We may earn a commission from links on this page.

I just got back from CES 2026, and you can see my real-time reports on some of the best and weirdest things I saw in our CES 2026 live blog. I tried on six(!) different exoskeletons, perked up my ears whenever I heard about a new smart strap, and looked in vain for new models of familiar fitness tech like watches. Here are the biggest trends I noticed and some notes on what was conspicuously missing. I've included prices where possible; anything without a price is likely too far from market to have one yet.

The number of non-Whoop smart bands just doubled

Luna band (underside) Credit: Beth Skwarecki

This is a continuation of a trend that really got going in 2025. Whoop is no longer the only player in the screenless fitness strap space. Last year we saw straps from Amazfit ($99) and Polar ($199), plus a sleep band from Garmin ($169). At CES I learned about two more. 

The Luna Band is likely to be the next one to market—the company’s reps said to expect it to ship sometime in the next month or two. (I plan to review it once units are available.) It will be $149, won't require a subscription, and it will use the same app as the Luna Ring, which I’m currently reviewing. Its maker, Noise, is new to the U.S. wearables market but is one of the leading smartwatch makers in India. 

Besides the new hardware, Noise also announced that the Luna app will soon have a system to take voice notes to give context to your health data. (This is coming to the app in the next few weeks.) For example, if you tell the app that you had a few glasses of wine, it will remember this when it sees your poor sleep the next morning, and it will adjust its recommendations accordingly—say, reminding you to hydrate, rather than telling you to take a nap.

Speediance Strap prototypes Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Speediance also announced the Speediance Strap, although it doesn’t seem to be as close to market. No price has been announced, and the units at the show were clearly prototypes. The Strap will collect sleep and recovery data, without requiring a subscription to view it, although some more advanced metrics will require a premium subscription. 

Rings are everywhere

RingConn gen 3 Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Oura has had competitors for years (and has taken up suing them to stop sales), but it seems like the number of smart rings out there is just exploding—though not all of them are fitness or health oriented. Besides Pebble’s Index 01 ($75), which is charmingly simple, there are plenty of rings that pack in more functions—NFC payments, AI voice processing, haptic alerts, and more. There are so many I can’t give a full list, but to name a few: there’s the Muse Ring One ($323), the Dreame Ring, and the Vocci AI ring. 

RingConn announced its third-generation ring, with blood pressure insights (I’m skeptical) and haptic alerts, including the ability to buzz for a smart alarm (I’m intrigued). This one isn’t on the market yet, and a rep at the booth asked me what price I thought it should go for. In the meantime, RingConn gave me a gen 2 ring to compare to Oura and others—watch for my review soon.  

Watches (mostly) aren’t exciting anymore

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The companies that make smartwatches and fitness watches tend to be on their own release cycles, not necessarily tied to CES. Apple certainly wasn’t going to announce a new Apple Watch; Google and Fitbit didn’t show up, either. Amazfit had a new watch, the Active Max ($169) in its lineup, but it was more of a refinement to the product line than a new exciting announcement.

The only real exception I can think of is Pebble, but you’ve heard from me already on why it bucks the trend. I got to go hands-on with the Time 2 (announced last year) and the Round 2 (announced last week), which was so thin and sleek it made the Coros on my wrist feel like a big ol’ hunk of plastic. As a reminder, the Round 2 doesn’t have a heart rate monitor and Pebble is trying not to be a fitness watch brand. (I’m still looking forward to reviewing its watches anyway.) 

Pebble Time 2 Credit: Beth Skwarecki

I think the main reason for the stagnation here is that watches already have everything they need to have for fitness and health tracking. There's not a lot of room left to innovate; either you give a device slightly better battery life (nice, but yawn) or you stick something else into it just to say you did—like a flashlight or a microphone. That's nothing against flashlights or microphones, which are both great in context, but we're hardly in game-changing territory anymore. Companies like Oura and Whoop are pivoting to services like blood tests that take the focus off their hardware. My colleague Stephen Johnson said it best: tech launches don't feel magical anymore, partly because we don't have many problems left that consumer tech can easily solve, and partly because every new advice adds a hassle to your life.

And so Garmin’s main announcement this weekend was a nutrition tracking feature in its Connect+ subscription. I thought at least there was a good chance of a new watch from Garmin—nope. Garmin announced the Instinct 3 at last year’s CES, but no new hardware this year besides a camera system for truckers (I’m happy for them). 

A few other companies used the buzz around CES to announce non-hardware developments as well: Oura is finally shipping the charging case it promised last fall, and Ultrahuman announced a limited-time free tier of its blood testing service with 20+ markers. Its other tiers give you 50+ markers for $99, or a 100+ marker test followed by a 60+ marker follow-up test for $365. (Ultrahuman told me that the exact blood tests it's able to offer vary slightly by state, hence the vague numbers.)

AI was present, but not center stage

A prototype of Amazfit's V1TAL camera, which analyzes the food on your plate Credit: Beth Skwarecki

There were, of course, plenty of mentions that “AI” is baked into this or that fitness app. But the companies mostly seemed to understand that while AI might help to create features their users want, users don’t buy devices for the AI. (See also: Dell executives commenting that its customers don’t seem to want AI, and that it has adjusted the marketing for its computers to de-emphasize it.)

I heard at CES that apps are using AI to identify foods from photos (Garmin and Amazfit) or that AI is helping to find patterns in data (basically everybody). Merach did say it would let me try an AI-powered treadmill, but a rep apologetically told me the device wasn’t available in time to ship the prototype to CES. 

They’re trying to make exoskeletons happen

The Sumbu hip-based exoskeleton Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Exoskeletons were the biggest new-to-me trend at CES. These are devices that you strap on to your body, and their motors give an added boost to what your muscles are doing. Several of the companies described them as being like an e-bike for walking. 

I gave myself a side quest of trying every exoskeleton that was available to demo. That ended up being a total of six: four that assisted you at the hip, one at the knee, and one at the ankle. One device made by Ascentiz ($1,299-$1,848) can be configured with combined hip and knee action, but the knee module wasn’t available for me to test.

All six devices really did give me a boost while walking (or climbing stairs—several of the companies wisely included a mini staircase in their booths to try out). But I have to wonder who the exoskeletons are really for. If you’re not a serious hiker, an exoskeleton might help you hike up a mountain and keep up with your friends. But I’d think that only a serious hiker would have $1,000+ to spend on hiking gear like an exoskeleton—and that they would probably prefer to train harder and spend the money on something else. 

If I had to predict where this tech is going, I think the rental market makes the most sense. Imagine if you could borrow the Ascentiz for a scenic hike on vacation without having to train for months ahead of time, or strap on Dephy’s “powered footwear” ($4,500) to get you through a day at Disneyworld.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Garmin, maker of fitness watches (among other things), announced this week that the subscription tier of the Garmin Connect app will now include nutrition tracking. According to the company, the app can identify foods based on a photo, and can set your calorie targets based on your activity data. 

Garmin announced this feature during CES 2026, although a new feature announcement isn't exactly traditional CES fare—I was hoping it would show off a new watch. Still, I did get a chance to try out the feature on my own phone (and watch), and thought it worked well. 

How Garmin Connect+'s nutrition logging works

Credit: Screenshots by Beth Skawrecki

Garmin’s nutrition logging is pretty similar to the nutrition logging features on other apps, including my fave free app Cronometer. Identifying food items from a photo is a common feature, but it’s often locked behind a premium tier—which finally makes Garmin’s $6.99/month Connect+ subscription start to make sense. If you were going to pay for a premium nutrition app anyway, or if you already subscribe to one, you can consolidate those subscriptions by only paying for Garmin. 

If you currently have MyFitnessPal linked to Garmin, you may get a message saying that it’s been disabled. This connection still works, but you can’t use both that and the new nutrition feature—Garmin Connect needs to have one source for nutrition information. 

One nice thing about doing your nutrition in Garmin Connect rather than another app is that the setup process uses your activity history to help you pick a calorie target. This way you don’t have to guess whether you’re “moderately active” versus “lightly active.” Calorie estimates from fitness apps are never totally accurate, but they tend to be a pretty good starting place if you have no idea what number to pick.

The nutrition feature also allows you to view your calories from your watch, and to log favorite or recent foods. (For a full search, you'll still need to use the app.) This watch feature is available natively on newer watches, and through a ConnectIQ app for slightly older watches—the Forerunner 255 and Fenix 6 are covered with the latter app.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Garmin fitness watches are such powerful tools that you can use one for months or years without discovering some of their best hidden features. Here are 10 hacks that every Garmin user should know, from the setup steps you may have skipped, to lesser-known features you’ll wish you knew about earlier. 

These hacks apply to watches like the Garmin Forerunner line (like the 570 and 265, to name two of my favorites). Other Garmin models may vary, but most of the features I describe below will still apply. The Vivoactive 6, for example, doesn’t have as many buttons as the Forerunners, but you can still set up shortcuts for the two buttons it has. 

Set up shortcuts for touchscreen lock and more

Save yourself time digging through menus (or waiting for features to trigger on their own). By going to the settings menu and selecting System and then Shortcuts (previously “Hot Keys”), you can assign features to long presses or combination button presses. For example, on my watch I hold the DOWN button to bring up music controls, and the BACK button to turn the touchscreen on or off. You can also assign shortcuts to bring up the weather or the stopwatch, to save your current location, to turn on a “night shift” mode, and more.

Download a better watch face

Garmins come with a few stock watch faces, but you can find more on the ConnectIQ store. I’m partial to the Big Easy watch face, with its simple text and configurable data. (I have mine set to display sunset time and weekly running mileage, among others.) Other popular faces include Segment 34, Quatro, and this Fenix 8 lookalike that you can install on just about any Garmin watch. 

Customize your favorite activities, glances, and toolbox

When you start an activity, you’ll see a few “favorite” activities to choose from—running and cycling, for example. If you’re always scrolling past activities you don’t do and digging for the ones you actually want, just take a minute to configure this list. I always delete outdoor cycling (not a thing I do), but I make sure that strength and trail running are near the top, since I do those often. 

To remove an activity from the favorites list, long press it (or long press the left middle button). You can also reorder the item in the list this way. To add a new activity, scroll to the end of the list and select “add.” 

You can also customize the “glances” you see when you scroll down (or swipe up) from the watch face. If you don’t want to see your running performance or your calorie burn, you can remove them from the list. If you want the phase of the moon right up front, that’s within your power as well. Long press a glance to remove or reorder, and scroll to the bottom to add new ones. 

The controls menu works the same way. This is the circular dial of apps you get by long pressing the top left button on a Forerunner. Long press an app, or long press the left middle button, to edit this list. The wallet, calculator, stopwatch, and modes like Battery Saver are nice to have here.

Use Garmin Share to sync routes and workouts with friends

If you’re running with a buddy, you can both load the same workout or route on your watch. Just go to the end of your activity list and select Garmin Share. While you’re on this screen, you can receive shared files or scroll down to select a file that you’d like to send. 

I have a handy library of workouts and routes on my watch (more on why below) and I find myself sharing them often. If my husband wants to do a interval workout, I can beam him one of my favorites. You don’t need your phone to do this—it’s a watch-to-watch function you can do in a few seconds before starting your run.

Set up LiveTrack

I do a lot of solo runs, so I like to set up LiveTrack. When LiveTrack is on, my watch shares GPS data with my phone, and my phone sends that data to a private Garmin web page and shares the link with my trusted contacts. This way, my husband can see whether I’m almost done with my run (without bothering me), and if I were to get injured or need to be picked up, he’d be able to see exactly where I am. 

LiveTrack does require that you run with your phone (I do anyway), and that your phone has service where you’re running. In the Garmin Connect app, you select More, then Safety & Tracking, and then LiveTrack. I like to turn on AutoStart so I don’t have to remember to start LiveTrack every time. 

Turn notifications on (or off) during activities

I hate getting phone notifications on my watch, but for some people, notifications are the main reason for having a watch. And whatever preference you have for daily wear, you may feel differently during workouts. Maybe you want notifications during workouts so you don’t have to check your phone constantly, or maybe your workout time is when you don’t want to be disturbed. 

Fortunately this is easy to configure. Go to settings, and then Notifications & Alerts for all your notification preferences. The in-activity settings aren’t here, though: you have to go to Focus modes, and then choose Activity, and set up the ways you’d like your watch to behave during activities. The Smart notifications setting lets you change whether notifications come through at all and whether they vibrate or make sound. You can change other activity settings here as well, like screen brightness.

Create your own workouts

You can create workouts within the Garmin Connect app, which is a little confusing at first, but very much worth learning. Once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few minutes to program a Norwegian 4x4 to work on your VO2max, or set up whatever new fartlek workout you just dreamed up this morning. 

To get started, hit More in the Garmin Connect app and go to Training & Planning, Workouts, Create a Workout, then choose the activity (say, Run). From there, I usually start by tapping Add Repeat, which gives me a loop in which I can put my intervals—say, 4 minutes hard and 3 minutes easy, for a 4x4. You can set a pace or heart rate target for each, or even record an audio clip with instructions. 

I especially like to create Garmin workouts for timed strength training workouts, like EMOM (“every minute on the minute”) structures. I also love it for rest timing in traditional strength training workouts: if I tell my watch I’m resting three minutes between sets of squats, it will beep and start the set when time is up. 

Set up a training calendar

If you want to follow a training plan from your Garmin device, you’ll probably set up one of the built-in plans. That’s a natural thing to do, but you have more options. You can set up a third-party app like Runna to give you a training plan and sync its workouts to your Garmin calendar. You can also program workouts in yourself. 

Let’s use the 4x4 I mentioned above as an example. This is an interval run I might want to do once or twice a week. After creating the workout, I can view it and tap the three-dot menu and then Add to Calendar. If I assign it to tomorrow, then when I start a run tomorrow, the watch will ask if I’d like to do the 4x4, since that’s the workout of the day. Even without a formal training plan, I find this feature handy to plan out my upcoming week.

Connect LiftTrack for better strength training

Garmin’s strength training features can be useful, but it’s not a great app for tracking your progress over time or setting up training programs with details like sets, reps, and weight. LiftTrack is a third-party app that provides a lot of the features Garmin is missing. If you want to track strength training on your phone, do yourself a favor and set this up rather than only using the Garmin app.

