In a rebranding exercise, Suunto 3 Fitness is now simply called Suunto 3. This is more in line with the naming convention of other devices in the company’s range.
Some new design options have been introduced but the feature-set remains identical. This was revealed in a somewhat muted press release by the Finish outfit.
Following months of testing, we have rounded up the leading gps running watches on the market. We’ve tested them at parkruns and ultra races; come wind, rain or shine. They have been used as coaches and as stop watches, the vast variety of features explored and exposed as useful or useless.
Two Triangle medical technology firms are teaming up to create new blood pressure solutions that they believe will improve patient care and safety.
Raleigh-based Valencell, which makes biometric sensors for wearables, has signed a collaboration agreement with Halma-portfolio company SunTech Medical, based in RTP, to jointly develop clinical-grade blood pressure solutions augmented with photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor technology.
… Qualcomm gives Wear OS a proper boost … In 2018, it launched the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform bringing feature improvements like new battery modes to extend the pretty underwhelming battery performances of Wear watches. But it didn’t really feel like a big step from what Qualcomm had come up with before. That could change this year with rumors that a platform that may go by the name Snapdragon Wear 3300 will finally deliver that performance boost we crave.
Precision data is key to unlocking long-term health, a World Economic Forum (WEF) report says, as its authors think combining microbiome biodata with emerging technologies will result in new ways to address health risks.
Earlier this month, Under Armour held its first annual Human Performance Summit from the brand’s headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. More than 180 media, athletes, influencers and trainers from all over the globe were invited to take part in this three-day event.
The brand used January 13, the official “quitting day” for new year’s resolutions, as the kickoff for their new global campaign #TheOnlyWayIsThrough, and guests felt the truth of the campaign slogan throughout the summit as UA shuttled them to panels and workouts around the campus.
Immediately after finishing fourth in the February 2016 United States Olympic marathon trials, just one spot short of qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics, a tearful Kara Goucher said, “I kept asking myself if I was doing all I could, and I was; [the top three finishers] are just better.”
With hindsight, and the advantage of research conducted in the past few years, it is possible to conclude with some certainty that Goucher missed a spot in the 2016 Rio Olympics not because her competitors were necessarily better runners, but because they had better shoes.
I discussed this with Goucher over the weekend, and she told me that in 2016 at the trials she was completely unaware of the importance of the new shoe technology: “I had talked to people on the inside in late 2016 who said the shoes were a performance enhancer on par with EPO, but I didn’t know that they truly worked until Nike released their data in March of 2017.”
… Every year the ISPO Award honours the most innovative products in the sports industry. The Gold Winners of the ISPO Award 2020 were already chosen at the beginning of the year. At the ISPO Munich 2020, the six best products of the year were announced.
These are the Products of the Year 2020:
Segment Snowsports Hardware: ALPINA SPORTS PROLAN VEST
Segment Outdoor: THE NORTH FACE SUM L3 50/50 DOWN HOODIE
… When did you first enter the Performance Textiles field?
It was around three years ago that we realised we could exploit our expertise in various areas of materials know-how to develop something new for the market. There is a lot of fibre and textile expertise in Taiwan and we worked with our customers with the research institutes on a number of development projects. So here at ISPO we are able to officially launch the new Xpore nanoporous membrane, as a refinement of our AirySektor concept.
What are the key benefits of the Xpore nanoporous membrane in terms of performance?
This membrane controls moisture with 10 billion nanopores per square inch – each 20,000 times smaller than a water droplet and 200 times larger than a water vapor molecule. As a result, it offers better moisture vapor transmission, breathability and durability than competing products, with lighter and faster drying. It is also impenetrable to bacteria and mites.
… When I came across a technology that could solve the plastics issue, I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to it. Historically, the science is clear when it comes to preventing climate change, as are the solutions; eat less red meat, drive less, fly less and switch the global grid to renewable energy, but a few years ago, when it came to the issue of plastic, there was no silver bullet; no solar energy, and no Tesla. And this intrigued me! I knew there would be a company somewhere working hard in an R&D lab trying to solve the issue. I’ve spent my whole career commercialising solutions to a lot of these big issues, so when I came across a technology, via Polymateria, that could solve the plastics issue by fully biodegrading plastic, I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to it.
Female sports nutrition has a burgeoning presence and influence in social media platforms, according to Lumina Intelligence—but only 2.5% of sports nutrition products explicitly target women in either marketing or formulation, creating a major opportunity.
