So, Will You be Wearing An Oversized “T” This Summer At The Beach, Or Slapping On The 30-SPF?

Those of us that care, know that being comfortable with the body your wearing takes work. And consistent work. That can mean regular hours at the gym, early before work, or after you already have put in a 10-hour day at your workstation. But as we work out, we know that one thing that needs to be done is setting goals and measuring our progress on how well we’re doing on our road to attaining them. To do this, serious fitness orientated people, like you and me, use an activity monitoring device to provide the data we need in order to stay the course and make sure we not only reach our goals but surpass them.

One such “Smartwatch” is the Garmin Forerunner 735XT GPS Running Multisport Watch With the 735XT, you can now let your fitness routine be more than just a routine. With the advanced technology and cutting-edge features, you can create your activity profiles of cycling, running, swimming, skiing, paddling, strength training, and hiking. The auto multisport features allow you to switch between different sports activities with a single press and will also give you customized workouts. With free Garmin Connect, you can easily review your past efforts and share it with the online fitness community.

Since we are, or should I say, we want to be active, we do juggle multiple work responsibilities each day, and possibly also juggle multiple workout sessions as well. After all, nothing helps relieve the stress of the day better than working up a sweat, pushing your body, knowing everything you’re doing in the gym, out on the road pounding the pavements or doing multiple laps in the pool is helping you to not only get out from under that stress level but also conditioning your body so it performs and looks the way you want it to.

So, let's delve into the functionality of the Garmin Forerunner 735XT GPS Running Multisport Watch a little deeper so that you can get a good idea of what it can do for you so you can do for yourself!

Even though the Garmin 735's been around for a bit, it's still one of the best all-purpose activity trackers in the Garmin footlocker!

At the Forefront of the deliverables, the 3 gives you are:
It's lightweight and designed for both training and racing.
Great Batter Life for everyday use and delivers when your exercising.
Tracks regular steps and how well your sleeping
Offers a wide range of data, which you and your friends (if you wish) can be viewed via Garmin Connect
Offers Strava Integration
Comes in an assortment of colors

Activities
The 735 is a great overall activity tracker, while it's optimized mainly for running, biking and swimming it definitely lives up to its "Multisport" capabilities. Apart from triathlon sports, the 735 also has cross country skiing, hiking, rowing, strength training, (which is a must for anyone who does a lot of running so they get the cross-training benefits), even paddle boarding and just plain general cardio. Straight out of the box!
As you can see, this covers a wide range of sports!

Basic Features:
The 735 offers the standard features found on most running and sport watches. It tracks distance, pace and lap times on all supported activities. You can see this data on the watch screen while it's running. These data fields can also be changed in the settings like on most other models of Garmin. This information is also stored in the watch and on any accounts that you have previously set up via the synced function.

Heart Rate:
The watch features an optical heart rate sensor, which requires no additional strap or equipment. Thus, making it streamlined and not having to fuss with a chest strap is a big plus! Your heart rate data is visible during your exercise routines and also in various graph forms afterward on Garmin Connect.

The watches other feature is that it is truly multifunctional. When in multisport mode, the watch will enter the next sport when you push the lap button, though you can also configure it to enter transition periods when the lap button is pushed. This is a great feature when you’re running or training for triathlons in particular.

The 735 additionally offers integration with a huge range of running services and products. Strava, Garmin Connect, ANT+, are some services that are supported. Phone syncing, and phone notification display is also possible.

Accuracy:
Accuracy tends to be pretty good in most of the sensors of the Garmin 735. The GPS is precise and works well even in areas with tall buildings and trees, giving accurate routes, and overall distance traveled. This holds true while biking, running, or swimming. The heart rate sensor is a solid reporting factor of this watch. The optical heart rate sensors are generally less accurate than straps and this holds true here as well.

Connectivity:
The 735 offers standard connectivity that most athletic watches have. Primarily, it can connect to a smartphone or other device via Bluetooth and sync data across apps that way. Syncing is pretty quick, and the data does not take very long to transfer. Additionally, the 735 can be synced via its charging strap, which is another pretty standard feature of the Garmin Smart Watches.

Durability:
The Garmin Forerunner 735 is solid! Its face is pretty resistant to abrasions and scratches and can definitely handle most average drops or bumps that can occur as life happens. Naturally, excessive force or pressure, like dropping the watch from a multistory building or something similar can cause issues., but that is to be expected, regardless of what you see on "Infomercials"
The band itself is also pretty durable, and there have not been many complaints about the band wearing out or tearing with use. And emersion in water should not have adverse effects on the watch considering it is literally designed to be used within bodies of water like a pool. You’re paying for both durability and functionality and the Garmin 735 delivers!

Ease of Use:
The 735 is pretty straightforward to use. For those who plan on using it as a basic activity watch, (but why would you since all those extra tracking and monitoring features are available?) it functions like many others for running, biking and swimming.

The watch has a mode to record the information during your activities, a lap function, and a pause and finish function, all of which are fairly simple to use. The quick start guides provided are pretty self-explanatory and do a good job of walking you through the process. For users who have experience doing things like uploading workouts and using them or syncing multiple devices to the watch, it probably won't be much of a challenge to use. For those not used to doing this, there will be a learning curve but it probably won't be hard for the average user to get the hang of using.

And like most things today, there are multiple sources of how to sights to use, especially Garmin's YouTube channel. Overall, the 735 has well designed and easy to use interfaces.