Download routes (even if your device doesn’t have mapping)

Some Garmin watches (the more expensive ones) have full-color maps built in, but even the more barebones models still have the ability to follow a route and navigate you back home. This is a more useful feature than you might think, especially if you enjoy running trails or want to plan out specific distances. 

To start, you’ll need a GPX file. You can make one in Garmin Connect by going to Training & Planning, then Courses, and Create Course. Tap points on a map, and the app will tell you how many miles are in the route you’ve drawn, and how hilly it is. 

You can also download GPX files from other apps like Strava or RunGo, or have a training partner send you one—either through Garmin Share, or have them send it via another method, like text, to your phone (just open the file in the Garmin Connect app, and sync to your watch from there). 

This way, you’ll be able to follow the route from your watch. It will tell you how many miles are left, and you can swipe to the elevation profile to see if you have a big hill coming up. Your watch can remind you when you have a turn coming up, and you’ll be able to see if you’ve gotten off course. With or without maps, this set of features is incredibly useful for navigating trails or new-to-you running routes.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Radar-based sensors seem to be having a moment at CES, especially in tech meant for people to keep tabs on their aging family members. One product in particular caught my eye because it’s focused on a single important function—preventing kitchen fires caused by a person wandering away from the stove. 

iGuard is essentially a smart shutoff for a stove or cooktop. Its new, radar-equipped version costs $399 and can work on gas or electric stoves. (For gas, you’ll need to have a plumber install a shutoff valve.) If you leave the kitchen while cooking, a five-minute timer starts. If you don’t return by the time it goes off, the device either cuts the power to your electric stove, or shuts off the supply line to your gas stove. It can also notify a caregiver that a shutoff event occurred.

Why this is aging-in-place tech

A big theme in smart tech this year is aging-in-place. Most older adults would prefer to live at home as long as they can, but health challenges can make that difficult. When it comes to cooking or other activities that require a sharp mind, mental health issues like dementia come into play, as do medications that can have cognitive side effects. With all that in mind, caregivers often worry about a parent leaving the kitchen while cooking, forgetting that the stove is on. 

The National Fire Protection Association reports that cooking fires are the top cause of home fires, the top cause of fire-related injuries, and the number three cause of fire-related deaths. Unattended cooking equipment causes half of those deaths. Older adults are overrepresented as fire casualties compared to younger and middle-aged people.

The device has a five-minute timer, specifically, because that was a safety margin the company developed with safety organization UL, chief marketing officer Jon Landers told me. You can also override the five-minute timer if you’re roasting a turkey or preparing a slow-simmered sauce. In this case you tell the device how long the food is expected to cook, and it lets this cook time complete before resetting to the usual five-minute timer behavior.

Why radar is involved

A previous version, called the iGuardStove, used motion detectors, but if you’ve ever worked in an office that had lights on motion sensors, you know why that wasn’t a great solution: sit still at a table for too long, and the lights go off. The older version of the device could potentially shut off while you're just waiting for your dinner to cook, and could be triggered by motion from pets. Radar solves those problems, since it can more accurately identify when a person is in the room.

I’ve been seeing radar in a number of aging-in-place products at CES this year. The Silver Shield from PontoSense uses radar to monitor a person’s presence and movement in a room, reporting movement and potential falls to a caregiver’s app. Luna, a conversation and reminder device from Cairns Health, includes radar that can monitor heart rate and breathing (even through blankets!) when positioned near a person’s bed. The iGuard has some monitoring features in common with those devices, but it stays focused on its main task of ensuring stoves aren’t left running unattended. 

Radar can “see” a lot, but it doesn’t feel quite as privacy-invading as a camera. Having a device in the kitchen is also a bit less intrusive than in a bedroom, for those who would feel creeped out knowing that a tech device is watching them sleep. 

Besides shutting off the stove, the iGuard can report to a caregiver (via an app, of course) things like what time each day a person first enters the kitchen. It can catch nighttime wandering if the person visits the kitchen at night; it can also send an alert if the person doesn’t seem to be up and active at their usual time. For example, if your mom usually makes coffee around 9:00 every morning, you can ask the app to notify you if the kitchen is still empty at 10:00. 

Other monitoring and safety features

Besides shutting off the stove and reporting on the presence of a person in the kitchen, the iGuard has a few other clever features. The version of the device made for gas stoves can detect unburned gas, in case somebody left it on without a burner running. 

The device can also be configured to keep the stove from being turned on by pets or children, or it can be locked to not allow cooking during certain hours or days (say, at night). The app can also alert a caregiver if temperatures get too hot or cold, prompting them to check in if a heat wave or a cold snap is bad enough to affect indoor temperatures.

While a lot of products I’ve seen at CES are speculative or hopeful in their use cases—I often find myself asking “who would actually use this?”—the iGuard seems thoughtfully designed and has a concrete use case and benefit. I was impressed! The new device is expected to ship later this year.

Update 1/7/2025 at 7:48 a.m. PST: Corrected to note that the new product is named iGuard, and the previous version with motion sensors was iGuardStove.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

“Smart” glasses have been big at CES this year, but the headset that has impressed me most is a device that helps people with central vision loss, including those who are considered “legally blind,” to see what they otherwise couldn’t. At a press event, I met a woman with macular degeneration, Liz Baker, who uses them daily—and I got to try them myself. 

What eSight Go is, and how it works

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The device is called eSight Go. It’s a headset with little screens in front of your eyes, sort of like a VR headset, but small enough to perch on your nose. The device’s battery pack sits around the back of your neck, so that you don’t have to support the weight of the battery on your head. The glasses are bulky, but the battery pack design made them comfortable for me to wear. 

The device is designed for people with central vision loss, which includes conditions like macular degeneration. In these conditions, the middle of the person’s visual field isn’t clear—things they look directly at appear blurry or simply aren’t visible, but their peripheral vision is still clear.

Regular eyewear can’t correct this issue, since the information in the center of the visual field just isn’t there. But the eSight device works by zooming in so much that the person’s peripheral vision is able to process what they’re seeing, and that central “blind spot” essentially disappears. The company’s studies show that people gain seven lines of improvement on vision charts—that’s huge.

It’s hard for me, as a sighted person, to know exactly what that’s like, but Baker gave me a few examples. With the device, she can read ingredient labels and see people’s facial features; without it, those things are literally a blur. She told me about noticing her daughter’s freckles when looking through the eSight device, and using it to shop without help. (Previously, small text at stores was impossible to read; she says she kept buying shampoo when she meant to buy conditioner.) 

Practical use

The battery pack, left, sits over your shoulders and attaches to the headset with a short cable. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The device has a dizzying array of features that I wasn’t able to master in my short time with it. To name a few: You can zoom in and out with buttons on the arm of the headset, or with a handheld remote. You can increase the contrast of whatever you're looking at. You can freeze-frame, zoom in, and then move your head to read the enlarged image as if it were a giant billboard in front of you (even if it’s something small or far away, like a brochure in your hand or a menu on a restaurant wall.) 

The device costs $4,950 and is not covered by most insurance. It comes with access to a “coach” who is themselves an eSight user with vision loss who can talk new users through learning the features or helping them to figure out how to do specific tasks. 

The battery life on the eSight Go is about four hours, so I asked Baker how she keeps the device charged throughout the day. She says she doesn’t wear the glasses continuously, which saves battery life. She keeps them around her neck (essentially in a sleep mode) when she isn’t actively using them to read text or look at a specific thing in detail.

Director of sales Roland Mattern says people who test the glasses sometimes zoom all the way in and note that the image can be pixelated, but most users don’t need the max zoom level, and those who do tend to find that it’s still an improvement over what they can see without the glasses. 

The hefty price isn’t usually covered by insurance, although the Department of Veterans Affairs will cover it, and Mattern says a few users with other insurance companies have sometimes managed to get coverage. Sometimes other programs can cover it, like state-run vocational rehabilitation programs that help people with disabilities return to work. 

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Withings launched their $600 Body Scan 2 smart scale at CES Unveiled last night—but they're positioning it as a "longevity station" rather than a smart scale. The device has a handle in addition to the footplate, which allows for extra sensors, and the new features include things like hypertension notifications that we've previously seen from smartwatches. (Hypertension notifications only just came to the Apple Watch a few months ago.)

I got to see the Body Scan 2 at a CES event but haven't had a chance to use it for myself. According to Withings, the Body Scan 2 can measure "60+ biomarkers" that it says are relevant to tracking your health over time. With the caveat that I'm asking the company for more information on how this all works, I can say that it has more sensors than a typical smart scale and seems to be handling its data in a more sophisticated, and potentially more accurate, way. With sensors in your hands, and a small screen on the handle, it's able to measure and display the sort of data that you'd normally expect from a smartwatch.

Smart scales generally aren't very accurate for data like body fat percentage, or really anything that goes beyond simple body weight. A typical smart scale runs a weak electrical current from one foot to another, measuring the electrical resistance of your lower legs. The Body Scan 2 adds a handle with electrodes, which brings the upper body into the mix. The screen on the handle also allows it to display data like ECG readings or other detailed results. Since the screen is in your hands, you don't have to squint at a display at your feet. (In product photos, the retractable handle sits on top of the footplate, but at yesterday's demo, Withings had the handles mounted on little holders at hand height.

This setup allows for more detailed data than smart scales can usually measure. For example, a Withings rep told me yesterday that it can measure arterial stiffness by comparing the timing of your pulse in your torso, hands, and feet—the faster blood flows between these areas, the better. The Body Scan 2 uses impedance cardiography, a well-studied technology that can measure several aspects of heart health, and it includes a six-lead ECG. This means you can get ECG data and hypertension notifications—two headline Apple Watch features—without having to wear a watch every day.

The scale isn't yet available for sale, but Withings estimates that it will be available in the second quarter of this year, pending FDA clearance for some features. The price will be $599.95. Withings already sells a first-generation Body Scan scale, with a handle but with fewer sensors and without a screen on the handle, for $399.95.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Pebble, the early smartwatch pioneer, has added a new model to its relaunched lineup, and it’s the thin, round model Pebble fans have been waiting for. What’s even more intriguing to me is the fact that the Pebble Round 2 doesn’t have a heart rate sensor, signaling that a smartwatch doesn’t have to be a fitness watch, too. The Pebble Round 2 starts shipping in May, and is available for pre-order now at $199.

The new watch is meant to be a modern remake of 2015’s Pebble Time Round. Pebble fans loved the round watch, and every thread about new products on the Pebble subreddit has at least a few comments begging for a new version of it. That wish has been granted. (I did notice that Pebble’s website had a teaser telling people who visited the website to “check back around” to see what’s in today’s announcement. Cute.)

What’s in the Pebble Round 2

The Pebble Round 2 is a round smartwatch in a stainless steel frame. It’s about the same size and shape as the old Pebble Time Round, but has a much larger display area with nearly double the resolution, better visibility at an angle, a dramatically increased battery life, and—unusually for smartwatches these days—no heart rate sensor. The specs include: 

• 10 to 14 day battery life

• 42 millimeter size, 8 millimeters thick (that’s thinner than every Apple Watch)

• Color e-paper screen (the same technology Garmin calls MIP)

• 1.3-inch screen with 260x260 resolution

• Dual microphones for voice input

• Accelerometer

• Magnetometer

• Touchscreen

• Takes a 20 mm watch band (black and brushed silver models), or a 14 mm watch band (brushed silver and rose gold models)

• Works with iOS and Android

• Tracks steps and sleep

Eric Migicovsky, founder of both the original Pebble company and its modern incarnation Core Devices, told me the e-paper screen is the same one Garmin used in its old Forerunners. You may recall that I think the Forerunner 255 is one of the best-kept secrets in the smartwatch world, and that MIP screens have some advantages over the AMOLED displays that are more common these days. 

I’ll say more about this below, but the lack of a heart rate sensor is an interesting choice. The Pebble Round 2 can still track steps and sleep by sensing motion, so it’s not like health tracking features are totally missing. But it’s not going to measure your heart rate during workouts, nor try to capture heart rate and HRV while you sleep.

How the Pebble Round 2 bucks the smartwatch trend (and why that’s probably a good thing)

This is a really interesting list of specs, to me. Microphones for voice input are a new trend that’s been rolling out to more and more watches (both Garmin and Coros added them to more models this year). The battery life is a nice improvement, since the old Pebble Time Round only had about three days of battery life, and even today's smartwatches often struggle to get more than a few days. The thin build is impressive—I believe it’s the thinnest on the market right now. 

But some aspects feel retro. The display technology is an older one that has seemd like it was on its way out. And the thing that I can barely wrap my head around as a fitness-focused writer is how do you release a smartwatch in 2026 that doesn’t have a heart rate sensor? This is madness! Or…is it?  

Over the past few years, maybe the past decade, smartwatches and fitness watches have been converging on each other. It seems like each device wants to be able to say “we have that feature too!” so Oura now tracks activities instead of just sleep, Whoop tracks steps instead of just heart rate and HRV, and Apple—always willing to be seen as a fitness company, but always lagging behind on fitness features—finally, in 2025, gave us a real fitness app. Every watch these days has a heart rate sensor, every brand is ditching MIP style screens for AMOLED ones, and there’s no longer any categorical difference between smartwatches and fitness watches. Everything tries to do everything.

This trend isn’t necessarily good for users. For example: Garmin needed to add more features to the Forerunner 265 to justify a new model, but it already had pretty much everything a runner could ask for, at an already-premium price. So Garmin added a speaker and microphone to create the 570, and raised the price by $100. Should a middle-of-the-road running watch really cost $550? 

By contrast, the Pebble Round 2 leans into the things it’s good at (thin build, e-paper screen, microphone for input) and leaves off the things that, in theory, Pebble Round 2 users don’t care about. It’s missing both a heart rate sensor and a speaker, but its rectangular sibling the Pebble Time 2 has both. These two models sell for $199 and $225, respectively.

I’m cautiously optimistic that Pebble’s approach might signal a change in the trend. Migicovsky wrote in a postmortem on the original Pebble company’s failure that Pebble could have kept its niche as “the smartwatch for hackers” but tried to be too many things to too many people. (In that same blog post, written in 2017 and updated in 2022, Migicovsky notes that the smartwatch market of 2015 was moving toward fitness, but Pebble wasn’t a fitness company and arguably shouldn’t have tried to be one.)