On the other hand, notes a press release, it’s vital to target women without falling into gender stereotypes or misogyny: Thomas Morgan, author of the report and Lumina’s Senior Market Analyst, said in the release: “In a sports nutrition world that has rarely led the battle against gender stereotypes, products targeting women need to be sensitive to the contemporary social media-driven powder keg of gender relations and nomenclatures if they wish to succeed. Using dismissive or patronizing language such as ‘girl’ instead of ‘woman’ can be a brand buster if a social media storm gains enough momentum. Brands need to meet the honest needs of women. Social media channels like Instagram where female usage is high are vital for success.”
In an era of division and partisanship, it is remarkable that in the 2018 election, almost 83 percent of voters checked YES for the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Amendment (GOSA), earmarking up to 80 percent of the existing sales tax collected on outdoor recreation products to create parks, build trails, and protect land and water. That outcome overwhelmingly illustrates that people across the state of all political and ideological affiliations agree that public lands for people are important.
… Katherine [Gibbons] is one of an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 adolescents who find themselves in wilderness therapy programs every year. These programs are distinct from traditional drug addiction treatment centers, and wilderness programs may require that incoming participants with a history of substance abuse be fully detoxed elsewhere before admittance. For the most part, it is the underlying emotional and behavioral problems — ones that parents have decided they are incapable of handling — that bring teenagers like Katherine to places like Evoke Cascades. Most start with wilderness therapy and move on to some other form of residential treatment, which can last a year or more.
Once plagued by scandals and charges of abuse and even deaths, the residential treatment industry has worked hard over the last two decades to reform itself, and stories of teenagers being handcuffed and assaulted or otherwise mistreated in fly-by-night “tough love” programs have largely — though not completely — disappeared from headlines. But even amid steady growth for the industry, some critics argue that such programs still suffer from one serious and fundamental shortcoming: a distinct lack of scientific evidence that they work.
If you’re the kind of masochist who enjoys a little bit of sleep deprivation mixed with freezing temps and knee-deep postholing while shoving your bike up a mountainside thick with snow, boy, do I have the race for you.
Actually, event organizer Jay Petervary wouldn’t even call the Fat Pursuit a “race.” He thinks the event—which offers intrepid cyclists the opportunity to challenge themselves across (and most definitely up) 60k, 200k, or even 200 miles of stunning landscape skirting the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park—is something a bit more esoteric. “I use the word ‘pursuit’ as much as I can because everyone’s pursuing their own adventure out there,” says Petervary. “ Everyone has their own struggles. Everyone has their own highs and lows.”
… Traffic accidents killed 455 cyclists in California from 2016 through 2018, according to new data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The figures translate to about 3.9 bike accident fatalities per million people, the highest rate over any three-year period since the mid-1990s, before many cities built extensive bike networks.
As the world’s first 3D printed bike frame hits the market Stuart Nathan investigates the advantages of additive manufacturing for the bicycle industry
Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health from
… “The floor plans of our cities matter enormously for the health of residents. Designs that prioritize motor vehicles have huge costs, including more injuries and deaths due to crashes, whereas intelligent designs that promote public transportation can very substantially reduce this burden,” said Christopher N. Morrison, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and senior author.
Sobering statistics in the Outdoor Participation Report show even kids are staying inside. “We should really be concerned as a nation that we are becoming an indoor nation,” Outdoor Foundation boss Lise Aangeenbrug says.
A team of University of Illinois researchers estimated the mortality costs associated with air pollution in the U.S. by developing and applying a novel machine learning-based method to estimate the life-years lost and cost associated with air pollution exposure.
Scholars from the Gies College of Business at Illinois studied the causal effects of acute fine particulate matter exposure on mortality, health care use and medical costs among older Americans through Medicare data and a unique way of measuring air pollution via changes in local wind direction.
Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra launched a campaign on Thursday to reforest the Machu Picchu archeological site in order to protect it from mud slides and forest fires.
Vizcarra has pledged to plant one million trees in the 35,000-hectare protected archeological complex that features the stunning Inca citadel.
“We’re here to begin the planting of a million trees in the protected zone around the Machu Picchu sanctuary,” said Vizcarra.
U.S. land managers say they will release by mid-March a priority list of federal lands that need but don’t have public access.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said they want people to nominate lands where the public could legally hunt, fish or pursue other recreational purposes, except the lands have limited or no access.