Everyone agrees that exercise is good for you. If you’re overweight, if your blood pressure is creeping up, if you’re at risk for diabetes, exercise will be at the top of your doctor’s “get well” prescription. Exercise is known to help prevent heart attack, stroke and diabetes. Exercise can lower your risk of contracting certain types of cancer. For many, exercise can be as effective as medication in controlling depression and anxiety. If we want to be healthy, doctors say the best thing we can do is exercise briskly for 30 minutes 3 times a week.

So why is something that sounds so easy so hard to do. Well, most people say exercise is boring; but it doesn’t have to be. GPS devices can put the ”fun” back into exercising. Cool GPS sports watches bring a new element of challenge to running, walking or biking. Geocaching using handheld GPS units can turn exercise into an activity the whole family can enjoy. Adding whiz-bang GPS technology to your exercise routine can not only rejuvenate your own interest in exercise, but is a great way to hook the younger, video-game generation on healthy physical activity.

• Geocaching GPS. Geocaching is a modern day version of a treasure hunt. Using a handheld GPS you follow coordinates to a hidden cache which can be anything from a tiny film canister hanging from a tree limb to an old ammo box jammed under a rotting tree limb. “Treasures” range from log books that let you see who else has found the cache to unusual trinkets you can take home. The fun is in the hunt.
• Fitness GPS. A variety of cool cycling and running/walking GPS devices allow you to plot routes, track performance, monitor your heart rate and perform in-depth analysis of your workouts through web-based applications. It’s like having your own personal trainer along for every exercise session. You can chart progress and see improvement with each workout. GPS adds the motivating element of competition to solitary exercise.

We’ve mentioned before how a GPS navigation device can get you ready for competition. Looking for further proof? Look no further than Olympic cyclist Kristin Armstrong. Armstrong is a gold medal winner and top notch athlete. She and her coach went to Beijing ahead of time to check out the terrain and train for what they had heard would be unbearable air pollution.

Now it is one thing to train, but it is another thing to train and also capture and analyze data from the experience. Armstrong did this using a GPS device. Without the GPS device, she would have had to rely solely on her memory of training in Beijing for the many months she had between her trip and the actual Olympics. Her husband urged her to take on of his GPS devices with her to China to get an elevation profile as she rode and this advice proved to be invaluable.

Once she was back in the U.S., Armstrong was able to export the data from the GPS device. She used this information to search out a course that would approximate the one she’d be competing on as part of the Olympics. The ability to find a similar trail combined with the elevation data gleaned on her trip to China definitely helped Armstrong and gave her the edge she needed to capture a gold medal.

A GPS device like the Garmin Edge 605 Cycling Fitness Training Navigator GPS will automatically measures your speed, distance, time, calories burned and altitude.  The customizable cycle computer shows up to eight different data fields for continuous feedback With a simple connection to your computer, you can join a worldwide network of cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts through Garmin Connect our new, one-stop site for data analysis and sharing. You can also upload the optional Garmin Training Software for further analysis.

ActionGPS.com has the Garmin Edge 605 and other great GPS devices designed for cycling.

The day is coming when paper maps will be no more than antique shop curiosities. Like cassette tapes, VHS movies and (soon) analog TV, roadmaps and street directories are becoming modern day dinosaurs. Maps have gone digital and GPS devices are now the preferred method of getting from point A to point B. In fact, incoming college freshman, most born in 1990, have never known a world without GPS — or caller ID, Harry Potter, Nintendo Game Boy, karaoke, plastic soda bottles, and late night TV with Leno and Letterman, according to the Beloit College Mindset List, an annually published list of common collegiate references geared to help college professors update their teaching references and make the rest of us feel old.

GPS technology was developed by the military and honed to deadly accuracy during the Gulf War. (They bragged about hitting targets the size of a 50-cent piece.) When they first hit the consumer market, GPS devices were a bit unwieldy and exorbitantly priced, kind of like early mobile phones. But like phones, which have gone from the size of a hefty brick to not much bigger than a credit card, advances in electronic circuitry have trimmed the size and price of GPS units each year. Today, you can buy a GPS unit that fits in your pocket or purse for less than the cost of your monthly cell phone bill, particularly if you live with teenagers.