“People want different things,” Migicovsky told me in a call earlier this week. He’s focusing Pebble’s new products on things he would want to use, not on what he thinks everybody else wants. That could be a risky move, since I’m not convinced that there’s a huge market for a heart-rate-less smartwatch. But I think he might be right that the smartwatch market is ready to stop being everything to everybody. 

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

I do a lot of things on a regular basis that people might classify as “good habits.” I go for a walk every morning. I hit the gym nearly every day. I prep my meals on the weekends so I always have something healthy to eat for lunch. But I didn’t arrive at these behaviors solely through habit stacking or some other clever hack. Because the truth is, most “habits” are really skills that take work and time to develop—not simple set-it-and-forget-it hacks.

Most “habits” aren’t that simple

Psychologists define “habits” as things we do automatically in a specific situation. “For example, the act of hair twirling may eventually occur without the individual’s conscious awareness,” reads the definition from the American Psychological Association.

But when we talk about building a habit, we usually mean something that we do on a regular basis. Maybe it happens automatically—that may be the goal—but it isn’t a reflexive reaction to our environment. For example, people commonly say they want to build “habits” like:

• Going to the gym

• Eating more vegetables

• Reading books

• Flossing teeth

• Getting to bed on time

None of these are simple, reflexive, or unconscious behaviors. A few are relatively simple—you could probably use classic habit hacks like stacking to make sure you floss after you brush. But most habits take a lot more work to develop.

What we really want is behavior change

Psychologists have a different term for things like eating healthy, getting more sleep, and reading a book instead of doomscrolling social media. They call it "behavior change," and there are countless studies and theoretical models exploring how people actually end up changing their behaviors.

What they’ve found is that adopting a new behavior (what we’ve been calling a “habit”) requires us to invest time and effort, and we go through several mindset shifts as we evolve from a person who doesn’t do the thing, to a person who does the thing all the time. See if you can spot yourself in one of these:

• Precontemplation: You are not yet interested in doing the thing (let’s say: going to the gym).

• Contemplation: You’re thinking about starting to do the thing on a regular basis. You might have started reading articles about what it would be like to visit a gym for the first time.

• Preparation: You’re taking steps toward doing the thing. This is where you visit your neighborhood gym for a tour, or buy a pair of running shoes. Maybe you try a workout or two, but you’re not committed yet.

• Action: You’re doing the thing. Note that this is not the first stage, nor the last. At this point, you still have a lot of questions, you may feel uncomfortable in your new routine, and if something goes wrong, you may give up.

• Maintenance: This is you once you’ve finally built the “habit.” Like maintaining a car or a relationship, keeping up a habit takes work. Things will turn up that disrupt the habit; you might take a vacation, or get injured, or get discouraged in your progress. While you’re in this stage, you need to learn to anticipate and deal with those potential problems in order for the behavior change to stick.

It takes work, time, and mindset changes to move from each stage to the next. And the process isn’t always linear: Maybe you move to a new city and miss a few weeks’ worth of workouts, and then you have to find a new gym. That knocks you back a few steps on the chart, but it doesn’t have to push you off of it altogether.

Every “habit” has its own learning process

A lot goes into even the behaviors that seem straightforward. For example, if you want to eat more fruit, you could set out a fruit bowl. But that’s not the beginning or the end of it. You need to know what fruits you like. You need to buy them regularly. You need to know how to shop for them, avoiding the berries that are about to turn moldy and the bananas that are so underripe they’ll still be green for days. (It would also help to know that the berries will last longer if you store them in the fridge, and that you can buy green and yellow bananas in the same shopping trip so you have a week’s worth of perfectly ripe fruits.)

Or to take another example: You might think of “go for a run every morning” as a simple habit. But there are a lot of things that go into becoming the sort of person who actually finds it simple to go for a run every morning.

Here's what I mean. The best book I’ve ever read on becoming a runner is not one that centers around hacks like stacking your running habit with walking your dog. It’s The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer, which at first sounds like it will offer a training program. But of the book’s 300 pages, the training plan only takes up half a page (the bottom half of page two, to be exact).

The rest of the book is what teaches you to be a runner. Before the introductory chapter is over, you’ve heard anecdotes from people who hated running and found it satisfying to train for a marathon, because it’s important to know that that dichotomy of thought is perfectly normal and does not need to stop you.

Other chapters explain why you want to buy sweat-wicking clothes, how to prevent bloody nipples, how fast to run, what to tell yourself when you get tired and want to quit, how to recognize common injuries, how to track your weekly mileage, why you should increase your carbohydrate intake and what foods will help you do that, how to set appropriate goals, what to pack in your bag on race day, and how to get through the pre-race taper without losing your mind.

These are all essential skills for any runner, and none of them come automatically, nor can they be done automatically at first. You have to learn them. You have to practice them. You have to figure out how they apply to you, personally—which mental tricks keep you motivated, which shoes are right for your feet, and so on. Even though I read this book toward the beginning of my time as a runner (I see penciled notes dating from 2003), it took me years to fully master the basics as they apply to me personally. And I’m still learning things about how to be a better runner.

It’s okay to work for (and enjoy) your habits

The classic habit hacks tend to assume that habits are boring and we have to trick ourselves into doing them. Maybe that’s true for flossing our teeth, but anything we truly want to do, we do because we enjoy it, or at least appreciate the benefits that come with it.

It’s okay to enjoy things! Even, and especially, things that are good for us. If you treat “eating healthy” as something that you hate and will always hate, it will always be a chore. On the other hand, if you learn how to make delicious recipes (and maybe even get into cooking as a hobby in itself) you’ll keep doing it and you’ll like it.

When we love a thing, we stick with it. When we feel something is drudgery, we look for excuses to get out of it. In fact, Donald Edmonson, a scientist who researches behavior change, has pointed out that we make long-term changes by taking ourselves off of autopilot.

Habit hacks still have their place

It’s not that habit stacking and other tricks like it are bad. They’re just too weak to power a long-term, meaningful change in your life all by themselves.

Each of them can backfire if and when they fail, so think that through. If you temptation-bundle your favorite TV show with your treadmill time, one day you might just sit down on the couch and watch it anyway. If you meditate every day so you can get a streak on your calendar, you might just say “fuck it” and quit meditating entirely after losing a 364-day streak. If the only thing powering your habit is tricking yourself into it, you’ll never really reach that crucial maintenance stage. Little hacks can’t power big changes.

But habit hacks do work well for simple, low-stakes items, or for smaller pieces of a larger goal. It can be helpful to think of them as reminders rather than motivation. Stacking is great for building a bedtime routine (or a morning routine, or a pre-gym routine), but that is only part of the larger behavior-change habit you’re really aiming for (“go to bed on time”). When you’re building your habits, you have to think big before you think small.

I’m sure you’ve heard it everywhere: Check with a doctor before beginning any exercise program. This is the standard disclaimer on fitness advice of any sort, which most of us probably ignore. But should you? Not necessarily, it turns out.

Why are you supposed to check with a doctor before exercising?

The concern underlying this oft-repeated statement is that there are rare cases where a person can die suddenly during exercise. When this happens, it’s usually in a person who (a) had some kind of underlying medical issue; (b) was not used to exercising; and (c) did very intense exercise that they were unprepared for.

For a long time, there was a sense among many medical and fitness professionals that the best way to handle the issue was to focus on the first part: the people who had an underlying medical issue. And because not everybody knows if they have one, you should also see a doctor if you might have an underlying medical issue. Or if you had a family history of a medical issue.

While it sounds like a good idea, the screening got out of hand. One of the most common screening tools was a questionnaire that would ask about your own health as well as things like how old you were, whether you had smoked, and whether you were overweight. One study from 2014 found that it would flag more than 90% of middle-aged and older adults. In other words, these are people who wouldn’t be permitted to exercise until and unless they got a medical clearance.

With the price and availability of healthcare in this country (not to mention difficulties involved in getting an appointment, taking time off work if needed, and so on) that’s a huge barrier for a lot of people. Pretty ironic, considering that exercise is good for your health.

The American College of Sports Medicine did a deeper dive into the numbers, and found that the risks they were screening for were very common; the outcomes they were trying to prevent were very rare (one sudden cardiac death per 1.5 million vigorous workouts, in one study), and screening people based on risk factors didn’t actually seem to reduce the number of people dying during exercise.

How to know if you’re one of the people who really should check with a doctor before exercise

The current guidelines for screening people before exercise have been changed. The American College of Sports Medicine now says “most people can exercise without visiting a doctor first.” The current guidelines—which most gyms and trainers should be using—only use three factors to screen people:

• How much you exercise currently

• Whether you have signs or symptoms of certain health conditions

• How intensely you would like to exercise

The health conditions that trigger that second bullet point are cardiovascular, metabolic, and kidney diseases. If you have diabetes, that’s a metabolic disease. If you have been told you have a heart condition, peripheral artery disease, or cerebrovascular disease, that counts as a cardiovascular disease.

Even if you have one of these health conditions, you can usually exercise if you’ve gotten clearance from your doctor in the last 12 months (and your condition hasn’t worsened since then), or if you already exercise regularly and you just want to continue at the same level. There is a flowchart here to walk you through the question of whether you need medical clearance.

Even without a prior diagnosis, signs and symptoms of those previously mentioned diseases mean that you should stop exercising and check with a doctor before continuing. These include shortness of breath at rest or with mild activity; chest, arm, or jaw pain; dizziness or fainting; and others. If you’re curious if you would qualify, start by taking the PAR-Q test, which is seven yes-or-no questions; if you answer yes to any of them, there is a slightly longer questionnaire called the PAR-Q+ that gets more detailed.

Compared to the old guidelines, the proportion of people over 40 who need to get medical clearance before exercise has been cut almost in half. And as part of the same guidelines, the doctor’s visit itself will probably be a lot simpler. Specific tests are no longer recommended; what happens at that visit is up to your provider and their clinical judgment.

So, yes, some people do still need to check with a doctor before starting an exercise program. But it’s nowhere near everybody. Most people can get started right away, and even people with medical conditions will likely be told that there is some kind of exercise they can do.

Rewarding yourself can backfire. If you tell yourself, “I’ll only listen to my favorite podcast while I’m at the gym,” it takes just one moment of weakness to realize you can cheat and listen to it any time you want. Instead, try this: Reward yourself with something that has no enjoyment value whatsoever. Like a checkmark on your calendar.

I first heard this tip from writer Tim Clare’s podcast. If you want to stay motivated, he says, the reward has to be so crappy that you’re not actually working for the reward. He said that he puts a checkmark on his calendar every day he writes, and at the end of the week enough checkmarks earn a gold star. The same approach has worked for me and for others. I have to admit: Buying myself a pack of stickers is embarrassingly motivating.

Why stickers work better than "real" rewards

Tim Clare likes the theory that this works because of cognitive dissonance: We have to change something major (our behavior) to earn something that's not valuable (a sticker), so we try to resolve that dissonance by deciding we value the behavior change. The crappy extrinsic reward strengthens our sense that the new habit is intrinsically valuable.

And as my colleague Meredith Dietz has written, experts believe that the secret to lasting motivation lies in our intrinsic goals. Engaging in healthy behaviors like exercise only works if we're doing those behaviors for their own sake, not because we're enduring our gym time as a means to an end. Extrinsic rewards like streaks and badges can gamify this process so addictively that we lose sight of why we're actually doing it in the first place. Note that I'm not saying you should chase streaks; I'm thinking more like literal stickers on a piece of paper, or a note in your phone where you write down how many miles you ran this week.

Another type of ineffective reward is the real-life splurge: promising you'll treat yourself to something (a dessert, a clothing purchase) once you hit a certain goal. Here's the problem: If you hate exercising so much that you need a bribe to do it at all, you're quickly going to find a way to have the reward without the work. There's nothing actually stopping you from listening to that "gym only" podcast at home, or ordering yourself the new outfit you had earmarked as a reward for when you make it through the couch to 5K program.

Using a crappy reward works because it just reflects your existing motivation back on itself. You check off today's work, not because the checkmark is valuable in itself, but because the checkmark reminds you that you kept a promise to yourself. There's a thrill to closing that loop, and those little wins really build your self-efficacy. In self-efficacy theory, small wins boost your motivation to keep working toward bigger goals.

The best part of using stickers or checkmarks is that it’s pointless to cheat. What are you going to do—lie to yourself when you didn’t actually go to the gym? But building up that row of numbers or stickers becomes its own reward. You’re really just rewarding yourself with the satisfaction of having stuck to your habit.

There are benefits to training in heart rate zone 2, and you’ve probably heard all about them. But what happens when your heart rate spikes into zone 3, whether when you're on a run or doing cardio at the gym? Surprise: You don’t lose the benefits of zone 2 training. Zone 3 is arguably just as good for you, or maybe even better.

Remember, the reason people are excited about zone 2 training is that it helps you build your aerobic base and burn calories without incurring much fatigue. Guess what zone 3 training also does? Yep, it helps you build your aerobic base, burn even more calories, and usually only incur a tiny bit more fatigue than zone 2. So why aren’t we all doing more zone 3 cardio?

Zone 2 is overrated

There are reasons to run (or do any cardio) at lower intensities, and reasons to use higher intensities. Easy cardio is having a moment right now, so everybody is talking about doing more zone 2. Before heart rate monitors were widespread, you had to judge what was “easy” by yourself, or by comparing your speed of running to what you knew you could do in a race. Non-athletes had the “talk test": If you could hold a conversation while jogging, you knew you were at an easy, steady pace. 

But when everybody has a watch that tells them their heart rate, suddenly we’re looking at specific numbers, and our watches color code the numbers so you know when you’re in zone 2 versus zone 3. Your heart ticks up a beat? You’re out of your zone. Straight to workout jail!

But the reality is, your body isn’t getting a drastically different workout at 153 beats per minute than it was at 152. There probably isn’t even much difference between, say, 145 and 155, as long as they’re both within that conversational-ish effort level.

Zones aren’t real

The most popular heart rate zone systems use zones that are divided up for convenient measuring. They don't have any precise relationship to what's going on in your body. Your body does have some true dividing lines when it comes to exercise intensity (like the point at which you can't speak comfortably anymore, or the point at which lactate accumulates faster than you can clear it), but these don't correspond exactly to the typical five-zone system.