Battery Life and Charging it up!
The Garmin 735 charges via a charging clip that comes with the watch, which can be plugged into a USB or wall outlet, which is especially nice when you’re traveling without taking your laptop. The watch offers about 14 hours of GPS usage. This is a good stretch of time for everyday use but for a triathlon, it will only be enough for shorter to mid-distance races. But again, its main function is at the training level to get you in the right shape in order for you to be able to tackle those triathlons. Overall, the battery life is adequate for the average athlete.

The overall "Skinny" on this smartwatch is that it’s a pretty solid multisport watch. It has a large range of tracking features that will provide you with all the data you need to train and modify your training accordingly to what it acquires from monitoring your stats.

So, how about it, do you think the Garmin 735 can help you get, and maintain that kind of body that will turn heads this summer at the beach…. For all the right reasons? We think it will. Go get yours today at HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com  

Before someone kicks sand in your face at the beach!

Ok, it’s still Winter, even though metrological Spring is only a few days, (really 1 Day away, being March 1st.). And the question is, is winter winning out on keeping your exercise routines on the back burner?

Sure, it’s cold outside! The winter winds are blowing pretty strong, especially in the northeast where there is still a lot more darkness than daylight out there. These few things and maybe some others not mentioned can go a long way from keeping you away from the gym or running your favorite trail and keep you on the couch, under a comforter while you watch Netflix and scarf down a pizza.

Let's face it -- it's tough to find the motivation to exercise outside these days. During the work week, sometimes both legs of our daily commutes are completed in utter darkness. And while the weekend sunshine is appreciated, it doesn't do much to warm up our wintry surroundings. But before you throw in the towel and restrict yourself to the crowded, stuffy gym for the next few months, it may be worth giving the idea of an outdoor winter workout a second thought.

One thing this cold weather helps out with is burning more calories. As the body works harder to regulate its core temperature among the elements, you'll burn a few more calories during your wintry workout compared to one conducted indoors. While the calorie burn varies with each person's body mass and the extremity of the temperature, it can be a nice morale booster to get more out of your sweat session knowing that the cold temps are helping you to burn more as you run, jog, walk along on your exercise regimen.

Like any serious-minded person who embraces exercise as becoming part of their new, healthy, lifestyle. Working out means commitment to reaching a goal or set of goals, after all, why bother with the demands of getting up each day and pushing your body if you don’t have a set goal in mind. Reaching and surpassing those goals means tracking your progress. And a good way to do this is with a reliable fitness tracker. For our purposes, we like to recommend a heart rate monitor, with GPS capabilities. One that fits the overall requirements of tracking your progress is the Garmin Forerunner 735XT GPS Running Multisport Watch  The Garmin Forerunner 735XT is a GPS-enabled running watch with multi-sports features that will track not only your daily, weekly, monthly runs but on days when you do hit the indoor gym for strength training, the Forerunner 735 will track the energy you expend and your heart rate so you keep on track with performing to your up-most!

As you exercise outside and work up your pace, your body continues to sweat, but that sweat evaporates more quickly into the chilly, dry air, making it seem as though your body is losing less water. Drinking water before, during and after cold-weather workouts helps maintain peak performance, protects the body from injury and helps it to stay warm from start to finish. So don’t skimp on imbibing on the H2O!

Make note of this as well: Fat people have less than thin people. Older people have less than younger people. Men have less than younger women. What is it??
It is brown fat, actually brown in color, and its great appeal is that it burns calories like a furnace. A new study finds that one form of it, which is turned on when people get cold, sucks the fat out of the rest of the body to fuel itself. Another new study finds that a second form of brown fat can be created from ordinary white fat by exercise.

A new paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation by Dr. Carpentier and his colleagues answers that question and more. By doing a different type of scan, which shows the metabolism of fat, the group reports that brown fat can burn ordinary fat and that glucose is not a major source of fuel for these cells. When the cells run out of their own small repositories of fat, they suck the fat out of the rest of the body.
In the study, the subjects — all men — were kept chilled, but not to the point of shivering, which itself burns calories. Their metabolic rates increased by 80 percent, all from the actions of a few ounces of cells. The brown fat also kept its subjects warm. The more brown fat a man, woman or young adult had, the colder they could get before they started to shiver.

Another benefit of exercising in the cold weather is that it makes the heart work harder to distribute blood throughout the body. For an unhealthy heart that struggles to manage the additional stress, this process can exacerbate illness and injury. But a regular exerciser with cardiovascular endurance can make their heart muscle even stronger with these cold-weather sessions, better preparing the body for more strenuous workouts in the future, not to mention other non-exercise stresses in life.

You're going to have a better outlook on your daily life by taking advantage of exercising outside in the colder weather. Cold-weather exercise has the ability to boost a person's mood, thanks to the lack of humidity (which creates that heavy air feeling in the summer months) and the stimulating aspect of the outdoor colder temperatures. As the body works harder to stay warm, the number of endorphins produced also increases, leaving you with a stronger sense of happiness and lightness following a workout in the cold.

So what do you say? Still feeling complacent about yourself as your laying on that couch, or are you having second thoughts and deciding to get off of it, put on some outdoor clothes with wicking ability and get out and giving your heart and cardio system a Run for its money? The choice is yours… But the staff, friends, and cohorts here at  HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com will be out there waiting for you to catch up.

See you on the trail!