GPS devices have become so popular that sales topped $4.1 billion last year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. In a CEA survey, 18% of online adults already owned a GPS device and 24% wanted one. With online suppliers like ActionGPS offering GPS devices at highly affordable prices, there’s no reason to live with envy. Owning a GPS is within the financial grasp of even the most budget conscious, particularly if you buy one of ActionGPS’ very affordable factory refurbished models. To view our full line of GPS devices, visit the ActionGPS website.

This year’s Summer Olympics are over, but it is never too early to get a head start on the next Olympic Games. Well, maybe you haven’t set your sites quite that high. Perhaps you just want to improve your level of fitness for overall health. Or maybe you are involved in athletic competition, on the state or local level.

A fitness GPS device like the Garmin Forerunner 101 GPS Fitness Trainer can help you get ready no matter what your fitness goals. It measures speed, distance, pace, and calories burned. The Forerunner 101 is a great GPS device for those who are just starting out. It stores up to two years’ worth of lap history in memory, so you can use it to get started and look back to see your progress.

And don’t forget, the Forerunner 101 is still a GPS device, which means it is still in the business of navigation. So if you decide to hit some new trails or work out somewhere new, you can still make your way back home.

If you want a fitness device to keep up with you and your heart, pick a GPS fitness device like the Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Fitness Trainer with Heart Rate Monitor. This versatile GPS device helps you train in your optimal heart rate zone. As an added benefit, you can plan, analyze and store data from your workouts using free Garmin Training Center software, which lets you analyze data with interactive graphs that chart your pace, time, distance and heart rate. The analytical capabilities that the Forerunner 305 provides will help you to make the most of your workout time. With the data it provides you really can optimize your workout and improve your performance.

Visit ActionGPS.com to learn more about these and other great Fitness GPS devices.

The Garmin Edge 305 GPS with Cadence Speed Sensor puts the “fun” in functional and when you choose it, you are getting a great ridealong partner to help you take your cycling to the next level. It provides state-of-the-art technology and it is rather good-looking too. It has a sleek look and easy-to-read display so you will never be embarassed to be seen with it.

As your partner in fitness, the Edge 305 works to help you achieve your personal best. Certainly, you do well on your own, but we all can use a little help.

Edge 305 comes packaged with a heart rate monitor and a speed / cadence sensor. These wireless sensors use ANT technology to send valuable workout data to the Edge.
Here are more reasons why you should bring the Garmin Edge 305 along for the ride:

Two- way Relationship The Edge 305 provides you with the information you need and also records information about your pedaling cadence and wheel speed. You can use it to train indoors as well as out of doors because the sensor can be attached to your rear wheel.

Ever-alert The Edge 305 features a high-sensitivity receiver that can retain a signal under a tree of near a tall building. The Auto Lap feature will automatically trigger a lap each time that you ride by a certain spot or cycle a pre-determined distance.

Racing Partner Those of you who get by with a little help from your friends (or enemies) will be glad to know that Edge 605 lets you race a virtual competitor.

The Garmin Edge 605 Cycling Fitness Training Navigator GPS promises to help you take your cycling to the next level and it delivers.

It has a highly sensitive GPS receiver that gets information quickly. This improved tracking feature means that you will not loose tracking capabilities as you ride past tall buildings or under trees.

As you ride, the rugged Edge 605 is keeping track of your speed distance, altitude, calories burned, and time. In addition to recording action in the moment, the Garmin Edge 605 has a brilliant memory and will keep records of recorded courses so that you don’t have to. You can “race” against a recorded course and try to match speeds you have already set. The Auto Lap will also trigger a lap each time you pass a specified location or travel a preset distance.
You can even store, analyze and share your stats for the world to see with Garmin’s online training community. Of course sometimes you’d rather train alone and not tell the world what you are doing. But still, a little competition can be a great motivator. If that is the case then the Garmin 605’s Virtual Partner lets you race a virtual competitor over a specified distance and speed, making training fun.