The five-zone system, as a refresher, is based on where your heart rate falls as a percentage of your maximum heart rate. There will be specific percentages defined as the boundaries of each zone, and the five zones are usually described something like this:

• zone 1: rest or minimal effort

• zone 2: easy breezy conversational pace

• zone 3: ??? (this is sometimes described as a "gray zone" you should avoid—I disagree!)

• zone 4: pretty hard

• zone 5: maximal effort

It's a cute idea, and many people find this system helpful, but these zones are not based on any scientific findings that prove we get such-and-such benefits at 60-70% of max heart rate, and such-and-such different benefits at 71-80%. If you aren’t convinced, just look at how different gadgets and apps define the zones differently: Your “zone 2” might be 60-70% on Apple Watch, but 65%-75% on a Peloton. At, say, 73%, the Apple Watch would say you're in zone 3 but the Peloton would say you're in zone 2. Who is right? Neither, really.

Research on the benefits of exercise doesn’t use heart rate zones, or at least not of this type. They may measure intensity in a few different ways, including whether you are above or below your ventilatory threshold (basically, whether or not you can talk while exercising) or your lactate threshold (measured through blood chemistry, but basically the highest effort you can sustain for a long time). Sometimes they’ll measure METs, which relate to how much energy you use to do work, or they'll put everything in terms of oxygen consumption (this is where the term VO2max comes from). Occasionally these studies will send participants home with heart rate-based guidelines, but those tend to be drawn from their personal scientific measurements, rather than the cookie-cutter zones you get from an app or from watching a video on youtube.

Conversational pace includes zone 2 and most of zone 3

Let’s take a closer look at that idea of the “talk test” or “conversational pace.” The guideline to keep your easy cardio at a chatty pace does come from a scientific concept: the ventilatory threshold. 

Imagine you start out at a walk, and every minute or so you increase your speed a bit. As you work harder, you’ll hit a point where your breath becomes a little ragged, and your sentences choppy. If you were conversing with a friend, you'd be grunting out a few words at a time, rather than casually telling a story. That point is your ventilatory threshold, or VT (sometimes called VT1). 

When athletes or coaches talk about easy pace or easy efforts, they usually want you below your VT. The way people talk about zone 2, you’d think that the VT occurs at the top of zone 2. But nope—conversational pace is closer to 80%, which is the top of zone 3. For example, here’s a study on recreational runners that found VT1 to be, on average, at 78% of the runners’ max heart rate. And they tested the runners’ max heart rate, rather than using a formula based on age. (Never trust the default formulas.) 

So if you’re trying to train at an easy pace, or if you’re using the 80/20 rule to keep 80% of your runs easy, you can do those easy runs or cardio sessions in zones 2 and 3, not just zone 3. 

Zone 3 is still aerobic and still easy

Now that I've explained why the zone 2/zone 3 distinction is arbitrary, you see why it makes more sense to look at zones 2 and 3 (or even zones 1 through 3) as a continuum. At the lower end, you’ll be running or pedaling slower, burning fewer calories, and feeling like you’re barely doing any work. (Hello, cozy cardio!) 

At the higher end (or the top of zone 3), you’re still getting a lot of aerobic work done, still benefiting your mitochondria and your capillaries and everything else, but you’re doing it in less time. If you’re interested in calorie burn per hour, zone 3 is more efficient. 

Cyclists sometimes call training in this range the “sweet spot.” It gives you some of the advantages of harder training without making you too fatigued. For runners, zone 3 may include some of your tempo runs, some of your race-pace runs, and some of your faster “easy” runs. 

So what’s the point of zone 2, if you can get all of its benefits in zone 3? That depends on your big picture: If you’re doing a lot of training, you’ll probably want some of it to be in zone 2, if only to save some energy while you’re getting more miles on your feet. But if you only run, say, three times a week, it’s unlikely that those couple of runs will wear you down much even if you do them all in zone 3. 

You shouldn’t read too much into your heart rate anyway

This brings me back to my grudge against heart rate monitors. (It’s a grudge borne of love; I track my own heart rate when I run and find it useful in many ways.) 

Your heart rate doesn’t only track with your training effort; it also responds to a lot of other factors. For example, it responds to summer heat, showing you higher numbers in hot weather. It can also show higher numbers if you’re more fatigued, or at the end of a run compared to the beginning, and it may show higher numbers if you’re a bit dehydrated. When you run a race, you may find that your heart rate is higher than expected at the start, just because you’re a bit nervous. Some medications can alter your heart rate as well—beta blockers, for example, notoriously lower your heart rate.

And then there’s the question of whether your fitness tracker's zones are set correctly (even knowing that, yes, their boundaries are made up). If you’ve never run an all-out race or series of hill sprints, your watch may have never seen your maximum heart rate. So if it says that your max must be 184 because you are 36 years old, it’s just grabbing numbers from a formula. That makes as much sense as buying shoes based on the average shoe size for a 5’6” woman, rather than actually measuring your feet (or trying on the shoes). If you go out for an easy run and find that your heart rate was in “zone 5” the whole time, I guarantee you that isn’t your zone 5. If you want to be precise, do one of these workouts to test your max heart rate.

So if your heart rate creeps into zone 3 on a “zone 2” training run, that may or may not be accurate. But even if it is, if you can still breathe and speak more or less normally, you’re getting plenty of benefits from your zone 3 cardio. 

Is zone 2 or 3 better for fat loss?

Both are good! If you can only do cardio a few times a week, and don't mind working hard, zone 3 is a great place to be. It's less fatiguing than HIIT, but packs more of a punch than zone 2.

But if you have more time, you may want to work toward the 50 to 60 minutes of exercise per day that researchers have found works the best at helping people lose weight and keep it off. (Here's one interesting study where this level of exercise worked even without dietary changes.) This is a lot of exercise! To get that amount of work in, most people would not be comfortable doing it all as zone 3 training—but zone 2 is a lot more doable. The more exercise you do, the more you'll need to include easier work, like zone 2, to give yourself a break from the harder days.

So if you're doing a ton of exercise, at least some of it should be zone 2, and some can be zone 3 or higher if you like. If you're only exercising a few days a week, zone 3 is probably better.

What is the best heart rate zone for cardio?

Every zone has a benefit, so if you're trying to increase your cardio fitness, you should spend time in all of them.

• Zone 1 is good for warmups, cooldowns, and the recovery periods between intervals.

• Zone 2 is good for long sustained efforts. It's usually OK to do zone 2 in place of a rest day.

• Zone 3 helps you adapt to harder work than zone 3. It burns more fat but incurs a little bit more fatigue than zone 2, as we've discussed. It's also the zone where you'll practice race pace if you're training for a race like a half marathon.

• Zone 4 helps you to work close to your lactate threshold, which improves your endurance when you're working hard. This is an important zone for athletes, but it's usually only done one or a few times per week, not for every workout.

• Zone 5 is a very hard zone, and is great for HIIT workouts (with zone 1 work, like walking, to recover in between those hard intervals).

In general, you'll want to spend more time in the lower zones, and sprinkle in the higher zones for variety. In the 80/20 style of running, 80% of your workout time should be spent in zone 2 and low zone 3; everything from high zone 3 on up should only make up 20% of your workout time each week. This isn't the only way to structure your training, but it's a popular one that helps runners get a good balance of work in all the zones.

Is zone 3 a "gray zone" with no benefits?

Not at all! It got this reputation from all the coaches and writers who were trying to convince people that training medium-hard shouldn't make up all their training time. Instead, they should do some sessions easier (zone 2), and some harder (zone 4 for threshold and zone 5 for shorter and harder intervals). The idea of emphasizing the highest and lowest zones is sometimes called "polarized training." But this advice somehow turned into a myth about people needing to avoid zone 3, which was never true.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

A healthy dose of cardio is an important part of your exercise routine, and for a lot of us, "zone 2" cardio is going to make up a big chunk of that. Low-intensity cardio—sometimes called LISS or “zone 2”—used to be an underrated form of exercise. It's super trendy now, after spending years on the sidelines while HIIT and lifting-only routines ran the field. But what is zone 2 cardio, exactly? How can you make sure you're doing it right? And is it really so bad if your heart rate drifts into zone 3?

What is zone 2 training?

Zone 2 training is cardio done at a steady, low intensity. It has benefits for aerobic training (so you can run faster), anaerobic training (helping you to recover faster between reps and sets, or between intervals), and it's also an efficient, low-fatigue way to burn calories.

“Zone 2” is a term drawn from the five-zone system of heart rate training, and the same concept is also known by other names and metrics. To runners, it is “easy pace” or “long slow distance pace.” To cyclists, it corresponds to zones 2 and 3 of a seven-zone system of mechanical power. In other sports, like swimming and rowing, it’s often just called “easy” or “low-intensity” exercise.

All that said, there is no official definition of zone 2, and different devices won't necessarily agree with each other. The same heart rate might be "zone 2" on one device and "zone 3" on another. So please take the following with a grain of salt.

The hallmark of zone 2 training is that it’s relatively slow and that it’s done at a steady pace. You'll be aiming for a heart rate of around 70%, but that doesn’t mean doing intervals at 90% and then resting at 50%. It means holding that 70% level the whole time you’re exercising. You can do zone 2 cardio with any steady, repetitive movement. Popular methods are running, cycling, swimming, rowing, brisk walking, fast hiking, or churning away on the elliptical. (Walking can count if you're new to exercise; as you get fitter, you'll probably need to choose a slightly harder form of exercise.)

To be clear, it’s still work—it’s not the same as sitting around resting—but it should feel like you could keep going forever if you wanted to. You don’t stop a zone 2 session when you get tired, you stop it because you set out for a 30- or 45- or 60-minute session, and your time is up.

What are the benefits of zone 2 cardio?

Zone 2 work builds your aerobic base. When you do cardio at this kind of easy pace, your body adapts to get more efficient at it. These adaptations are great for your health as well as your cardio fitness. You grow more capillaries (tiny blood vessels) to get oxygen and nutrients to your muscles more efficiently. You get more mitochondria in each muscle cell (you have thousands of mitochondria powering each cell) and you produce more of the enzymes that turn fuel from food into usable energy. Your heart and your lungs get more efficient at taking in oxygen and moving blood to your muscles, and your muscles become able to store more carbohydrates (in a form called glycogen) so that more of the carbs you eat are at the ready when you start a run or ride.

For runners, your zone 2 work, often called "easy pace," should make up most (some say 80%) of your weekly mileage. The fitness you build doing easy running is what allows you to benefit from, and recover from, harder efforts like interval training.

For people whose main sport is more strength oriented (meatheads like myself), zone 2 cardio strengthens the same body systems that help us recover between sets, and even between reps. It increases our work capacity, letting us get more work done in total. As long as you’re eating enough, adding cardio into your routine should make you able to do more work in the gym, not less. (And no, cardio does not kill your gains.)

And for people who are just exercising for health, zone 2 cardio is the perfect “moderate” exercise we’re all supposed to get at least 150 minutes of per week. It’s heart-healthy, and even people with medical conditions that limit their ability to exercise can often do low intensity cardio safely. (Ask your doctor to be sure, of course.)

Importantly, zone 2 training is very low fatigue. More time-efficient forms of cardio and conditioning like HIIT, hill sprints, or CrossFit WODs are great for your aerobic fitness, but those workouts have to be high intensity to work, and you’ll be pooped afterward. They’re great in small doses, but they kind of have to be in small doses.

By contrast, easy pace work is basically free. You can work up to doing an easy zone 2 session every day, in addition to your regular training, and feel fine. Once you’re used to it, you can do zone 2 work on your “rest” days without defeating the purpose of a rest day. As long as you have the time for it, it’s like a cheat code for aerobic gains.

How do you know when you’re in zone 2?

Technically, zone 2 is defined in terms of heart rate, and the idea is that you glance at your watch and see whether you're in zone 2 or not. (There are five zones, with zone 5 being the hardest, so zone 2 is the second-easiest). But even though “zone 2” is defined in terms of heart rate, there are so many caveats to determining your max and deciding on the zone boundaries that I don’t recommend that beginners calculate it from heart rate percentages at first. Unless you’ve actually gotten your heart rate up to a maximum effort level, and know what that number is, you don’t really know your max heart rate.

So if you're a beginner, the best way to know if you’re in zone 2 is to ignore your watch and instead pay attention to your effort, and how it feels. On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is nothing and 10 is all-out sprinting, low intensity cardio is about a 3 to 5. You’re working, but not very hard. If your breath starts to get ragged, or if you feel like you're getting pretty damn tired and you can't wait for this to end, you're probably somewhere 7+ and definitely going too hard for a zone 2 workout.

A zone 2 pace is conversational, and it’s sometimes described with a “talk test.” If you could tell your friend about your day while you’re exercising, you’re probably around the right level. That doesn’t mean spitting out a few words here and there, but speaking in full sentences without feeling out of breath. If you find yourself stopping to catch your breath or if you feel like you need to take break, you’re going too hard. (That said, some of zone 3 is also within that conversational zone, but it's okay—zone 3 is still good for you.)

That said, it shouldn’t feel too easy—zone 2 is more like a brisk walk or easy jog than a leisurely stroll. If you stop, you should feel like you took a break from something. It should take a little work and focus to keep up the pace.

How do I find my zone 2?

Before you start, there's a big caveat. Zone 2 is based on heart rate zones, and to set your zones correctly, you need an accurate max heart rate. Finding your max is a trickier task than you might expect, so you have my permission to skip this section completely, and scroll down to "How do you know when you're in zone 2?" which will teach you how to get into zone 2 by feel, no heart rate monitor needed.

With that out of the way, I'll explain how exactly to find your zone 2, if you want to do it by the book. There are two steps: finding your max heart rate, and then setting your zones based on that heart rate.

Find your max heart rate

Your maximum heart rate is defined as, literally, the fastest your heart can beat. (Sometimes people assume this is a guideline, that you should keep your heart rate under this number. Nope—if your heart rate is higher than the number you thought was your max, that just tells you that number was not your max.) Here are some different ways to find your max heart rate:

• A max heart rate field test (best for people with healthy hearts and some pain tolerance): There are a few ways of doing this, but basically you're going to try to push your heart rate to its absolute max, and see what that number is. The most common way is to find a long, steep hill, and run up it three times, really sprinting hard on the last one. The number you see at the end is a good estimate of your max. Obviously, don't do this if you've been told you shouldn't exercise at high intensity.

