Author: Enid Burns

Computer Differentiates Swim Strokes, Laps

Not sure what stroke you're swimming? The Swimsense will confirm.

This little computer likes to get wet. Some swimmers already wear a heart rate monitor in the pool to track exertion and calories burned, but that’s only part of the picture. Swimsense from Finis records the number of laps swum, total distance, calories burned, lap time, pace, and stroke count. It can even differentiate between backstroke, breastroke, butterfly and freestyle as you’re putting in those laps. Go home and sync the Swimsense with your computer to log how many laps you swim in a week, and your training progress.

If there’s anything disappointing about this watersport watch, it’s that there’s not an optional heart rate monitor for those who don’t mind wearing a strap on their chest in the pool. It makes the calories burned measure more accurate, and helps swimmers better pace themselves.

The Swimsense Performance Monitor will be available for the holidays, and just in time for swimmers making New Year’s resolutions to up their number of laps and keep at it. The monitor is expected to retail for about $199.

Finis Swimsense product page

Increase in Sport-Related Concussions in Youths Calls for Caution

It's important to wear helmets properly or they'll do more harm than good.

A bump on the head is more than it used to be. A recent study conducted by Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Brown University, both in Providence, R.I. finds an increase in children ages 8 to 19 in the emergency room for concussions. While the study cites a decline in certain organized team sports, kids remain prone to injury in a number of sports including individual sports such as bicycling and snow skiing.

While not all sports call for it, an increasing number of activities now call for a helmet, particularly with minors. Sports have seen great strides in headgear in recent years. Ski helmets like the one from Saloman have made it more common to see helmets on the slopes. Innovations in football helmets like the X1 from Xenith reduce the likelihood of a concussion upon impact during gameplay.

Still, some question whether helmets insure safety. Of course those that question the use of helmets are concerned that wearers are more willing to take risks and put themselves in harm’s way. The best way to reduce head injuries is likely to wear proper protection and be aware of the risks of your activity. It’s also important to be sure if you’re wearing headgear, you’re wearing it the right way. Many cyclists, for example, wear helmets set too far back on their head.

Brown University and Hasbro Children’s Hospital Study [via The Wall Street Journal: Childhood: Athletes’ Concussions Have Doubled]

Zen to the iPad with All-in Yoga HD

For less than the price of a yoga class you can get customized routines on your iPad or iPhone with the All-in Yoga HD app from Belarus-based Viaden Media. The company has developed many apps, most of them gambling, which may inspire the name “All-in Yoga.”

While deciding to buy the app for $4.99 for the iPad may seem like a gamble versus all the other yoga apps in the iTunes store, it appears to be comprehensive. The software promises 200 poses and yoga classes to enhance both mind and body. It offers a database of asanas (poses) recommended by professional yogis and highlights the most popular. If you’re not sure of the sun salute routine or any number of other positions, there’s detailed how-to’s, photos, video and male voice guidance to instruct yoga classes and tutorials. Continue reading Zen to the iPad with All-in Yoga HD

Cycling Brakes for Energy Boost

Every time you shift into granny gear, don’t you wish you had a motor on your bike to kick in and help you up that hill? The Copenhagen wheel claims to do just that. Developed by a team of students at the SENSEable City Lab at MIT, the motor encases the rear hub of the wheel on your existing bike to give it power. The MIT team recently won the U.S. national round of the James Dyson award for the Copenhagen wheel. Continue reading Cycling Brakes for Energy Boost

Gravity Defyer Shoes Put a Spring in Your Step (Is That a Good Thing?)

We're not sure why there's a sperm on the side of the shoe either.

Some days everybody drags. You begin to wonder how you continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving? Will a spring in your heel help propel you through those days and even offer more health benefits? Gravity Defyer thinks so, and is willing to let you try for 30 days or your money back.

Gravity Defyer shoes come in several varieties including running and dress shoe styles. The shoe addresses the 80 percent of Americans who use a heel striking gate to walk and run. It’s built with VersoShock Trampoline Shock, an absorbing membrane heel. It also has twin stabilizers, that’s two springs that compress and expand with each step. The VersoShock benefits include less fatigue, performance enhancing, cell cleansing super workout, ease joint pain and pressure on your spine and says users can “have a more active lifestyle.”

These aren’t the only shoes on the market making health claims. Nike recently called out its competitors for making claims of toning while you walk. Will a spring add benefits to the shoe? Will it help you on your feet? Springs can be highly uncomfortable if you feel them poking through on a bed. Imagine how a spring might feel concentrated in your heel after a day on your feet? Just because the spring is powering your stride, doesn’t mean it’s relieving any pain in your body. It’s still a new company, and a new technology, but it seems like it could have imbalanced results.

Gravity Defyer official web page

For Running, Compression is Key

Socks are socks, right? Well, there’s running socks, tennis socks, cycling socks, general sports socks, dress sock and we could keep going. A little known sock is the compression sock used frequently for medical conditions. Travelers and athletes are learning compression socks can aid training and recovery. One Mile Runner David O’Meara, whose goal is to inspire athletes over 30 to avoid injury, wears compression socks during and after performance events.

As a runner O’Meara wears the Athletic Recovery Sock while traveling and after exercise. He wears the Performance Sock for running. Both are part of the Active Therapy Line from Sigvaris. The comparession in the sock helps to flush out lactic acid that builds in the leg during exercise. The sock’s benefits are the ability to relieve tired, aching legs and exercise-induced muscle soreness. Continue reading For Running, Compression is Key

Strap On the iPhone with iSkin pulse Sports +

Take your iPhone on a run, and you may worry about the handset flying out of your grip on a sprint. It’s also not ideal to do exercise, say push-ups, that an app is dictating on the screen while holding the phone. Enter the pulse Sports + case from iSkin.

