Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise:
May 2006 - Volume 38 - Issue 5 - p S500-S501
Friday Afternoon Poster Presentations: Posters displayed from 1:00-6:00 p.m.: One-hour author presentation times are staggered from 2:00-3:00 p.m., 3:00-4:00 p.m., and 4:00-5:00 p.m.: F-30 Free Communication/Poster - Exercise Equipment and Monitoring Systems: FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2006 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM: ROOM: Hall B
Fitness-related Global Positioning Systems (GPS) could be used by researchers as a tracking tool for quantifying distance traversed. The 95% accuracy of these devices claimed by their manufacturers, however, has never been tested.
PURPOSE: To examine the accuracy of two brands of fitness-related GPS units, the Garmin Forerunner 201 and Timex Ironman Platinum Model 58681, during running. MetHoDs: Twenty-two subjects (13 men, 9 women) were asked to run two 5-km bouts around a 400 meter track within one week. During one 5-km run, the subject wore the Garmin unit on his/her upper arm (GA) and the Timex unit was clipped to the waist (TW). During the other 5-km run trial, the Garmin unit was strapped to the wrist (GW) and the Timex unit was affixed to the upper arm (TA). All GPS units were positioned on the left side of the body. The order of the two trials was randomly selected but occurred at the same time of day.
RESULT: The mean values (±SD) for the GA, GW, TA, and TW were 5.15 (± 0.16), 5.18 (±0.11), 5.15 (±0.07), and 4.83 (± 0.10) km, respectively. All four unit placement sites were shown to be significantly different (p < .05) than the 5-km distance. The accuracy of these devices, however, was determined to be between 96% and 97%.
CONCLUSION: Fitness-related GPS devices provide a fairly accurate representation of distance traveled during running on a flat surface.