• Your personal history (best for athletes who have experience using a HR monitor): If you've done high intensity exercise in the past, especially killer efforts that left you collapsed on the floor, the highest number you've ever seen on your watch or heart rate monitor is probably your max, or close to it. A 5K race or an FTP test will often get you close, if you really pushed yourself the whole way.

• Estimating based on easy exercise (best for non-athletes who have experience using a HR monitor): If you have a sense of what heart rate you see when you're exercising at a steady, conversational pace, multiply the highest number you would consider conversational by 1.25 to find a number that you can use as your max. This is my own method, but it's based on studies that have found the top of conversational pace to be around 77-79% of max. This isn't as good as a field test, but for many people it will give a better result than the formula below.

• A formula. I don't recommend using a formula if you have the option of using either of the first two real-world options above. Using a formula to get your max heart rate is like asking ChatGPT for your shoe size. It will give a plausible guess, but it could easily be very, very wrong. Anyway, the easiest formula is to subtract your age from 220. (There are other formulas, but honestly they all have serious inaccuracies. I wouldn't worry about whether any one of them is "better" than the others. They all suck.)

I have more here on why max heart rate formulas are pretty much all wrong, but that's beside the point for the moment. If you know your max heart rate, you can proceed to the next step.

Use a percentage of your max as your "zone 2"

Once you know your max heart rate (or have an estimate you're willing to work with), multiply to get the upper and lower boundaries of zone 2. Multiply by what? Well, there's more than one opinion out there about what zone 2 should be.

If you use a smartwatch or other device, go into the settings and set a custom heart rate (all the major brands can do this—check the instructions to find out where this setting lives.) The zones will usually populate automatically.

As I've written before, every device has a different idea of what should count as zone 2. If you'd like me to be the tiebreaker, I'd go with 60% to 75% of your max heart rate. So, multiply your estimated max heart rate by 0.6 to get the lower end of that zone, and 0.75 to get the higher end. For example, if your max heart rate is 200, your zone 2 is 120 to 150 beats per minute. If your max heart rate is 175, your zone 2 would be 105 to 132.

What happens if I can't stay in zone 2?

I have good news for you: zone 3 has almost all the same benefits as zone 2. Don't view the top of zone 2 as a barrier thou shalt not cross; it's just a way of dividing easier exercise (zone 2) from medium intensity (zone 3). The more exercise you do, the more of it should stay in zone 2. Otherwise you could find yourself building up fatigue. After a zone 2 cardio session, you should feel good. You should feel like you totally could have done more, but you're saving some energy for tomorrow.

So if you have a hard time staying in zone 2, don't beat yourself up about it. Just try to keep your effort level low, on average, so you're still fresh for the next workout. As you get fitter, you'll find it easier to stay in zone 2.

How to run in zone 2

Runners often have trouble with this, because the dividing line between walking and running is sometimes too high to maintain an easy pace while you’re running, if you’re a beginner. The next best thing is to jog as slow as you can, and when you start to feel out of breath, switch to a brisk walk. For some people, a brisk walk for the whole session is a perfect zone 2 workout. As you get more fit, easy jogging will become possible.

Here’s a real world example of how to keep a zone 2 pace: if I’m heading out for an easy run, I start at a nice chill jogging pace. But I live in a hilly neighborhood, so pretty soon I’ll be chugging up a hill and notice my breathing getting heavier. At this point, if my heart rate is getting higher than I'd like for this workout, I switch to a power walk. Jogging the flats and walking the uphills is a great way to keep your effort level steady, instead of accidentally turning your easy jog into a hill sprint workout.

How to cycle in zone 2

Cyclists often measure their training in a seven-zone system that is based on how much power, in a physics sense, you are putting into the gears of your bike. These are called Coggan power zones, and bike training systems like Zwift and Peloton use the same basic idea. To calibrate these zones, you’ll take an FTP (functional threshold power) test—basically, a 20-minute race against yourself. From there, you (or your training app) calculates wattage numbers for your zones.

Zones 2 and 3 in this system usually correspond to our “zone 2” cardio. (Your heart rate at the end of an FTP test will be pretty close to your max heart rate, by the way, if you really went all-out.) If you train with both a heart rate monitor and a bike power meter, don’t worry if they don’t match exactly. A ride in power zones 2 and 3 will meet your low-intensity cardio needs, even if your heart rate starts in zone 1 and spikes into zone 3 by the end.

How to do other forms of cardio in zone 2

For other forms of cardio, go by feel, or by heart rate if you truly know your heart rate percentages. When you’re on the elliptical or the rower or the airbike, you should feel like you could carry on a conversation easily, and stop because time is up rather than because you’re running out of gas.

If I’ve learned anything about online fitness content in the years I've spent consuming and creating it, it’s this: Stack a bunch of numbers together, and you have a potentially viral workout, from 12-3-30 to 4-2-1.

The latest is the 2-2-2 workout, which is supposed to reveal the big secret of effectively building muscle after you hit age 40. Unfortunately, after trying it out, I’m not so sure about that.

What the Internet says about the 2-2-2 workout

I’ve been seeing the 2-2-2 workout pop up across the Internet, but all the sources point back to a video from Alain Gonzalez that claims the “2-workout-2-set” method is “getting men over 40 jacked FAST.” 

That’s pretty much the whole pitch: The number 2 comes up twice (I felt like I was going mad trying to find out what the last 2 is for), and it’s aimed at middle-aged men. I’m not a man, but as a middle-aged woman with personal training and weightlifting coaching certifications, I’m in a pretty good positions to evaluate those claims. So let’s take a look at what’s actually in the workouts. 

What 2-2-2 stands for

I looked at the PDF Gonzalez offers that describes the program, and in it he does actually say what the many articles about his method did not: what the third “2” stands for. So, the 2-2-2 method is: 

• Two full-body workouts per week

• Two working sets per exercise

• Two reps in reserve on each set

It’s a fine setup, I think, and probably a lot of people of any gender or age would get stronger using a workout like this. But it also relies on two often misunderstood concepts. 

What are “working sets”? 

A working set is a set of an exercise that you think of as your “real” work for the day. This means that it does not include warmup sets, or anything else you do to prepare for those working sets. 

This means you might end up doing more than two sets, depending on the exercise. For example, I may not need any warmup sets to do my cable lateral raises (one of the exercises Gonzalez recommends), so that’s just two actual sets. But if I’m supposed to do two hard sets of leg press, I’m not going to leg press a couple hundred pounds cold. I’d start with sets of lighter weights and work my way up—so maybe that will be five sets total for the day, but only the working sets count for the 2-2-2 program.

It’s also worth noting that the PDF calls for seven exercises each day. That’s a minimum of 14 sets you’ll do per workout, with most exercises likely requiring at least one or two warmup sets, and some even more. You’ll also rest two to five minutes between sets. Emphasizing “just two sets” makes the workout sound quick and simple, but in practice, it looks like you’ll probably be in the gym a good while. 

What are “reps in reserve”?

Reps in reserve, or RIR, is a great way to explain to experienced lifters how hard they’ll be working in a given set. If you’ve never used RIR before, though, there is a definite learning curve. The idea is that you stop an exercise with two reps “in reserve”—that is, reps that you could have done but didn’t. If you’ve done 10 lat pulldowns and you feel like the eleventh would be really hard and the twelfth would be the last one you could possibly do in this set, then you stop at 10. You’ve left those last two reps “in reserve.” 

This is a common, useful way of talking about exercise intensity—see this explainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. But you have to have enough experience with that exercise, and with exercising in general, to recognize the signs your body gives you that you have exactly two reps left. Often, beginners will stop too early, and never get the benefits of going closer to failure before stopping. 

If you’re used to using RIR (or RPE, which is a similar concept), this is a fine way of planning your workouts. If you tend to overestimate your abilities, you’ll probably hit RIR 0 (that is, failure) often enough to teach yourself what those last few reps feel like. But if you’re a person who tends to shy away from those harder reps, or if you’ve never really gone all the way to failure on an exercise, RIR is probably not a good tool for you.

What’s good about the 2-2-2 workout

As a lifter and a trainer, I like the idea of 2-2-2...for a specific kind of person. And yes, probably a lot of the “men over 40” in the target audience qualify as that person. 

Specifically, this is a good workout for people who are already experienced in the gym, but can’t reliably make time for more than two workouts per week. You can get a lot done in two workouts, if each workout covers all your major muscle groups, which it does in this plan. 

The routine does have a plan for progression, which is nice—a lot of trendy workout routines do not. You’ll be doing “double progression,” which means you increase reps of an exercise until you feel ready to increase the weight. At that point you’ll be doing fewer reps, so you start adding reps again. That’s a solid approach that doesn’t take much thinking ahead. (It’s also a missed opportunity to add another “2” to the name.)

What’s overhyped (or misunderstood) about the 2-2-2 workout

My biggest gripe about this workout is just that there’s nothing special about it. It’s basic to the point of being almost common sense: Hey you, do two full-body workouts a week! Make sure each exercise has a few hard sets! Really, no need to overthink it. 

There’s actually nothing special here for “men over 40,” except perhaps that men over 40 are more likely to have kids and other responsibilities taking up their time, and thus will find a twice-a-week schedule convenient. I also find the workout selection biased toward people who stick to machines. On the bright side, you could probably do this whole thing at a Planet Fitness, and that's going to be convenient for a lot of folks. But I find machines boring. (Maybe that's a "me" problem.)

In terms of Gonzalez’s actual workout materials, there are a few things that bug me. One is that he talks about the two-workouts-per-week schedule as if it were strongly supported by science as the best option. In reality, two workouts are fine, but people tend to do better with more. No champion bodybuilder or weightlifter hits every muscle twice a week and chills on the couch the rest of the time. Even most recreational athletes with some kind of goal will do better with three or four workouts. Two is enough for most people’s goals, but it’s not necessarily better. 

Promising more results for less work is a staple of the fitness industry, so I’m able to see through it—and of course everybody says their signature workout is the best option. But if you going in thinking the 2-2-2 really is the secret to getting jacked over 40, I beg you to consider that there is never one correct answer to fitness. You can pick any schedule that works each major muscle twice per week, and it will accomplish the same trick. 

Some unexpected good news from the FDA: bemotrizinol, a sunscreen ingredient that has been used in Europe and Asia for decades, is finally being added to the allowable ingredients list for products sold in the U.S. Bemotrizinol is the active ingredient in sunscreens like Bioré Watery Essence, which has a cult following for being unlike anything we can get in the U.S.

I’ve tried Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (that’s the full name of the product) in its original Japanese formulation. This sunscreen is a cult favorite on skincare and Asian beauty forums because of its non-greasy feel, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays without leaving a white cast. I got mine from a friend who had either picked it up while traveling or possibly ordered from overseas; you can’t buy it in U.S.-based stores. 

I’ll explain why this is below, but first: it truly is nothing like anything we have locally. Even our most “non-greasy” sunscreens tend to feel a little goopy or sticky. This one really feels like nothing after you rub it in. I instantly understood why it’s so sought-after. Remembering that experience, I’m looking forward to what we might see in American sunscreens once manufacturers are allowed to include this ingredient. 

What’s so special about bemotrizinol?

Bemotrizinol has a lot of things going for it. One is that it “plays well with other sunscreen ingredients,” as one dermatologist told Women’s Health. You can make lighter, nicer-feeling sunscreens with it, hence the popularity of the Bioré formulation I tried. To see what I mean, check out this video where a dermatologist shows off the differences between Bioré's Japanese formulation and the version it sells in the U.S. The ingredients are different, and the texture just isn't the same.

It’s also more effective at broad-spectrum protection. With our current sunscreen formulations, all active ingredients protect against UVB rays (the rays that cause sunburn) but only a few can also provide protection against UVA rays (which contribute to wrinkling and aging of skin). UVB is considered to be the bigger risk for skin cancer, but both probably contribute to cancer risk. Right now, most broad-spectrum U.S. sunscreens use mineral components like zinc oxide. Mineral sunscreens work pretty well, but can leave a white cast on your skin when applied as thickly as you’re supposed to. 

Bemotrizinol is a chemical UV filter, so it doesn’t leave that white cast. But it protects well against UVA rays in addition to UVB, and it’s more photostable than a lot of our existing chemical sunscreen ingredients so it can last longer on the skin. In other words, it’s a chemical sunscreen, but combines some of the best features of both chemical and mineral sunscreens. 

It’s also considered to be one of the safest sunscreens. All sunscreens on the market are much safer than going without sunscreen, but all of our chemical sunscreen ingredients are currently undergoing a safety evaluation because regulators determined they are probably fine but need more research to know for sure. Currently only our two mineral sunscreen ingredients (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) are considered GRASE, or generally recognized as safe and effective. Bemotrizinol will be the third.

If you're looking at ingredient lists on Asian or European sunscreens, be aware that it goes by several names. Tinosorb S is bemotrizinol; so is bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine.

Why it’s taken so long

Ask anyone in the skincare world what they think about U.S. sunscreens, and for decades now you’d get complaints that we’re missing out on the best sunscreens that the rest of the world uses. (Our last new sunscreen ingredient was approved in 1996.) In most countries, sunscreens are regulated as cosmetics, but in the U.S. they are regulated as drugs. That means the U.S. requires more rigorous testing and approval. 

The CARES act, passed in 2020 for pandemic relief, provided a way for over-the-counter drugs to be sold without going through the complete approval process, so long as the FDA was satisfied they were safe and effective. Bemotrizinol met the criteria, thanks in large part to the fact that it’s been used safely since 2000 in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The FDA’s rule on bemotrizinol still needs to be finalized, but it seems likely we’ll see new sunscreens on shelves before the end of 2026.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

The strength training mode in Garmin watches like the Forerunner 570 is a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's incredibly useful in the gym. Garmin handles rest timers better than any other wearable I've tried, and when combined with a third-party app called LiftTrack, you can even track your volume and PRs. I'll lead you through how I use this workout mode, and how it's helped me do more work in less time in the gym.

How to find strength workouts in Garmin Connect

Credit: Garmin

I’ll get into how to create workouts in a minute, but first I just want to let you know that there are some strength workouts already available for download, if you’d like to just select one and start doing it right now. Go to either your Garmin Connect app or to Garmin Connect on the web, tap Training & Planning, then Workouts, then Find a Workout. 

