Fitness trackers for all kinds of athletes

Fitness trackers are helping people meet their health goals. These devices have amazing features that are specific for different kinds of athletes.

Sophmore Cassidy Unland models a FitBit. photo by Cece Curran

Sophmore Cassidy Unland models a FitBit. photo by Cece Curran

by Cece Curran, Staff Writer

Whether you’re an intense athlete that runs 70 miles a week or a health freak that’s looking for a way to track your calories and sleep, there’s a fitness tracker out there for you. In the realm of fitness, these three trackers have different features and have certain appeals to different types of athletes.

Apple Watch Series One

The company Apple produced a new version of Apple watches, some being fitness trackers and some being regular watches. Starting at $269, the Watch Series One is one of many different fitness trackers and for a more toned down athlete. This watch tracks and monitors workouts, basic health and even receive text messages throughout the day. The watch also tracks how many steps you’ve taken and how many calories you’ve burned. This tracker is for a more laid back exerciser who likes to monitor their basic everyday activity and health.

Fitbit Charge Two

Fitbit has been a raging new item in the fitness world. The majority of their trackers come in watch form and include your basic features of step counters and time. One of their newest trackers, the Fitbit Charge Two, brings to life some incredible new ways to track your fitness. This watch costs $149.99, and includes some amazing features. Not only can this watch track your heart rate, but it can also give you call, text and calendar alerts, keep track of your cardio fitness levels and give you guided breathing sessions. It also includes Multi-Sport Mode to track specific exercises. The watches connected GPS can give you your pace, distance and map of your route. This watch may be pretty intriguing with all its features, but it still isn’t the most intense tracker of the three.

Garmin Forerunner 920XT

Coming full circle through the world of fitness, the final tracker is for your extremely intense athlete. The Garmin Forerunner 920XT is one of Garmin’s best sellers and is no doubtedly for a highly dedicated athlete. Made mostly for runners, this watch costs a whopping $449.99. This watch contains some amazing features, but its high price can be a drawback. Its questionable whether or not $449.99 is worth the purchase. The attributes of this watch include vertical oscillation, which is the movement of your torso or your bounce when running. It also has these two incredible features of cadence and ground contact time. Cadence measures cycles of the workout run per minute, and ground contact time measures how many times you makes contact with the ground. Both of these features are truly spectacular and so brilliantly intertwine with one another. The watch also includes the pace, distance, stroke type identification, stroke count, rest timers and drill logging for swimming alone. Similarly to the other trackers, this watch has smart notification that allow you to receive text, email, and other alerts. And all this data automatically uploads to Garmin Connect on smart phones. This tracker is the epitome of all fitness trackers, and is perfect for an extreme athlete.

These three fitness trackers can do amazing things for your health. All three come from different ends of the scale, but each are perfect for certain levels of activity. Each contain pros and cons, but the drawbacks for each are either good or bad depending on what kind of athlete you are. I am fascinated with these fitness trackers and I highly recommend any of them. These trackers make experiencing fitness worth it in the long run.