A supercomputer on your wrist isn’t going to turn you into Eliud Kipchoge or Killian Jornet, but the right one can help you learn more about your body and optimize your performance. With these new fitness trackers and GPS watches, you’re strapping on the latest innovations to unlock your true potential.
Best New Fitness Trackers and GPS Watches
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Training: Whoop 4.0
This data-driven strap tracks strain, recovery and sleep for personalized insights that help maximize gains. Already wearing a watch and don’t want to double up? The newest version stealthily integrates into the brand’s new line of garments—including compression tops, tights, shorts and boxers—to collect metrics from the torso, waist or calf. It can even wake you up with gentle vibrations at the ideal time based on your daily sleep needs.
This wrist-bound supercomputer handles gnarly terrain, but the main selling point is a battery that’ll outlast your wildest backcountry treks. A solar-charging lens converts sunlight into battery power for up to 80 hours in GPS mode—even when using multiple global navigation satellite systems. In case emergency strikes while sending info, accident detection features send your location to a preprogrammed contact.
Eliud Kipchoge, the fastest marathoner ever, won the Tokyo 2020 Olympics men’s marathon wearing this watch. It might not guarantee a gold medal, but you can switch between road, trail, treadmill and track modes, and geek out on stats like cadence, stride length, ground contact time and more in the app. It weighs a scant 29 grams, making it one of the lightest running watches on the market—a boon for those looking to shed excess weight to eke out a blazing-fast PR.
Seek out dirt and vert with Suunto’s thinnest, toughest GPS watch. To stay on the trails, load your route into the partner app and use the new “Snap to Route” functionality to get turn-by-turn directions on the fly. Not sure where to start? Heatmaps show the most popular starting points in your area. And as you strive for the highest peaks, you can use blood-oxygen monitoring to determine how your body is handling the altitude and whether it’s safe to continue or call it.
Endurance athletes know performance is as much about nutrition as it is fitness. Keep from bonking on a ride with FuelWise, smart hydration and nutrition reminders based on past workouts; after a workout, you can see whether you’re burning energy from carbs or fats. The watch syncs with Bluetooth power meters and cadence and speed sensors for more cycling specific data, and automatically tracks your training load and recovery so you can see how hard you’re pushing and how well you recover from your time in the saddle. $299.95; polar.com