You’ll be able to choose workouts from a library, and you can search by type (including weights, yoga, and bodyweight cardio). Most of the workouts are short, simple, and don’t use much equipment. If you’re experienced at strength training, you’ll probably want to create your own workouts or use the coach feature, but these will get you started in the meantime.

Credit: Garmin

As for that coach feature, it works much like the adaptive running coach plans. You can read more here from Garmin, but basically you set it up by selecting Garmin Coach and telling it your goals and schedule. Workouts will then appear for you each day. The image above shows a Push/Pull/Legs workout programmed by Garmin Coach. It let me choose which workout happens on which day, had me set my max lifts as benchmarks (this program uses percentages), and even let me edit the workouts to swap exercises before finally putting them on my calendar.

How to create strength workouts in Garmin Connect

Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin

I’m going to walk you through this step-by-step, because I was so confused the first time I tried to build a workout. Again, you can do this either on your phone or on the web. I usually end up creating my workouts on the phone, and it’s not hard once you get the hang of it. One tip, though: you can skip this whole process if you're willing to install a third-party app. LiftTrack takes care of workout planning and syncs to your Garmin account, and you can read more about how to use that app here.

Go to the “More” menu on your phone (or the sidebar on web) and select Training & Planning, then Workouts, and then Create a Workout. From here, select Strength, and you’ll be given a skeleton of a workout with a warmup, cooldown, and one slot for an exercise. 

To start adding exercises, tap Add Round, which will give you a workout card and a recovery card, both in a little box that says “2 Rounds” at the top. Here’s what you do to turn this into a traditional sets-and-reps format (in this example, we want to do four sets of five deadlifts at 200 pounds):

1. Tap the card that says workout. 

2. Select an exercise (deadlift), a weight (200 pounds), and a target type. In this case, the target type will be Reps (five). Hit the arrow on the top left of the screen to return to the main workout editing page.

3. For the recovery card, you’ll want to change that to Rest rather than Recovery. For that one, the target type should be Time. Let’s set it to three minutes. Return to the main workout screen again.

4. Now, tap the dropdown at the top of the round and set it to the number of sets you want to do (four). If your watch supports it, you can select Skip Last Recovery to avoid the final rest period.

5. Before you add another set, go to the bottom of the screen and tap Add Step. Change this new step to Rest (it will be outside of the repeat) and set the target to Lap Button Press.

Now you have a repeat that will give you four sets of five deadlifts with a three-minute rest timer in between. After you finish that, there will be a rest period that lasts until you press the lap button. This is to give you as much time as you need to find your equipment and set up for the next exercise. Continue adding repeats and steps as desired, and make sure to save the workout when you’re done.

How to send Garmin workouts to your watch

After creating a workout, it doesn’t automatically show up on your watch. You need to tap the “send to watch” icon that you’ll see on the top right of your screen when you’re looking at the workout. 

You can also schedule a workout (which will automatically send it to your watch for the scheduled day) by using the three dots menu to add it to your calendar. 

How to use a Garmin strength workout from your watch

There are a few ways to access the strength workouts, but here’s the easiest: When it’s gym time, hit the button that starts an activity, and rather than selecting Strength, scroll down until you find Workouts. Tap the one you want to do. 

Pay attention here: You’ll need to select the workout, tell it you want to do the workout, and start the workout. (Just keep pressing the select button until the workout actually begins.)

The exact details of which buttons do what will vary from watch to watch, but on a Forerunner, your top right button starts and stops the workout, and your bottom right button is a lap button. (During a timed rest, you can press the lap button to skip to the end of that rest and start the next set.) From the top right button, you can also skip a group of sets (say, if the squat rack was busy, you can skip squats) and then use the same menu later to View Skipped and add it back in. 

Garmin Forerunner 165 Music

$249.99 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $50.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$249.99 at Amazon

$299.99 Save $50.00

Why I like the strength training feature

I love using the strength workout feature for one main reason: the customizable timed rests. Rest is important in the gym because you'll be able to lift more if you dial in the perfect rest time for each exercise. It’s easy to sit around scrolling on your phone between sets and realize too late that it’s been 10 minutes since you did your last deadlift. But when I program the workout as above, all I have to do is hit the lap button after my set. Three minutes later, my watch will buzz to let me know it’s time to do the next set. 

Pro tip: Set your rest timer for the longest time you might want to rest between sets. If you’re aiming for three to five minutes, set it for five minutes. If you’re ready to go after three, just hit the lap button to skip the remainder of that rest. 

You can also program exercises in other ways besides the traditional sets and reps. For example, set the Target Type to Time to do a five-minute density set. Or do EMOMs (every-minute-on-the-minute intervals) by putting just one card inside a repeat, and setting that card to a one-minute target time. You’ll get a beep at the top of each minute. 

The Garmin strength features I don’t use

I don’t worry too much about the weights or reps in the app, to be honest. By default, the watch will ask you after each set how many reps you did and how heavy the weight was. I’ve turned that feature off, and I don’t even bother to set rep or weight targets in the app. I use the workouts for timing, not to log the details of my workout. (I have a notebook for that.) 

I also haven’t found the automatic set detection or rep counting to be very useful. The watch is impressively good sometimes—how did it know I was doing pullups?!—but it’s just not good enough to be generally useful. It also doesn’t recognize a lot of the Olympic weightlifting exercises I do. And the rep counting? Sometimes OK, but more often useless. Again, I’d rather jot down my reps in that notebook than fiddle with selecting a number on my watch screen after each set. 

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. 

• Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. 

It's safe to say Black Friday sale season has begun. We’ll be on top of all the early deals as they become available. This month, we've already seen deals from Garmin, Google (including Fitbit), and Coros. As of yesterday, Polar, Suunto, Oura, and Whoop have joined in. And today I'm updating this list with deals on fitness equipment, including home gym items like treadmills and adjustable dumbbells.

To keep an eye on prices yourself, consider using these deal-tracking tools that can alert you as soon as a price drops. They can also show you the history of price changes when you think you've found a deal. (Our deals writer Daniel Oropeza, who compiled that list, considers CamelCamelCamel one of the best. My personal favorite is the Keepa browser plugin.)

Hydrow rowers

Our own Meredith Dietz loves Hydrow's rowers, and two models are on sale at the moment. The Hydrow Origin is $1,645 right now, normally $2,195. The Hydrow Wave is $1,795, normally $1,995.

Shokz headphones

I love my Shokz headphones for workouts, and I especially love the open-ear design when I'm running on roads or trails. The OpenRun Pro 2, which our own Daniel Oropeza called the best bone-conduction headphones he'd tried, is on sale for $124.95, originally 179.95. You can also get the more basic OpenRun for $89.95, down from $129.95, or the Openfit 2+ (which come in two pieces, rather than the connected headband style) for $159.95, down from $199.95.

PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells

Adjustable dumbbells are a great way to start a home gym, but they can be pricey since they are basically a full set of dumbbells connected with delicate moving parts. PowerBlock is one of the companies that does this well, and several of their models are on sale for Black Friday:

• PowerBlock Elite EXP adjustable dumbbells, 5 to 50 pounds per hand, $339.14/pair, down from $449.99

• PowerBlock Pro 5, 5 to 50 pounds per hand, $466.65/pair, down from $643.00

• PowerBlock Pro 100, a single dumbbell that goes up to 100 pounds per hand, $509.15, down from $599.99

• PowerBlock Sport 24 adjustable dumbbells, 3 to 24 pounds per hand (and they're purple!), $169.14/pair, down from $199.99

Stands for the dumbbells are also on sale, like this PowerMax stand for $144.48, down from $169.99.

PowerBlock Sport 24 Adjustable Dumbbells, Sold in Pairs, 3-24 lb. Dumbbells, Durable Steel Build, Innovative At Home Workout Equipment, All-in-One Exercise Dumbbells, Strength Training, Lavender

$169.14 at Amazon

$199.00 Save $29.86

Get Deal

Get Deal

$169.14 at Amazon

$199.00 Save $29.86

NordicTrack treadmills

NordicTrack's T series treadmills are on sale. Here are the best deals:

• NordicTrack T Series 6.5S, $639 down from $799

• NordicTrack T Series 10, $949 down from $1,299

• NordicTrack T Series 5, $449 down from $599

• NordicTrack Commercial 1250, $1,388 down from $1,999

• NordicTrack Commercial 2450, $2,499 down from $2,999

NordicTrack Commercial 1250 Treadmill with iFIT

$1,388.81 at Amazon

$1,999.00 Save $610.19

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,388.81 at Amazon

$1,999.00 Save $610.19

WalkingPad

WalkingPad makes folding mini treadmills that tend to be a bit nicer quality than the cheaper ones out there. The Black Friday deals include this WalkingPad C2 that can go up to 3.7 miles per hour, at $379.05, down from $499.00. There's also a WalkingPad R2 that supports running as well, up to 7.5 mph. That one is $594, down from $699.

WALKINGPAD R2 Treadmill Running and Walking Folding Treadmill Manual Automatic Modes Foldable Walking Pad Non-Slip Smart LCD Display Fitness Equipment 0.5-7.5MPH (Black)

$594.00 at Amazon

$699.00 Save $105.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$594.00 at Amazon

$699.00 Save $105.00

Noxgear Tracer vests

Running in the dark gets a lot safer when you can see and be seen, especially if you're running along roads. The Noxgear Tracer is one of the most visible vests out there, with lights over your shoulders rather than just reflective material. The basic vest is $54.95 (down from $79.95), or get one with a chest light to illuminate the road in front of you for $79.95 (down from $114.95).

noxgear Tracer2 Visibility Vest (Small)

$54.95 at Amazon

$79.95 Save $25.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$54.95 at Amazon

$79.95 Save $25.00

Oura rings

Oura Ring 4 - Gold - Size 11 - Size Before You Buy

$349.00 at Amazon

$499.00 Save $150.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$349.00 at Amazon

$499.00 Save $150.00

Oura's standard titanium-finish rings are $100 to $150 off:

• Black and silver are $249 (normally $349)

• Matte black and brushed silver are $299 (normally $399)

• Gold and rose gold are $349 (normally $499).

Oura's colored ceramic rings are not on sale (yet?); they're $499 as usual. The Oura ring 3 is going for less than its original sticker price, but without any special Black Friday deals that I can see; here's a silver Heritage at $213.57.

Whoop bands

Whoop 5.0 Band and 12-Month Membership

$199.00 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $40.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$199.00 at Amazon

$239.00 Save $40.00

Whoop is the iconic screenless wristband that tracks your workouts and recovery without looking like a watch. All three (secretly four) Whoop subscription tiers are on sale right now:

• Whoop One with the older 4.0 device: $129 (normally $149). This option is only available from Whoop.com.

• Whoop One with a 5.0 device: $179 (normally $199). This option is not available from Whoop.com but can be bought from retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.

• Whoop Peak with a 5.0 device: $199 (normally $239). If you're confused by all the options, this is the one that makes the most sense for most people.

• Whoop Life with an MG device: $299 (normally $359).

Polar H10 heart rate monitor

Polar H10 Heart Rate Monitor

$104.95 at Amazon

Get Deal

Get Deal

$104.95 at Amazon

Polar's heart rate chest straps are some of the best in the business, and the H10 is $89.21 right now, down from $104.95. Chest straps are the most accurate way to record your heart rate, and straps like the H10 can pair to just about any phone or fitness watch.

Polar also makes fitness watches of its own, some of which are on sale today. I'll highlight one that looks like a nice entry level option: the Polar Unite is $136.43, down from $199.99.

Suunto Run sports watch

One of my favorite affordable running watches is on sale: the Suunto Run, which I reviewed here and really enjoyed, is down to $199 right now, normally $249. Several of Suunto's other watches are also discounted for Black Friday, including the Race S for $279 (normally $349) and the Vertical for $339.15, normally $399.

Pixel Watch 4

Google Pixel Watch 4 (41mm)

$349.99 at Amazon

$449.99 Save $100.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$349.99 at Amazon

$449.99 Save $100.00

The newest version of Google’s Pixel Watch is the 4, which I reviewed here, and it normally sells for prices from $349.99 to $499.99 depending on whether you opt for the larger or smaller size, with cellular connectivity or without. Right now, the wifi-only models are both $50 off, and the LTE models are $100 off. This means you can get an LTE model at the same price you'd normally pay for a wifi model.

• Pixel Watch 4 with wifi, 41 mm: $299.99, normally $349.99

• Pixel Watch 4 with wifi, 45 mm: $349.99, normally $399.99

• Pixel Watch 4 with LTE, 41 mm: $349.99, normally $449.99

• Pixel Watch 4 with LTE, 45 mm: $399.99, normally $499.99

If you’re interested in buying the older model, you’re already in luck. As I write this, the some colors of the Pixel Watch 3 are on sale for $199.99, $100 off the usual price.

Apple Watch Series 11

Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm)

$349.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $50.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$349.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $50.00

Last year’s Series 10 watch dropped as low as $329 for Black Friday. This year, the Series 11 is the newest model (see our associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt’s take on it here). Here's what I'm seeing for the early Black Friday prices:

• Apple Watch Series 11, 42 mm with GPS only: $349 (normally $399)

• Apple Watch Series 11, 46 mm with GPS only: $379 (normally $429)

• Apple Watch Series 11, 42 mm with cellular: $449 (normally $499)

• Apple Watch Series 11, 46 mm with cellular: $479 (normally $529)

Coros Pace 3

Coros doesn’t usually participate in big sale events, but the company launched a Pace 4 watch earlier this month, which costs $249 and which performed excellently in my review. That means the Pace 3 gets a price drop. The Pace 3 is now $199 instead of $229.

I like the Pace 3 a lot as a simple but powerful running watch. Another watch to pay attention to is the Pace Pro, a big sister to the 3 and 4 with a larger screen and built-in maps. No other big-name watch gives you maps on a watch at this price point, and the Pace Pro is also dropping in price, to $299, instead of the previous price of $349. Note that Coros seems to be dropping these prices permanently, so this isn't just a Black Friday deal.

Garmin Forerunner 55

Garmin’s Forerunner 55 is its most basic running watch, which I have mixed feelings about. It’s missing a lot of features that other entry-level Garmin Forerunners, like the 165, have as a matter of course. But it does great at the basic job of tracking your runs, and I’ve always felt that if Garmin could get it closer to $99, I’d sing its praises from the rooftops. It’s never dropped quite that low, though. 