Designed as a case to be used with the iPhone app PocketCPR, the pulse Sports + case has a hand strap that secures the phone on the back of the hand or palm so you can easily see the display. While it is marketed as the companion to PocketCPR, the strap design lends itself to referencing the iPhone during activity. If you have a running program, you can play music and look at your progress for your run on screen. If you’re doing stretches or exercises, you can reference the proper positioning while in pose or movement.

The case is contstructed using microban, which stretches to accommodate your hand and the material also has antimicrobial properties and inhibits the growth of fungus and bacteria that you may otherwise worry about after sweating on a case during a workout.

iSkin pulse product page

PocketCPR product page

Virtua Tennis Takes a Swing with PlayStation Move

Did you have a tantrum and want to throw your racquet at the referee last time you played tennis? Sure, everyone has. Get ready for the court next year. SEGA is in development with Virtua Tennis 4 for PlayStation 3, which will use the Sony PlayStation move controller and be 3D for those who spring for a new 3D HDTV set. Continue reading Virtua Tennis Takes a Swing with PlayStation Move

This Bamboo Holds Water

With all the eco bottles on store shelves, you expect to see stainless steel or BPA-free plastic for the newest offering. Bamboo? Does it hold water? Glass? Won’t it break? Together they make a sturdy and attractive bottle to tote around your non-potable.

The Bamboo Bottle Company combines sustainable bamboo and glass to make its new bottle. The 17 oz. “original” bottle is BPA-free. It is constructed of a bamboo tube with a glass insert and top and bottom caps. Bamboo was selected for the outer because of the species’ stability, hardness and strength. Phyllostachys Pubescens bamboo, also known as Moso and Mau Tzu bamboo, are grown and harvested, then hand selected and hand cut for the bottle. While bamboo is sustainable, the hand harvesting allows for maturing and flowering strands of the plants to remain flourishing to their full 90 feet, which takes about nine months. It also avoids the use of heavy machinery to minimize impact on the ground soil. The cut bamboo continues to grow as it is a type of grass. Continue reading This Bamboo Holds Water

New Performance Fabrics Processed with Plasma

It’s the gas in your TV. And now it’s the gas that created the surface of your clothes. Plasma is a gas created by applying electrical fields to pure gas or gas mixtures in a vacuum chamber. A Swiss company called Eschler is using plasma to cause systematic surface modifications to fabrics. Translation: A process that creates water-resistant, water-absorbing and dirt-repellent fabrics through the use of electricity and an ionic gas rather than the use of chemicals or excessive water. Plasma changes the surface of the fabric to grant these properties through particular textures whether they’re smooth or mottled. The process has traditionally been achieved through the use of wet processing with chemicals and lots and lots of water. The chemical process often makes the fabric too stiff, and wears away with repeated washing.

Continue reading New Performance Fabrics Processed with Plasma

Not Your Dad’s Topsiders

You can't walk on water, but Sperry's Ping with SON-R technology let you walk in water.

Back in the ’80s topsiders were popular as the preppy shoe of choice. They faded into the background to be kept afloat by sailors and other boaters. But while the traditional style is still available from manufacturer Sperry, some new designs use tech specific to water sports. The Ping uses SON-R technology that gives the wearer feedback of the surface he’s walking on. Made to go on land and under shallow water for launching boats and small boat water sports like Kayaking and canoeing, the Ping has an “outsole-to-insole-to brain” sensory feedback system constructed of multiple pads comprising the same sole. This SON-R system lets you feel the rocks under your feet and navigate different surfaces even when you can’t see them under water.

Continue reading Not Your Dad’s Topsiders

Apple Spins Patent for Cycling

Apple's diagram for its Smart Bike patent application currently in development.

Looking for a cycling computer? There’s an app for that. Apple recently filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for various concepts of a newly-advanced Smart Bicycle System. Reportedly in development, the app will use the iPhone’s (or iPod iTouch) accelerometer and gyroscope to measure speed, distance, time, altitude, elevation, incline, decline, heart rate, temperature, weather, wind speed and other factors relevant to cycling. A few other add-ons such as a heart rate monitor strap and sensors to place on the wheel will likely be required to take full advantage of the app.

Other news outlets are reporting the iPhone and app that pro cyclists could adopt and even used to communicate while racing in a stage. Most teams already have cycling computers that read all the same settings and report back to the team’s manager in the team car. Garmin-Transitions Slipstream, for example, has Garmin as a sponsor and part of the GPS manufacturer’s commitment is in supply of cycle computers and other equipment. It is possible some teams will opt for the iPhone app, and certainly will be open to a sponsorship. Several new teams have been announced and it wouldn’t be all too surprising to see an Apple team form in the next year or so.

Whether the app is used by competitive cyclists, expect to see plenty of hipsters on track bikes with their iPhones mounted to the handlebars. We just hope they refrain from text and ride practices.

[via: Patently Apple and Huffington Post]

Phoning in Your Workout

No, you can’t send your phone on a run, but you can take it along with you for added benefits. The new touch screen handset Samsung Eternity II, available through AT&T, is packed with features including apps and GPS. The GPS allows for fitness tracking so you can chart your routes and where you biked, ran, or otherwise traversed in a cardiovascular manner. If you explored the trails at a local park and aren’t sure how far you actually went, you can review your journey post-workout and map the trails plus tabulate the distance.

What’s unclear is whether the GPS app just tracks distance, or also calculates grade and elevation so you can see your progress on those hill repeats. The Eternity II also has expandable memory up to 32 GB leaving plenty of room for music to take along on your workout. The two features, plus any upcoming apps available through the AT&T AppCenter, reduce the number of gadgets you take with you for a workout, and puts more power behind that muscle.

AT&T product page