Comments on: The Potential Downside of Wearable Biomechanical Monitoring Devices for Running

By: Peter Larson

Peter Larson — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 18:49:18 +0000

In reply to justin. Not yet, need to do this!

By: justin

justin — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:43:36 +0000

Have you tried running the same course with different shoe types and compare your cadence, vert osc, and GCT? Is this thing sensitive enough to tell a minimal shoe from a regular one?

By: Peter Larson

Peter Larson — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 14:53:43 +0000

In reply to William Summer. Love that quote!

By: Peter Larson

Peter Larson — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 14:52:36 +0000

In reply to Chris @ amplifytoday.com. I agree, the next few years are going to be very interesting!

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:40:37 +0000

Well said.. we can make gadgets work for us, they can help to motivate us and inform us with useful info, but don’t be a slave to the data. Understand your own body and how you feel fist and foremost.

By: 2 Cups 'N Run

2 Cups 'N Run — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 03:32:49 +0000

I’m not clear on what is the downside for you.. the fact that you have too much data that you may or may not want to do something with?
Personally I am not interested in a lot of the information these watches give, but I am interested in some (pace and distance basically) and that’s what I use the watch for. I think running watches are an incredible tool and very useful to have, especially if you are relatively serious about your training. The extra data that means nothing to me (at least for now) I just disregard.
Hope you enjoy the watch for what it’s worth, I have the 220 which is the ‘simpler’ version of the 620 and I’m loving it.

By: Yuri in a Hurry

Yuri in a Hurry — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:59:40 +0000

The best thing I learned from using a HRM is what my LSR pace should be. It worked out to almost a minute per km slower than what I thought. I actually found it hard to run that slow for the first few times.

The upside is that by running slow on my long runs and my ‘recovery’ days, I didn’t feel nearly as still or so the following days and could run a lot harder on my speed and hill sessions and increase my overall mileage substantially without injury. As a result, I was able to take 10 minutes off my 1/2 marathon PR in 4 months.

Now that I know what a LSD effort feels like however, I find the HRM superfluous. I pull it every month or so to ‘check-in’ but for the most part (thanks to so many runs listening the HRM) I have a become a pretty good judge of effort and pace and can ‘run naked’ with confidence.

By: John

John — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:52:09 +0000

Re high HR. Possible Atrial Fibrillation?

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:36:58 +0000

In reply to Mike. Well, it appears that the values are accurate when I'm standing still. I stopped mid-run and took a manual reading and it was close to the what the watch reported. Simply stopping from a run to standing drops my HR from 180 to 150. Is it possible for a HR to drop 30 in 15-20 seconds?

By: Chris @ amplifytoday.com

Chris @ amplifytoday.com — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:36:06 +0000

The wearable tech market is still a work in progress and you raise legit concerns because while all this tech is great it could create some false positives on results/ or just incorrect measurements.

I leverage tech while I run but also listen to my body as much as possible. I think it’s important to balance the two and never completely rely on tech.

However, years from now the whole tech market for running will evolve and provide more accurate sensor data. Exciting times lie ahead

By: William Summer

William Summer — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:52:15 +0000

I’ve been very happy with my 620. The distances are consistence with both online mapping and phone apps.

As for the HRM, the treadmill I run on at my gym has HR grips. Of the 3 treadmill runs I’ve had with my Garmin 620 I’ve checked HR several times on each run. Each time the treadmill and Garmin were within +/- 2 bpm of each other.

Also the pace of the treadmill and Garmin were in line. When running on the treadmill I do not use a footpod and turn GPS off.

I think this is a wonderful device but it’s not perfect. In the words of Louis CK “It’s talking to a satellite in outer $#@! space!” so there’s going to be some errors. We just need to take all this data with appropriate expectations.

By: Peter Larson

Peter Larson — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 02:00:33 +0000

In reply to Tommy Hugubakken. I'm with you, I love gadgets as much as I love shoes :)