The original sticker price was $199.99, and it’s often sitting somewhere around $169.99. As of today, it's equaling the lowest price I've seen in the past, $149.99. This watch isn’t getting any younger, and I think if Garmin’s smart, it'll consider a steeper price drop this Black Friday.

Garmin Forerunner 165

The Forerunner 165 is Garmin's most friendly entry-level watch. Our resident marathoner Meredith Dietz loves the 165 Music. Its sibling, the 165 (same thing, just no offline music storage), made my list of the best affordable running watches.

Because it comes in those two versions, you’ll want to pay attention to the differences. The music edition typically costs $50 more. Normally the version without music storage is $249, and the version with is $299. Earlier, I wrote that I'd keep an eye out for another drop to $199.99 like last year's Black Friday sale. Well, it's here! The Forerunner 165 is $199.99, and the Forerunner 165 Music is $249.99.

Garmin Forerunner 265 and 965

Garmin Forerunner 265

$289.97 at Amazon

$374.99 Save $85.02

Get Deal

Get Deal

$289.97 at Amazon

$374.99 Save $85.02

If I’m confusing you with all these model numbers, I have an explainer here that will help you follow along. In any case, the 265 and 965 are still good watches, and I wrote earlier that this year we might be able to expect more than $100 off for those two. It looks like my wish has come true—the 265 is now going for $299.99 ($150 off) and the 965 is $449.99 (also $150 off).

Fitbit Charge 6

The Fitbit Charge 6 is $99.95 right now This device has a sticker price of $159.95, but often sells for a good bit less, and during big sale events it occasionally drops down near $100. That's where we are right now—I've never seen it below this price. The Charge 6 isn’t the best one out there, but it fits the bill of an “I don’t want to think about it” basic tracker. If you just want to track your steps without overthinking which model to get, this is a fine pick.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8

The Galaxy Watch 8 line is on sale, and like Apple and Pixel watches, it's available in a few sizes and connectivity models. There's also an upgraded "Classic" model with a rotating bezel. Here are the current prices:

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, 40 mm, Bluetooth only: $279.99, down from $349.99

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, 44 mm, Bluetooth only: $309.99, down from $379.99

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, 40 mm, LTE: $329.99, down from $399.99

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, 44 mm, LTE: $359.99, down from $429.99

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, 46 mm, Bluetooth only: $399.99, down from $499.99

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, 46 mm, LTE: $449.99, down from $549.99

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 (2025) 40mm LTE Smartwatch, Cushion Design, Fitness Tracker, Sleep Coaching, Running Coach, Energy Score, Heart Rate Tracking, Silver [US Version, 2 Yr Warranty]

$329.99 at Amazon

$399.99 Save $70.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$329.99 at Amazon

$399.99 Save $70.00

What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?

Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers who can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog. 

Are Black Friday deals worth it?

In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.

Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?

Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Just a few months ago, Oura won a lawsuit against rival smart ring makers Ultrahuman and RingConn. Now, they've initiated proceedings against four more companies—the makers of the Samsung Galaxy Ring, Reebok Smart Ring, Amazfit Helio Ring, and the Luna Ring.

Oura announced on their website that they have filed an ITC complaint against those four companies. The ITC is the U.S. International Trade Commission, and Oura says its complaint is "for the unlawful importation and sale of products that infringe on several of Oura’s patents."

Oura's previous win against Ultrahuman and RingConn resulted in a judgment that those companies had to stop selling and importing their smart rings. RingConn ultimately came to an agreement with Oura to license their patents and continue selling their rings. Circular and Omate have made similar agreements with Oura.

Ultrahuman no longer sells their ring in the U.S., but is working on a new ring design that would sidestep the alleged patent infringement. You can read Ultrahuman's take on the situation in this blog post, which also includes a promise to continue supporting rings that they have already sold or that people may buy from resellers.

The rings in the recent complaint should still be available for a while. Oura says on their blog: "So what’s next? The ITC process will run its course." There's no guarantee that Oura will win their case, although the fact they were able to get such a sweeping judgment against other companies suggests that it's not too much of a long shot.

While Oura's communications around this issue use phrases like "respect for IP" (that is, intellectual property), as a consumer and a reviewer, I hate to see an exciting tech area get dominated by a single player or, worse, shut down by that player piece by piece. I'm working on a review of the Luna ring, which I've previously noted has some serious potential improvements over other rings on the market. Here's hoping the smart ring category remains a lively one going forward.

This post is part of Find Your Fit Tech, Lifehacker's fitness wearables buying guide. I'm asking the tough questions about whether wearables can really improve your health, how to find the right one for you, and how to make the most of the data wearables can offer.

When I test smartwatches and fitness trackers, I always pay attention to accuracy. Is my running pace correct? Does the device capture the ups and downs of my heart rate? I even got a VO2max lab test to check a bunch of watches' fitness scores. But you'll notice that one thing I don't test for accuracy is calorie burn. None of my devices come close to agreeing on the number of calories they think I'm burning, and I don't expect them to. Even scientists who study the accuracy of wearables can't answer the question in a way that's useful when you're shopping for this year's devices—but we'll get into why that is below.

There was a time, before Fitbits, when nobody knew quite how many calories they were burning on a daily basis. Sure, you could calculate a rough estimate based on your body size, sex, and age. You could choose whether or not to believe the calorie readout on the cardio machines at the gym. (Spoiler: don't.) But the idea that a gadget on your wrist could tell you how many calories you personally burned during one particular day was revolutionary. It was also wrong.

How fitness trackers calculate calorie burn

Before I discuss how accurate fitness trackers are, let’s look at where they get their numbers. For calorie calculations, the main sources are motion and heart rate data. For motion, trackers use accelerometers to figure out when your body is moving, and by how much. If you have a watch on your wrist, and the watch swings back and forth rhythmically while sort of bouncing up and down, your gadget guesses that you must be walking. If there is quicker bouncing and your wrist makes a smaller movement, you’re probably running.

This is the basic idea behind how trackers detect how many steps you’re taking. If you’ve paid attention to your step count, you already know some of the ways this can be inaccurate. If you’re shopping, for example, keeping your hand on the shopping cart handle may result in you not getting credit for the steps you’re taking. That depends on the device, though. (For a perfect illustration of this issue, see these tests I did comparing a Garmin to an Apple Watch on a treadmill. When I rested my hands on the treadmill handle, the Apple Watch recorded 318 steps while the Garmin recorded none.)

Then there’s the heart rate sensor: Since your hands don’t always move predictably during exercise, it can be easier to just tell your watch that you’ll be cycling or doing yoga or whatever. The gadget then uses your heart rate to make an educated guess about how much work your body is doing.

Whatever the source of the data—heart rate, movements, or a combination—the gadget processes it through a formula to calculate how many calories it thinks you’re burning. Your age, weight, and sex may figure into this equation. Generally, though, the fitness tracker doesn’t actually know how many calories you’re burning; instead, it’s calculating a probable number based on incomplete information.

Why there's no simple test for accuracy

If humans were robots, all built the same, all moving in predictable patterns, this formulaic approach might work. But humans are complicated, and technology often gets confused.

For example, you may get different step counts if you put a device on your right versus left wrist. And the optical heart rate sensors that a lot of trackers use may be less accurate on dark skin compared to lighter skin. These problems relate to the data that the trackers gather, but calorie burn isn't a direct measurement. It's a calculation, and different algorithms can come up with different calorie burn numbers depending on how the algorithm is designed.

The companies that make fitness trackers aren’t required to publish their algorithms or verify that their calorie counts are accurate. They can just put a device on the market, and there you are, comparing wearables on shopping sites without any information about how accurate they are, outside of the companies’ claims.

Researchers are interested in fitness trackers’ accuracy, which would seem like a good thing. They want to be able to use wearables in research or recommend them for individuals and healthcare providers, and so they'll run studies comparing consumer devices to lab equipment. This sounds like a great way to answer our questions! But there’s a huge delay in actually getting that information, and it’s often published too late to be useful. By the time a researcher buys a batch of the latest model, runs a study, writes it up, submits it to a journal, and finally gets it published, several years may have gone by, and the company has moved on to the next model.

That delay is why I (usually) can't use scientific studies to weigh in on the devices I write about. Here's a great example of how frustrating it can be: this review was published in 2025, and found the Series 1 was the Apple Watch that turned up the most often in the studies the authors were able to gather. The Series 9 and 10 watches were completely missing from the available data, and as a reminder, we're now up to a Series 11. With that caveat about delays, I still think it’s useful to look at the research on fitness trackers to see what themes emerge. Are any of them good at estimating your calorie burn?

What studies say about fitness trackers’ accuracy

Time for the bad news. A study from 2020 that looked at a variety of gadgets from Apple, Garmin, Polar, and Fitbit found that all the devices are inaccurate more often than they are accurate. The authors considered a device to be accurate if its reading was plus or minus 3% when compared to a more reliable measure of energy expenditure (that is, calorie burn) in a lab setting. Here’s how some of the top brands fared:

• Garmins underestimated calorie burn 69% of the time.

• Apple watches overestimated calorie burn 58% of the time.

• Polar devices overestimated calorie burn 69% of the time.

• Fitbits underestimated calorie burn 48% of the time and overestimated 39% of the time.

The fact that Fitbits were roughly correct on average doesn’t mean they were useful. If sometimes your device overestimates and sometimes it underestimates, it’s not very helpful unless you know which is which.

A 2018 review specifically of Fitbits found that accuracy varied greatly depending on factors like where they were worn (torso was more accurate than wrist), whether you were walking uphill, and whether you walked at a constant speed or stopped and started. The accuracy also varied by device, with the Fitbit Classic underestimating calorie burn and the Fitbit Charge usually overestimating. The devices just aren’t accurate enough to know how many calories you’re really burning

A 2022 study compared the Apple Watch 6, the Fitbit Sense, and the Polar Vantage V. The researchers had volunteers wear all three gadgets while sitting quietly, walking, running, cycling, and strength training. Every gadget, for every activity, was awarded a judgment of “poor accuracy,” with coefficients of variation ranging from 15% to 30%.

And this 2025 review of Apple Watch studies—the same one I mentioned above—found that calorie burn was, on average, off by about 18%. The authors mention a proposed standard from the International Electrotechnical Commission that recommends fitness trackers not be off by more than 10%. That's clearly not being met, although the researchers noted that newer models may be more accurate than earlier ones.

To get a sense of these percentages, let's say your true calorie burn is 2,000 calories per day. A device that's off by 15% might report that you burned 1,700 calories, or that you burned 2,300. If you're using your device to figure out how much to eat, you could be way off in meeting your calorie goals.

If these devices are all inaccurate, how can you know how many calories you're burning?

It’s probably most useful if you think of your calorie burn as a number you cannot measure directly. Treat it as a black box: I burn some unknowable number of calories, now what?

The only common reason you would need an accurate estimate of calorie burn is if you are trying to figure out how much food you need to eat. If you want to lose weight, you want to eat less than you burn; if you want to gain weight, you want the reverse; and if you’re trying to maintain your weight, you want to eat roughly the same as what you burn. But think about it this way: you don't actually need to know your calorie burn if you have the other two terms in the equation—your calorie intake, and your weight.

It's considered more accurate to adjust how much to eat based directly on your weight, rather than using calorie burn estimates as a middleman. Let’s say you’re training for a marathon and you want to make sure you fuel yourself appropriately. Well, if you’re under-eating, you’ll start to lose weight. When you start to see the scale trending downward, that’s your signal to add a few hundred calories to your diet. If, after that adjustment, your weight stays steady, then you know you’re eating the right amount. As you increase your training (or if you take time off to rest a sprained ankle), you can make more adjustments as you go.

I have a post here detailing how to make these adjustments with the help of either a paid app, a group of free apps, or a DIY spreadsheet. If you’ve been using a fitness tracker instead, and it’s working for you, feel free to keep using it. But if the tracker ever stops giving you the results you want, you can safely leave it out of the equation.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

I fell in love with cold weather running while I was training for a spring marathon. It wasn’t a choice at first: Some weeks, the weather was bad for days on end, and if I stayed home I would fall behind in my training. Everybody else in my training group was braving the elements, so I did too—with no regrets.

I got to run on quiet mornings while snow was softly falling. I signed up for a winter race that herded finishers into a heated barn for hot chocolate and soup. I set a personal record at a spring race, during which I pushed myself hard without breaking a sweat. I now find it sad when somebody tells me they’re afraid of running in the cold, or that they would run in the winter but don’t know what to wear.

No, cold weather doesn’t have to stop you from running, but getting dressed can be a puzzle: How do you keep from freezing your butt off at first and avoid overheating once you start to sweat? Fortunately, it isn’t as tough as it looks. With the right gear, your fingers and ears can stay toasty while you jog through a winter wonderland. Below, I’ll give you a temperature-by-temperature running cheat sheet, and then dive into the specifics on how to buy the best socks, shirts, and more.

Use the"feels like" temperature and the 20 degree rule

When I get dressed to run in winter, I take a look at the “feels like” temperature, not the actual high or low. I also make sure to check the weather for the time I’ll go running, not for the whole day. It doesn’t matter how warm it will be at 2 p.m. if my run will be happening at 6 a.m., before the sun is up.

The simplest way to figure out what to wear is with the 20 degree rule. Imagine that the temperature is 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than it really is. What would you wear then? Well, if it’s 50 degrees out, you’d dress as if it were 70: in a T-shirt and shorts, most likely. If it’s 30 degrees, you’d dress as if it were 50: long pants and maybe a light jacket. Get the idea? 

Everybody has their own preferences. Some people dress in shorts even when it’s snowing, while others will pop a beanie on as soon as there’s a detectable chill in the air. I’m a pretty middle-of-the-road runner when it comes to keeping warm, so here’s what I wear at each “feels like” temperature, starting with warmer weather and working our way colder. I'll give a guide to each type of garment or accessory at the end.

What to wear if it's 50 degrees or warmer

At 50+ degrees Fahrenheit, I’m wearing basically the same things I would for a summer run. 

• Bottoms: shorts or light leggings.

• Top: A tank top or T-shirt.