If you are cycler then you want to work on your cycling and not on assembling or configuring devices to assist you. This is why the Garmin Edge 605 is easy to install. It does not need to be calibrated–you just snap it into the bike mount and you are ready to go. Visit Action GPS to check it out–with a color display and ultra cool training features, you’ll see that the Edge 605 has it all.

Many of our newer readers often ask us to provide them with basic information in helping them choose a GPS unit. We often get questions like how difficult is it to operate a gps unit? Is there a monthly usage fee? Which model is right for me? While this blog has answered all of those questions in some form, we understand that it would be beneficial to our readers to make this information available in an an easily accessible area. Therefore, we are pleased to announce that we will soon be launching ‘The GPS Learning Center’ on ActionGPS.com.

The Learning Center will include some basic information on topics such as gps technology, geocaching, and bluetooth. Additionally, the Learning Center will feature buying guides for the automotive, fitness, marine, and outdoor GPS categories. In the future, we will also be adding gps tips along with best practices to further enhance your GPS experience.

We expect the Learning Center to be live Monday, August 11th. Be sure to check the homepage at actiongps.com then.

- ActionGPS Staff

It takes a lot to feed athletes and the Garmin-Chipotle racers, competing in this year’s Tour de France, are no exception. If the average person is supposed to do all they need to do on a 2000 calorie a day diet, imagine what a cyclist needs…this year’s Tour de France riders need between 7000 to 7500 calories for some parts of the race. At other times, when they will cycle through mountains, they could burn through 9000 calories.

And that is just food, let’s not even begin to talk about water. The riders had the help of a competent staff to prepare rations for them. They didn’t get regular water. The Garmin-Chipotle team drank water that was specially prepared with a carefully-measured amount of a sports drink with electrolytes.

If you are a cyclist, you probably do not employ a staff to prepare you to get ready to ride, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to prepare. Get some water, get a good meal and get a Garmin to help you keep tabs on your rides.

A GPS device like the Garmin Edge 605 Cycling Fitness Training Navigator GPS comes loaded with everything you need to make the most out of your ride. Get cycle computer data and mapping detail, all from one compact, easy-to-use device.

The Edge 605 automatically measure important stats like your speed, distance, time and the number of calories you burn. You can store these stats to analyze them and prepare for future rides. The Edge 605 also lets you share your stats with other members of Garmin’s online training community. If you are a member of a cycling club and the other members get a join, you can share stats with each other and with other a worldwide network of cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts.

Garmin, a manufacturer of high-quality GPS navigation devices, teamed up with Chipotle to put a cycling team in this year’s Tour de France. Team Garmin-Chipotle’s roster had three of the four American cyclists that participated in the famous bike race.

The Tour de France started on Saturday, July 5 and it will continue until Sunday, July 27. This is the 95th Tour de France and it will span a distance of 3,500 kilometers. The race has many varied stages including: 10 flat stages, 5 mountain stages, 4 medium mountain stages and 2 individual time-trial stages.

That is a whole lot of cycling. It is exhausting just thinking about it.

Maybe you are not ready to take on the Tour de France. But perhaps you are ready to get more serious about your own cycling or fitness regime. If that is the case, then Action GPS and Garmin are ready to help. Visit the Action GPS website and check out the selection of Fitness GPS devices available.

One such device is the Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS Green Sports Watch with Heart Rate Monitor. If you are an athletic type, the Forerunner will allow you to cross train. Pair it with an optional foot pod to track your speed, distance and running cadence indoors when a GPS signal is unavailable. This new design clips onto your laces for easy removal and automatically turns on when you start moving. You can also add a speed/cadence bike sensor to track the speed and distance of your cycling workouts.

Choosing a new GPS just got a little easier. Like many people, I’m a careful shopper. I spend hours checking out products from different vendors, reading Consumer Reports, pouring over product reviews, evaluating features, and charting the pros and cons of my top choices. When I buy, I like to get the biggest bang for my buck!

