NaviGadget

…Devices from companies like Olathe-based Garmin International use satellite tracking to help runners, walkers and bikers calculate their speed and the grade of that hill they just climbed, and even show their course on a computer using satellite maps from Google Earth.

Heart-rate monitors help them calculate the calories they’re burning and see whether they’re working hard enough, or too hard

Based on sales at online retailers such as Amazon.com, Garmin has grabbed a dominant spot in the fitness world in only a few years. While companies like Timex and Polar may be better known, Garmin’s popular Forerunner fitness trainers have caught the imagination of both serious runners and moms pushing baby strollers.

“It’s amazing the lengths we will go to improve our performance,” said John Wickstrom, a Prairie Village cyclist who uses a Polar heart rate monitor. “If we all lost 30 or 40 pounds, we could just fly.”

All the gadgets generally are designed to accomplish the same task — make us smarter about how we work out.

The best of the gear warns us when we’re working too hard, provides motivation and makes exercise a little more fun.

“After all, it’s supposed to be fun,” said Sean Staggs, project manager for the Mid America Chapter of National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Staggs uses his Garmin gear for both running and cycling. But he also uses it to plot routes for MS fundraising walks and the MS150 bike ride.

For the upcoming 50-mile MS Challenge Walk, for instance, Staggs will use Garmin technology to map hills and other challenges, giving walkers a heads up to rest up before the big ones.

Of course, there are some other, less tangible, issues.

“There’s always a little bit of competition involved,” Wickstrom said. “Somebody gets a new device, and then someone else wants to get something better.”…

via

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 1:32 pm and is filed under fitness, gps navigation, misc news, on bikes, tracking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.