Gift for a person who's walking for fitness?

ClubDead

MOD: I put this question her because I thought it would reach more people that have the answers I'm looking for.

Hi, my father in law is retired and has taken up walking (5k - 20k) for fitness. He's into gadgets. Are there any new fitness trackers, monitors that you would recommend? OR any thing that would aid a person who has recently taken up walking for fitness. He has pretty good trainers, so there not an option.

Thank you for your help.

brownej

I got my dad a Fitbit fitness tracker a couple of years ago after he had some trouble with his heart. He was advised after his recovery that he needed to get out and walk more. I got the fitness tracker to help him with that.
It went down really well and he asked for the upgraded model a year later!
The benefit of the fit bit is that there is a community aspect to it. You can connect with other people and there is a table with weekly steps totals. A good few of the family now have fitbits so there is a bit of competition and my dad likes to be at the top of the leader board which is good for him.
So I would recommend a fit bit just for that reason.

arybvtcw0eolkf

^^^ I'm with the above poster.

Personally I use a Polar M400, I have different sports profiles set up ~ ie jogging outdoors, jogging treadmill, cycling, walking and Judo (I leave my watch in my bag and the blue tooth chest strap sends the info to the watch).

They're all more or less the same, your dad can watch his daily, weekly and monthly training and progress. Some programmes can give you a weekly/month comparison to previous times so you know if you're making progress or if you've to be more active.

Slightly off topic, you could encourage your dad to go to one of your local park runs. They're a 5km park run (or walk, there's a lot of walkers too). Its NOT a race, its brilliant craic and if he likes encouragement and community spirit they're amazing.

Parkrun.ie

He can register there (its all entirely free), he gets a bar code to be presented at the run then he'll have his run and time recorded. Then he can take up the challenge of being a parkrun tourist and visit other parkruns (they're on all over the country every Saturday morning at 09:30).

Even go along and visit one (without taking part), they're brilliant fun and all entirely free of charge.

silverharp

A decent iPod type device? Its a good chance to get In to podcasts