ActionGPS made buying my latest GPS unit a breeze. ActionGPS carries all the big names in portable and handheld GPS units: Garmin, Mio Tech and TomTom. You can search for products by manufacturer or type: automotive, outdoor, fitness, marine, motorcycle, recreational, geocaching, etc. But my favorite feature is the instant product comparison (click the link to view a comparison of two of our hot new arrivals).

Here’s how to make your own product comparison on ActionGPS:

• On the homepage of our website, click on one of the categories in the right-hand column.
• Read the summaries that accompany each product and click the item to peruse the details, specs and reviews.
• Once you’ve decided on your top contenders, check the box next to each item you want to compare.
• Click the orange oval “compare selected” button under the category title at the top of the item list.
• ActionGPS pulls up a nifty chart that compares all the major features, including price.
• Place your order.

It’s that easy. ActionGPS takes the guess work out of shopping for a new GPS. Visit the ActionGPS website and try it for yourself.

Last month, Consumer Search included Garmin products among their top choices for Handheld GPs units. Among those chosen were the Garmin GPSMap 60Csx and the Garmin Forerunner 305.

Evaluating handheld GPS units is not the same as looking at GPS units for use in cars.
The Consumer Search report reviewed handheld GPS units that were manufactured to be used mainly out of doors. These units have smaller screens and are generally lighter than GPS navigation units made for use while driving. They also tend to have longer battery life than automotive GPS units and are made to withstand outdoor elements like wind and rain.
The Garmin GPS Map 60Csx was named “Best-value handheld GPS” for its continuity in performance. More of their reviewers picked it than any other handheld GPS. This unit is an upgrade on the previous models in the series and it gets satellite information faster. You can use it to get location information in hard-to-reach locations like dense foliage or canyons.

The Garmin Forerunner 305 was honored as the best fitness watch with GPS. This fitness GPS can be a great asset for your exercise regimen since it let you compete against previous workouts by comparing your pace and hear rate. Even if you don’t want to compete against yourself, you can still track your performance over time to see how you have improved. Data from each workout is stored in the Forerunner 305’s memory.

These and other top-rated Garmin products are available through the Action GPS website. Stop by today and take a look at your next handheld GPS unit.

There are some phrases that seem self-explanatory. You figure, you should know what they mean. Maybe you act like you know, but really are not sure.

For example, when you hear that a GPS device designed for fitness measures heart rate–what exactly does that mean? Your heart rate is the number of times you heart beats in one minute. This measurement is expressed as beats per minute or bpm.

It is very important to pay attention to your heart rate while you are exercising. The Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS Fitness Trainer with Heart Rate Monitor has a heart rate monitor that continuously tracks and records your heart rate so you can see whether you’re training too hard or not hard enough.  The Forerunner 301 has three separate sport modes for running, biking and another activity. Your heart rate can vary, so it is important to ask your doctor what is a normal heart rate for you during different activities.

The Forerunner 301 will display your current heart rate zone. This is a range of heart beats per minute that helps you gauge the intensity of your workout and train more effectively. This GPS device is so dynamic that it can learn about and adjust to you. After a few intense runs, Forerunner’s AutoLearn feature calculates your heart rate zones and automatically adjusts them as your fitness level improves.

The Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS Fitness Trainer with Heart Rate Monitor not only gets you where you’re going, it also lets you know if you should keep going.

My neighbor is a marathon runner. She’s run locally and in neighboring states for years. Last year she took on the hills of San Francisco and is training for the pavement-pounding Chicago Marathon this fall. Of course, her dream is every runner’s ultimate ambition: the Boston Marathon. We live in an area of hills and ravines not far from the river, so she gets a good workout running in the neighborhood, but boredom was starting to kick in. Tired of the same old sights, she just bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Fitness Trainer with Heart Rate Monitor to help expand her practice route and track her performance. She said it was love at first sight!

