Knowing vs Guessing: A Triathlete's Advantage
With running and biking, triathletes are able to see their data in the moment with a quick glance at their watch or bike computer. They can carefully monitor a seemingly endless list of metrics including their pace, cadence, heart rate, and power, and to ensure that they are nailing every workout, every interval to a tee.
Swimming is a different beast. In a pool, triathletes are stuck either waiting until they get to the wall to check the clock, or potentially breaking their stroke to sneak a quick glance at their watch. In the open water, it’s even harder; there are often no distance markers, there is definitely no wall clock, and there can also be external elements like waves, wind, and chop. Sure there are GPS watches that can track your metrics, but again, to see them, triathletes have to stop or compromise their technique to get this useful information while swimming.
That’s where the FORM Smart Swim Goggles prove their value. In using the FORM goggles, you’re doing the same thing cyclists and runners have been doing since the development of the GPS watch and bike computer: adding quantifiable data, available in real-time.
But first, what exactly are smart swim goggles?
The FORM goggles take the principles of your running watch or bike computer and put your swim metrics directly into your goggles. With the technology to measure your head movements and turn them into all the information you need for your swim, they track your distance, your pace, your stroke rate, and even know what stroke you’re swimming. All automatically. All you need to do is put them on and swim. And best of all? They include a display within the goggles, and relay all this right in front of your eyes. And don’t worry, obviously, you still need to see your surroundings, so this display is designed to not take over your line of sight. Think of it as your stats “floating” in the water in front of you.
So that defines what smart swim goggles are, but why do you need them? What’s the value of real-time data? We've identified four ways where training with live data can help you make the most of your swim.
1. Take out the guesswork
This one is a no-brainer - literally. The FORM goggles truly take the guesswork out of your pool or open water workouts. That is, it parses out all the things you “think” or “feel.” You “think” you’re going slowly because you’re cold. You “feel like” the effort has you overdoing your interval. With the FORM goggles, there’s no guesswork: you’ll know with 100 percent certainty whether or not you’re hitting your marks. This allows you as a swimmer to focus on the interval or the race. If you already know you’re on your proper pace, you can eliminate all mental doubts that thinking (and often, overthinking) can bring midway through a swim.
2. Nonstop data
While training, you no longer have to wonder how you are doing, as the FORM goggles give you the ability to track and record your distance and heart rate, and to perform your workout based on this information live through the goggles. For pool swimming, you no longer have to wait until each time you take a rest at the wall or sneak glance at your watch to see how you are doing. In open water, you are literally swimming blind, since there’s no wall to stop and check your progress. That’s where the FORM goggles shine. You can know your 100-meter time, 200-meter time - and anywhere in between - and know if you’re on pace… while swimming.
3. Proper pacing improves performance and maximizes gains
Ever done a race where you feel fresh and strong, blast out of the gates during the opening meters to keep pace with the rest of the swimmers... but a few hundred meters in, you blow up, have to recover, then start again... this time further back in the field? Or in a pool, ever find you start a long interval strong for the first quarter, only to fade and be grasping for the wall by the end?
Knowing your pace - right from the start - will teach you to hold yourself back and stay on a pace you know you can sustain, preventing you from going out too fast at the beginning of any swim. Ease into it and settle into your target pace - your FORM goggles data can act as a leash, allowing you to keep your effort in a sustainable zone for the entire swim.
And don’t worry; many (if not most) of those overzealous swimmers in the race are going to overdo it… and you’ll catch them as you finish strong.
4. Train smarter with guided workouts
You know the old saying—train smarter, not harder. Well, FORM workouts are here to help you accomplish that. Having an ever-growing workout library full of guided workouts to choose and sync to your goggles is a training gamechanger. Swimmers with premium have access to guided workouts, progress notifications, and real-time metrics in their FORM goggles. With new workouts added weekly, your triathlon swim training will always stay fresh, motivating, and fun.
Indeed, there are lots of wrist-based swim tracking tools out there, but none match the value of having a world-class swim tracker that also gives you stats live while you swim (and your data is, of course, all reviewable after your swims in the FORM app too). Prepare yourself the best to succeed in training and racing by knowing your swim data. See how FORM can help you train smarter for your next triathlon.
