Cheap Pedometers vs Sports Watches: Choosing The Best Sports Watch When Starting Out?

If you are just starting a fitness program, then you may wonder what is the best sports watch would cater best to your needs. The answer will depend on your current level of fitness and the types of physical activity you see yourself performing over the short-term and longer term if you have thought this far ahead. Many starting out may be tempted to look for cheap pedometers to help track their activities. Pedometers have the ability to measure the number of steps you have made during the day and are reasonably cheap to purchase.

However most pedometers must be held in your hand, or clipped onto your clothing via a special clip. While this is ok if you are just walking, if you are jogging or running or can picture yourself working up to this level of activity in the near future, then this might not be the most comfortable arrangement. Instead you might prefer a cheap sports watch to time your runs. While most are not capable of counting steps, they can time your runs and many like the popular Timex Ironman watches have the ability to keep a detailed log of your workout history that can easily be recalled at any time.

For a little extra money there is however an alternative to both of these options and that is a wrist-watch pedometer that counts your steps, but is worn on your wrist while you walk or run. An example of such a device is the Timex Ironman Fitness Tracker watches that can record your steps while maintaining a detailed history of your workouts and other variables such as distance travelled and the number of calories burned. It also supports multi-lap workout sessions with stats such as average lap, best lap, pace per lap and total segment time.

While all this may sound great, you should be aware however that pedometers don’t do a perfect job of approximating distance. If you are looking for a watch that can handle more precise measurements, you are better off shopping around for a GPS watch or accelerometer foot pod device. These will give you a much more accurate estimate, but will cost more too so you might be better off holding back until you have had time to achieve a higher level of fitness before you go spending money on something you’re not sure you need. For a more thorough overview of various cheap pedometers and the variety of sports watches available, follow the links supplied to visit our website.