Running is one of the eldest and most intuitive forms of exercise: just put one bottom in front of the other, rinse, and return quickly.
Of course, all of the best running gadgets develop even more useful when they pair with the best fitness apps to a point where this technical school is fast becoming a regular part of any runner’s running kit.
That’s why we create a list of all the best running gadgets that will transform you into a lean, mean running machine.
Table of Contents
The 10 Best Running Gadgets Fitness Tech to Help Better
1. NURVV Run
- Unlike a running watch, the NURVV Run smart insoles gather data directly from your feet each time they hit the ground.
- The consequence is a fantastic amount of information about your footstrike, level of pronation, step length, cadence, and more.
- The pads will also log your haste, time, and distance, and the NURVV app syncs the data with Strava, so you might even choose to leave your watch at home.
- The NURVV Run pads slip into your shoes, underneath your regular insole, and the trailing units themselves clip onto the outside, near your ankles.
- They’re comfortable to wear (we quickly forgot they were there) and water-resistant, so you don’t necessity to worry about rain, mud, and puddles.
2. FlipBelt
- We could fill this entire list with devices that eye data tracking, stats and apps if we wanted to, but then we would lose the brilliant FlipBelt.
- It’s one of the simplest smithereens of running kit around, but seriously, this thing is indispensable.
- All you have to do is pull the fabric tube up around your waist, fill it with anything.
- And everything you may want on a run credit card, phone, energy gels, emergency change, then flip it over.
- Just like that, you have all you need conveniently tucked around your waist.
- The FlipBelt isn’t like a fanny carton with all its adjustable straps and buckles. It sits flush against your skin so that you don’t have to worry about it bouncing around.
- And the lack of zips or latches means there’s no chafing, and assuming you get the correct size.
- There are five to select from, reaching from a 23- to 41-inch waist. It won’t ride up either.
- You can even become water bottles designed to fit inside the belt, so it’s ‘goodbye’ to that lopsided sloshing gait.
3. Zwift Runpod
- Treadmill training is a countless way to get some miles in your legs in adverse.
- But it can also be very dull, putting in the miles with no changing scenery or clubmates to keep your business. That’s where the Zwift Runpod comes in.
- Zwift might be best known for its exercise bikes and associated app (used to affect the Virtual Tour de France significantly).
- Still, it also makes an excellent tiny cadence sensor that allows runners to hit the fake roads alongside the cyclists.
- The Zwift Runpod clips onto your cords before you hit the treadmill and attaches to the Zwift app on a phone or tablet.
- You will have your little avatar in the world and can join group runs or just set out on your own, jutting to the track or making up your route as you go along.
- It’s a great way to stave off the monotony that comes with indoor running and get out with your friends if you’re unable to meet in person.
4. Shape Heart Armband
- Any runner strongminded to be more well-organized in their exercise needs one thing overhead any other, and it’s a space-saving two-in-one gadget like the Shapeheart Armband.
- Carrying your phone on runs is often an inevitable hassle and, while armbands aren’t everyone’s favourite, they’re regrettably necessary for most runners.
- And if that’s something you vital, you may as well make it twice as valuable.
- Not only does the Shapeheart deliver a convenient way to carry your phone, with a magnetic case.
- It lets you easily detach your phone from the strap to take calls and capture those necessary running selfies (or check Google Maps). It also screens your heart rate.
- A detachable visual heart rate (HR) sensor located in the neoprene armband sends your heart rate data to any running app you choose – Nike+, Strava, and Runkeeper – so you can ensure you’re an exercise in the correct zone for your goals.
- While it obviously won’t be as precise as an HR chest strap, the armband should be more dependable than the data from a watch as you’re less likely to get that gap between device and wrist that can cause irregular HR stats.
5. Garmin Running Dynamics Pod
- The Garmin Dynamics Running Pod is an excellent alternative to the Lumo Run Sensor, one of our preferred running gadgets in years gone by but is sadly no longer available.
- Another device to help you improve your running form, the Garmin Dynamics Running Pod, which fasteners onto your clothing and measures your cadence, stride length, ground contact time, balance.
- You can use this data yourself to learn more about your running technique and work with your running trainer to improve your form based on the findings.
- The Running Dynamics Pod is compatible with Garmin’s premium fitness tracker ranges, counting the D2, Forerunner (245 and up), Marq, Quatix, and Tactix lines.
6. AfterShokz Trekz Air
- Designed wholly for working out, the new cohort of wireless AfterShokz IP55 sweat-resistant bone-conduction headphones weighs in at just 30g.
