If you are serious about your training then at some point your logical brain will be exposed to the concept of taking measurements over time from which you can draw conclusions about increases in your capabilities, personal bests, and split test or implement changes to speed, duration, intensity, pyschological inputs (personal and environmental) and nutritional inputs and assess the impacts positive and negative of these inputs.
Having reliable data from which to determine the results over time of your efforts.
At the end of the day each persons capability to scheive results begins with their own personal routines and inputs. So understanding where we are on the continuum is more stable and factual when we know ourselves what is happening during our training and pre/post training preparation and the regime we are following.
It is the area of data that the TomTom Multi Sport Cardio GPS Watch fits in
We have used the watch here at InTouch Rugby and we can tell you the following.
1) the watch itself weighs in at 63 grams its battery life Up to 8 hours (GPS+HR), up to 10 hours (GPS), Display size is 22x25mm, Display resolution is 144×168, Thickness is 13.8 mm, Weightis 63 grams, Strap length – 233 mm Location, Location – GPS + GLONASS, Location boost – QuickGPSFix – Sensors, Sensors (internal) – Motion sensor, compass, optical heart rate monitor, Sensor (wireless) – Bluetooth® Smart, Alerts – Beep & Vibrate – Water Resistance, Waterproofing – 165 feet (5 ATM) Measurements, Pace/Speed – Yes, Distance/Calories – Yes, Heart Rate – Yes (Built-in Heart Rate Monitor*), Cadence – Yes (Cadence sensor – optional accessory) – Activities, Indoor Running – Yes, Outdoor Running – Yes, Cycling – Yes, Dedicated Bike Mount – Yes, Swimming Yes Training, Race – Past activities+favourites, Goals – Time, distance or calories, Zone – Pace or Heart Rate, Laps – Pace or Heart Rate, Intervals – Yes, Supported languages – English / Spanish / German / French / Italian
2) The Watch come with online access and updates to track and store the information gathered while training, and we had set up in half an hour approximately.
3) Easy of use while training? We are happy that the watch itself was easy to use and after our first or second time using it we had become able to use the watch without worry.
4) Using the watch to and the data gathered to achieve goals. Your training goals are either personal such as i wish to look more athletic, i wish to lose weight, i wish to work at a faster rate, or you may have a competitive goal that you are working on where your performance measured against other competitors performances may determine your finish in a race of individuals. For example you may be a runner, but any sport that you may be involved in will have whats called a performance zone where your training will best contribute to your goal achievement. The Tom Tom provices you with specific data on whaich zone you have spent time in while training, so it will tell you the length of time you spent in fat burn, or speed training, or sprint, or easy, it will tell you the distance you covered if you were running on the treadmill, cycling or swimming, it will tell you the heart rate that corresponds to these activities and it will also allow you to interval training and actually will show you on the watch face a graphical info guide to your distance covered.
5) each time you train you must connect the watch to you pc or it can be used with an iphone app to download the data gathered on the watch to your Tomtom MySports software which you will have downloaded to your PC.
We have used the TomTom watch to experience each of these things and it lives up to its sales pitch. It is reliable, it is waterproof, the GPS worked, the MySports pc software really did provide ongoing information each time we downloaded. And as a tool for improving our training we very much found that the data must be essential really to a results focused and competitive environment. Knowing we were in the correct heart rate zone for our goals was indispensable information, because the time spent in that zone was having a direct outcome on the length of time spent to achieve our goals, If we are outside this zone for too long we simply will not achieve our goals, if we are in that zone more often combined woith the nutrition and pyschology then we will acheive our goals faster!
Our recommendation is that this device is very very useful!