• Head and hands: Nothing special. No gloves and no hat, unless it’s a baseball cap to shade my eyes from the sun.

What to wear if it's in the 40s

We’re starting to feel the first bit of a chill. This is where I may start bringing gloves, although they’ll probably get stuffed into a pocket by the end of the run. Remember, with the 20 degree rule, it will feel like 60 degrees by the time you're warmed up.

• Bottoms: Leggings, lightweight long pants, or shorts.

• Top: Something with long sleeves, but ideally made of thin material (think long-sleeved T-shirt, not a full on sweatshirt or jacket). If you wore a sun shirt in the summer, that's a good layering option for these cool temps. I like my REI Sahara Shade hoodie here, but any long sleeve will do. If you run fall and winter races, you'll probably be handed a free long-sleever at some point.

• Hands: I usually just pull my shirt's sleeves over my hands, but you could wear knit gloves if you want. Consider something like Flipmits for an intermediate option (they can be folded down into a wrist cuff when your hands warm up).

• Head: A headband if you need protection for your ears.

adidas Alphaskin Headband – Performance Workout Ear & Sweat Band

$10.99 at Amazon

$22.00 Save $11.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$10.99 at Amazon

$22.00 Save $11.01

What to wear if it's in the 30s

You may see a few snowflakes drifting down, but don’t bundle up in a snowsuit. Once you’re warmed up, it will only feel like 50 degrees—so go for something in “light jacket” territory. 

• Bottoms: Leggings or running tights. The fleece-lined kind can be nice. (I have these.)

• Top: You’ll want some kind of jacket or sweatshirt. A lightweight, reflective rain jacket is great here, or just throw on a regular hoodie over your T-shirt. (I go with cotton sweats in dry weather or light snow, but I'd go for synthetics or wool if there's rain or sleet.)

• Hands: Definitely wear gloves. The cheap knit ones are usually good enough, but consider treating yourself to a nice pair of running gloves.

• Head: Your choice of hat or headband; I’d stick with the headband.

• Feet: This is around the temperature you may start to want warmer socks. That goes double if snow is in play: snow that falls onto your shoes will work its way through the mesh, melt, and make your feet wet. Wool is a good material here, so consider something like these from Smartwool.

baleaf Women's Fleece Lined Leggings Thermal Warm Winter Tights High Waisted Thick Yoga Pants Cold Weather with Pockets Black L

$25.19 at Amazon

$36.99 Save $11.80

Get Deal

Get Deal

$25.19 at Amazon

$36.99 Save $11.80

What to wear if it's in the 20s

This is where I’ll officially say it’s “cold.” Whatever warm-weather gear you were getting away with at warmer temps, you’ll probably have to swap it out now. Shorts people will break out their long pants. Headband people will wear a real hat. 

• Bottoms: Leggings and shorts. I don’t care if you think it looks goofy to wear both, this is an A+ hack. Men, if you weren’t already wearing pants with a windproof panel in front, you might want to look into those now. 

• Top: It’s definitely jacket weather. Rather than getting a warmer jacket, I like to wear the same light jacket as I did at 30 degrees, but this time with a long-sleeved, fleece or wool base layer underneath. 

• Hands: Real gloves, please. You can keep wearing your little knit gloves if you’re able to tuck your hands inside your jacket sleeves, or if you have a pair of mittens to wear over top; otherwise, get windproof gloves.

• Head: A hat, and maybe also a buff for your nose and mouth. (If you have any cloth masks still hanging around from the COVID days, they’re perfect for cold weather runs.)

• Feet: Warm socks for sure. If you’ll be doing a lot of running in these temperatures, you may want shoes that are specialized for the elements. Look for ones with Gore-Tex uppers, like the Brooks Ghost GTX.

What to wear in the teens and colder

This is where I tap out. If a run is just barely in the teens, I’ll make do with the 20-degree items I mentioned above (maybe wearing an extra layer if needed). You certainly can run in this weather if you are determined. You’ll want windproof everything, some kind of face covering, and you may need eye protection such as goggles. 

Whenever the weather gets to your own personal “too cold” temperature, remember that you still have options. The early afternoon is often the warmest part of the day, so a run may be tolerable then. There’s also no shame in using a treadmill (even if you have to join a cheap gym for this reason alone).

Everybody has different preferences, and with practice you’ll figure out if you’re the kind of person who wears three shirts before it hits freezing or the type to run through the snow in shorts. But this should give you a starting point when you head out for your first (or next) cold weather run.

How to buy the best cold-weather running gear (without breaking the bank)

As you continue on your cold weather running journey, you may need to buy some new gear or repurpose things from elsewhere in your closet. And yes, the first few minutes of your run will feel chilly. But if you’re wearing the right shoes and clothes (and planning routes with a few extra factors in mind, which I’ll discuss below) winter running is not just feasible, it’s actually fun. So here are the items you may want to consider 

Socks

Your feet need to be warm and, if possible, dry. Warm socks go without saying, but there are some extra considerations when you’re picking socks to run in.

Wool socks are ideal because they keep your feet warm even when they get wet. You may not think of winter as a wet time, but any snow that meets up with your body heat will turn into water. If you don’t have wool socks, synthetic wicking fabrics are a good second choice. Cotton is a no-no

First, the socks have to be able to fit into your shoes. If you’ve been running in super thin cotton or synthetic socks all summer, thick socks may not fit. Smartwool run socks are available in a thin version that can fit no problem—but in colder weather you’ll want some thickness for extra warmth. That thickness, in turn, may mean that your winter running shoes need to be roomier than the shoes you wear in summer. If you’re buying a new pair, make sure to try them on with the type of socks you intend to run in.

Shoes

If your warm socks fit, you can make do with the same shoes you wore in the summer. Your feet will stay dry if the weather is dry and you stay out of puddles. If you encounter snow and slush, though, your feet will have to endure warm-but-wet conditions for the rest of your run. That can be okay for short runs, but for serious winter running, consider upgrading your shoes.

Some running shoes are available with water-resistant uppers. This level of water resistance will keep stray snowflakes out of your socks, but it isn’t reliable if you’ll be stepping in slush puddles. In that case, you’ll want something more waterproof, like Gore-Tex shoes, many of which are made for running trails.

Brooks Women’s Ghost 17 GTX Waterproof Supportive Running & Walking Shoe - Coconut/Oyster/Blue - 5 Medium

$169.95 at Amazon

Shop Now

Shop Now

$169.95 at Amazon

If you expect to run on a lot of ice or packed snow, especially on trails, spikes can give you a little extra grip.

• Yaktrax makes a rubber harness that stretches to fit your shoe, with steel coils and small spikes, for about $35.

• Microspikes are a notch up from there, costing around $75 for what look like a miniature version of the chains you’d put on car tires.

• And if you’re really dedicated—and are seeking a purpose-built pair of snow shoes—you can attach individual spikes: either these traction spikes from IceSpike, or via a DIY approach using sheet metal screws. (There’s a tutorial here.)

The versions that include rubber, like Yaktrax, can wear out quickly on pavement, so it’s best to save these for runs on trails or on unplowed paths. You’ll also want to be careful about the fit. I tried a pair that were similar to Yaktrax, but they were a tad too big. Shortly into my run, I found that the rubber stretched enough to pull the front set of spikes up over the top of my shoe. I've since gotten better-fitting ones, and they work great.

Spikes and specialized shoes help you go more places, in worse weather—but remember that they’re not required to just head out on a chilly day. Regular shoes are fine if the weather is cold but dry, or if you’re willing to put up with a little moisture.

Shirts and jackets

On a chilly day—say, in the 50s—a long sleeved T-shirt is probably all you need. Wear it over your regular tee or tank, and you can take it off and tie it around your waist once you warm up.

For colder weather, you’ll want to break out a light jacket or sweatshirt. This is when you experience one of the hidden perks of winter running: extra pockets! 

By the time temps dip into the 20s or below, you’ll be doing some serious layering: for example, an undershirt, a long-sleeved warm layer, and a jacket. A great option for that warm layer is a wool base layer like this one. (Don’t worry, it’s not itchy). If you can’t wear wool, there are synthetic ones as well.

Before you run out to buy all new clothes, experiment with what’s in your closet. Try fleece or a repurposed thin sweater, for example. Some people would never wear cotton for running (it can be cold when wet), but I wear it as my undershirt layer and have lived to tell the tale. 

The jacket is the most important layer. You can grab a sweatshirt in a pinch, but to be really well-equipped for nasty weather, you’ll want a jacket that is windproof and water-resistant. Jackets made for running are lightweight, for layering. Consider ones that are visible at night, with bright colors and reflective areas, and that come with zippered pockets. 

BALEAF Mens Cycling Rain Jacket Windbreaker Waterproof Running Gear Golf Mountain Biking Hood Lightweight Reflective Yellow XL

$44.79 at Amazon

$59.99 Save $15.20

Shop Now

Shop Now

$44.79 at Amazon

$59.99 Save $15.20

Leggings, tights, and pants

Once it’s too cold for shorts, you’ll want to start layering your bottoms, too.

Women are at an advantage here, since most of us already have leggings in our closet. (It’s fine to wear cotton if it’s dry out, but go for synthetics if it’s snowing.) Pants that aren’t form-fitting tend to let cold air in. That’s why leggings or “running tights” like these are standard winter wear for both men and women.

Running tights come in different thicknesses; go for something fleece-lined for cold weather, or layer two pairs. And if your butt gets cold—or if you just want to be modest—feel free to wear a pair of shorts on top.

And if you want more protection, consider underwear with a windproof panel on the front. One Amazon reviewer quips: “If you have ever run, even for a little, with your hand down the front of your pants for fear of frostbite, you need these.” 

Accessories

You need to keep your ears warm, but don’t reach for a winter hat right away: an earwarmer or headband can cover your ears while still letting heat escape from the top of your head. And if anything is falling from the sky (say, snow), a baseball cap will keep it out of your eyes.

ZYXBBD Ear Warmers for Women and Men-Fleece Winter Ear Warmer Headband Ear Muffs for Jogging Running Hiking Cycling Skiing (Black+Red)

$9.97 at Amazon

Shop Now

Shop Now

$9.97 at Amazon

Fleece or knit hats are great for cold enough days, of course. The dividing line between earwarmer weather and hat weather is a personal one, and depends on whether you’re overheating. If you’re wearing a hat but sweating into your base layers, the hat is probably overkill.

Gloves, however, are essential. I keep a pair of cheap knit gloves in my jacket pockets, but windy or very cold days call for something stronger. You can layer gloves; I find gloves under mittens work well. You can also get windproof insulated gloves, which are warmer than any number of layers of hole-y knit gloves.

Your face will freeze on windy or very cold days, so this is where your stash of pandemic face masks really shines. Any mask will help to protect your face, even if you’re on your own outdoors and don’t need it for infection control. In that case, go for comfort: consider a balaclava or even a fleece-lined bandana. A neck gaiter stays on better than a scarf, if your neck is cold. At this point, every inch of you is covered but your eyes. Sunglasses can take care of that.

How to stay safe in the dark and the cold

The winter world can be dark, slippery, and (surprise!) cold. Here are some tips for dealing with some of the likely hazards.

• It gets dark earlier in the winter, so you’ll need to make adjustments to your evening or early-morning runs. Either switch to midday runs, or prepare to spend a lot of time running in the dark. That will require, at minimum, wearing reflective clothing and carrying a flashlight. (Better to wear a headlamp.) Plan routes where you feel safe even in the dark. In the winter I spend less time on trails and more time on the local school’s well-lit running track. We have tips to find a track near you. 

PETZL TIKKINA Headlamp - Compact, Easy-to-Use 300 Lumen Headlamp, Designed for Hiking, Climbing, Running, and Camping - Grey

$48.49 at Amazon

Shop Now

Shop Now

$48.49 at Amazon

• Slipping on ice sucks. Some ice you can see at a distance, but some you can’t. And remember that you won’t have your ice spikes if you’re running on paved, plowed surfaces. So keep a close eye out, and don’t be afraid to slow down to a penguin walk on areas you’re unsure about. Running a short loop multiple times lets you watch for ice on the first lap and put your mind at ease a little bit the next few times.

• The track probably won’t be plowed. If you depend on a track for speedwork, and it’s unavailable or impassible, you’ll have to make other arrangements. The easiest adjustment is to convert your usual intervals into time: If you normally run your 400-meter laps in two minutes, do intervals of two minutes at a time while running on a road or on the treadmill. (Then again, if you showed up to the track with a shovel, probably nobody would stop you, and it would be a great workout.)

• Busy roads may become unrunnable. If you normally run on the shoulder, be aware that snowplows will deposit piles of snow, which then solidify into little ice mountains, right in your running zone. If that leaves nowhere to run except in traffic, you’ll have to change your route.

• Water fountains may be turned off. This one is a warning for those of us that run in parks: If you depend on outdoor water fountains, they may not be available, so pack your own water bottle or detour to another source of water. Bathrooms, or seasonal businesses whose bathrooms you’ve used, may also be closed. Porta-potties may disappear for the season.

• You may not be able to drive. If you usually drive to the start of your running route or the place you meet up with a running group, some days may be too snowy to get there safely—even if you’re well equipped for the run itself. Make a backup plan by scouting out some routes in walking distance of your home.

Know when to take it inside

While you can mitigate winter running’s hazards, you can’t make them go away: even the most intrepid runners have to take a treadmill day every now and then. A little flexibility in your training plan can help you stay safe without feeling guilty about skipped workouts.

Being in the cold and wet for too long can lead to hypothermia or frostbite, so pay attention to the conditions you’re heading out in. That includes checking the weather forecast and having a backup plan in case the weather gets too dangerous. For example, running a series of loops instead of one longer route lets you easily cut a run short. Or, you could plan long runs in areas that have plenty of buildings you could duck into to wait for a bus or an Uber car.

On days you just can’t run outside, go to an indoor track if there’s one in your area. Sometimes gyms or YMCAs will have a tiny track that’s better than nothing—the one near me has 13 laps to a mile. Then there’s always the trusty treadmill. Intervals keep things interesting, or you can try these tips to survive a long treadmill run.

And finally, staying safe is more important than any one workout—so be smart and stay home if the weather is too bad to run and too bad to drive to the gym. But on those beautiful winter days, when perhaps the snow is falling but the wind is gentle, layer up and enjoy.