- It’s about 20% lighter than the unique Trekz Titanium because every gram counts when you’re shooting for a PB.
- The battery life is far from its most significant feature. However, the open-ear design allows you to no-win situation what’s going on around you at all times, crucial on darker nights.
- Other valuable improvements include dual noise-cancelling mics so you can take that call.
- At the same time, you on the run (as long as you can breathe) and redesign bone transducers that bring more bass, one of our biggest bugbears with previous AfterShokz.
- The pause button has overhaul to be easier to tap, too. In short, this is a brilliant upgrade.
- And because sport headphones tend to spend a lot of time kicking about in the lowest of a bag.
- They come with a rigid premium titanium frame and a wraparound band that can withstand a few knocks.
7. LifeBeam Vi
- The LifeBEAM Vi an AI running coach limit in these specially designed headphones.
- This unique AI skill will adapt to your training schedule and offer personalized advice and workout proposals as you go.
- The bio-sensing earbuds keep track of your reserve, speed, elevation, heart rate, cadence, and more.
- This way, the Vi can learn every feature of your running game, encouraging you to keep successful when you’re about to hit a new goal.
- It instructs you to slow down if you tend to set off too fast, offering pace-specific workouts and signifying recovery days or more brutal sessions where necessary.
- And, you might think this is caring of creepy, but the Vi will learn your name, where you’re at, and even the weather around you to tailor her advice to the exact minute and site you are at.
- We’ve spent a lot of time with her. The AI is female-voiced, and while right now, she’s an outstanding tool for casual.
- And newer runners building fitness, she lacks some essential features that more thoughtful runners, those chasing new PBs, are successful in being looking for.
- However, with the ability to provide years of software upgrades, Vi can only get better as you do, and for those who’d love real-time run coaching but can’t afford it, Vi could make for a decent AI option.
8. Halo Sport 2
- Part of a rising trend for applying advanced neuroscience to sport and fitness, the Halo Sport 2 employs clever and somewhat compound brain science to make you run faster.
- Worn before your workout, Halo delivers a tingling electrical motivation over a 20-minute warm-up period known as ‘neuro priming.’
- The idea is that electric signals help the movement-controlling neurons in your brain fire more easily.
- Your brain studies to repeat actions such as the strides you make when running through a process called plasticity.
- Still, neuro ground intends to get your brain into a state of ‘hyperelasticity, so it reaches its fine-tuning state more quickly, and you get greater muscle control and healthier results from your workout.
- Small-scale studies with the baseball team San Francisco Giants showed improvements in speed and explosiveness, and there’s a weight of technical research to back up their efficiency.
- However, unless you upkeep about shaving that elusive minute off your Parkrun time, then this might be a tendency to monitor rather than dump into at this stage.
9. Stryd Sensor
- Cyclists have measured their performance using power for years, so it’s strange it’s only just preliminary to enter the running world.
- While many of us are familiar with pace and distance stats, the makers of this lightweight slight pod say there’s only one primary metric we essential to be looking at.
- You get power, form power, leg spring stiffness (stiffer legs require less energy to move you forwards), ground time, vertical oscillation, cadence, pace, distance, and your run pressure notch and crunch these into a watts amount to shadow while you’re on the move.
- The benefit of using watts is that your power output is just one number. Stryd says power is the surefire way to hit a new PB as it can help you run more efficiently.
- Compatible with most smartphones, the Apple Watch, and some Garmin and Polar watches, the Stryd Sensor control meter may be handy for triathletes and multi-sport athletes who want to use metrics for each sport.
10. Wahoo TICKR Fit
- Running with a watch or phone app that doesn’t show heart rate or unsure how accurate are the data pending from your wrist-based trailer is? Maybe it’s time to look for different habits to track your stats.
- Enter the new TICKR Fit armband. Happier than a chest strap and with greater accuracy than a watch, the sensor is worn on your forearm (where you’re less likely to skew the information by receiving air between your skin and the sensor).
- It uses optical heart rate technology to provide heart rate and calorie burn stats. Wahoo says the statistics are as accurate as of that from a chest strap, and there are two versatile band sizes to ensure it sits securely and flush to your skin when working out.
- You can connect the TICKR Fit to Android and iOS devices and many GPS running timepieces and bike computers and view your data on compatible apps, counting Strava and Runkeeper.
Also Read: What Is Forex Training? – Understanding, Strategies, and More