place to start. Not only will this inform how much you should be doing, but setting goals and then smashing them is a great motivator as we move into the next triathlon season.
With some of the best multisport watches out there reaching price tags of several hundred pounds, though (the latest Garmin Forerunner 735XT Multisport comes in at £299.99, while the new Fenix series starts at an eyewatering £599.99), it can leave you wondering if your career as a triathlete means spending some serious cash before you’ve even done your first race.
Fear not though, as the latest generation of fitness trackers have come on a lot in recent years and with the benefit of trickle-down technology from the more advanced watches, you might be surprised by how much is packed into some of these simple-looking bands.
Prices in our grouptest here range from around £30£150 and it’s indicative of the market for fitness trackers that there’s a wide variance in the pricing and sophistication of these devices, so make sure you have an idea of which features you want before you buy. At the top end you get GPS, heart-rate and V02 max tracking, sleep and stress tracking and activity modes that can track your training including running, cycling and swimming. The more basic models will probably have sports tracking, but maybe no HRM or GPS.
Each brand will also have an app that you download to your phone and which should link to the watch to give you more detailed information on your training and progress as your health improves.