The Garmin Forerunner 305 includes a high sensitivity GPS receiver, an easy to use new courses feature and a rugged wireless heart rate monitor that guarantees optimal performance. Its unique design wraps the GPS antenna around the wrist for improved reception under trees and near tall buildings. The Forerunner 305 ensures great reception whether you’re running in an urban cityscape, suburban neighborhoods or out in the country. The ANT wireless heart rate monitor has a soft, comfortable chest strap and superior battery life. With the Forerunner 305 you don’t have to worry about cross-talk with your MP3 or cell phone. The unit reliably measures and sends data to keep you training in your optimal heart rate zone.

What makes the Forerunner 305 so much fun for distance runners, bikers and cross trainers is the course feature that lets you compete against previous workouts. The Forerunner 305 allows you to transition easily between sports without resetting the unit to track your total workout. An optional Foot Pod accessory can track distance, pace and calories burned when you train indoors, even when GPS reception is unavailable. The Forerunner’s three main data screens can be customized to track 12 data fields, providing instant and continuous feedback during your workout. As with all Forerunners, workout data is stored in memory for review and analysis.

With obesity reaching crisis proportions in America, I’m always looking for ways to drag my kids away from the video games and get the whole family out and moving. We recently discovered the fun of geocaching. Geocaching combines GPS technology with the fun of a treasure hunt. All I have to do is pick up our GPS unit, jingle the car keys and the kids dash for the car, eager to hunt down the next cache.

Geocaching has added a fresh element of fun and excitement to our weekends. The whole gang races through Saturday chores so we can seek out a few caches before dinner. Sometimes we take a picnic and make a day of exploring a new area. Even on hectic days, there are plenty of quick-find caches right in our neighborhood. We’ve discovered all manner of interesting places geocaching. Who knew there was a pre-Civil War cemetery just steps from our local K-Mart or a gushing waterfall tucked into a quiet glen under the freeway? We’ve come upon a gaggle of fuzzy goslings as we geocached along a previously unknown river trail. Burping bullfrogs surprised us as we walked through a wetlands just minutes from our home. For our family, the fun of geocaching is as much the discovery of new places as it is the thrill of the hunt.

Geocaching is a great hobby for anyone. You don’t have to be a rugged hiker. People hide caches along public pathways and in many community parks where the terrain is easily navigated. All you need to get started is a portable GPS unit and a computer. We started with an easy-to-use, inexpensive, refurbished GPS unit, the Garmin Etrex Legend CX Handheld Outdoor Color GPS. Rugged and water-resistant (essentials with our active kid crew), the Garmin Etrex is lightweight and slips easily into a pants pocket. The 256-color display is sunlight-readable, and it didn’t take long for our kids to get the hang of using the unit. With a 10,000-point automatic track log that allows for 20 saved tracks, you can trace your path in both directions. To date we haven’t gone on that extensive a geocache hunt, but summer is coming and the kids are itching to give it a try!

In our last post, we discussed some of the features to look for when buying a GPS device to use when you are going hiking. GPS navigation devices come in a wide variety of styles and they are custom-made to suit certain activities. As is the case with hiking, those of you who are looking to use the power of a GPS device to assist you with running or cycling will need to look for certain features. In case you didn’t know, a GPS navigation device that is used to guide you in a car really cannot be used to fitness. It would be rather difficult to walk, run or ride a bicycle while holding onto a GPS device.

For runners, there are many compact GPS models available, many of which strap to your wrist like a watch. These devices can keep track of speed and distance the way a traditional GPS device would. But they also can measure heart rate and calories burned, something your GPS navigation device does not do.

When it comes to cycling, a GPS device designed for this activity can map your route and provide turn-by-turn instructions, just as the GPS in your car does. However, GPS devices designed for cycling also keep up with heart rate and cadence. Some of them even allow you tp share date with your fellow cyclers. And these devices come with bike mounts that keep the devices within your eyesight.

For runners:

Garmin Forerunner 101 GPS Fitness Trainer

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Fitness Trainer with Heart Rate Monitor

For cyclers:

Garmin Edge 305 GPS Bundle with Heart Rate Monitor and Cadence Speed Sensor

Garmin Edge 605 GPS Cycling Fitness Trainer Navigator

Click here to check out some of the great Fitness GPS items that ActionGPS has for sale.