Swimming is an activity as old as humanity itself, but it’s also one that’s constantly evolving. While it’s possible to swim with nothing more than a bathing suit – if you even need that – it helps to use technology. Doing so will ensure you track your fitness levels and hit your swimming targets. Whether you’re just starting as a swimmer or looking to go professional, let tech help you. Here are three of the latest developments in swimming technology.
Smart Goggles
Goggles are a useful accessory for any swimmer. They allow you to keep your eyes open while underwater while also protecting them from chlorine or sea salt, depending on where you’re swimming. They’ve become so much more useful in recent years than this. Smart goggles are the future of tech-based swimming.
These goggles display different metrics so that you can track your performance as you swim and adjust accordingly. In addition, all the information is given to you in real-time rather than getting out to check your time, speed, distance, and more. This removes distractions and gives you more time in the water, working on your technique.
Wearable Power Meters
A power meter is a piece of tech that swimmers use to track a range of metrics. It can tell you the pace of your swim, distance traveled, and even how balanced your left and right arms are. In essence, this is an accurate way to see how well your training is going and how much you’re improving. Unfortunately, these are often big, clunky, and expensive bits of equipment.
Nowadays, though, swimmers are increasingly switching to wearable power meters. These tiny trackers slide onto your fingers so that you can swim freely as they gather information. The wearable power meter then connects to an app on your phone so you can instantly see all your data. It’s a genius way to quickly measure your current swimming level and watch it improve as you train.
Swimming Watches
Another piece of wearable technology is the smartwatch. These have become hugely popular in recent years with the likes of Apple and Garmin bringing out their own smartwatches to rival the Fitbit. These are most commonly associated with runners who want to track their heart rate and blood pressure as they exercise. However, there is now a growing range of swimming watches on superwatches that you can look into.
Like other smartwatches, these keep track of your heart rate to help you keep it in check. Of course, these are designed to be waterproof and to stay in place during a hard swimming session. This will keep count of your laps, so you don’t have to while measuring your pace and distance covered.
If you want to train smarter not harder, then technology is the best option. Swimmers can gather metrics using smart goggles, wearable power meters, or swimming watches. These aren’t always the cheapest options but they can make it so much easier to gather data and then analyze it to take your swimming skills to a new level.