Sports watches come in all shapes and sizes. Watches have loads of different functions all designed to enhance sporting excellence and to facilitate greater enjoyment of sport. Watches have the ability to record lap times and split times, they come with countdown timers and stopwatches, there are also high-tech watches that include barometers, altimeters and pedometers. Sports watches can be both analogue, digital or a combination of the two. The ones with digital displays will often have memory so they can record your progress over a number of weeks.

There are a number of things to consider before you buy a sports watch, firstly you need to consider your sport and the things that you need your watch to do. Take into account the weight of the watch, its water resistance rating, its functions and its style (a big watch would not be appropriate for cycling for example.)

Chronograph watches

A chronograph watch is a watch with a number, normally two or three, of sub dials. The functions of the sub dials vary, but commonly include a stopwatch and a breakdown of the second, minute and hour functions into their own dials. These watches are designed predominately for use in sports, although there are many models that use the chronograph function as a stylistic feature. Chronograph watches come in a wide range of styles and have different levels of practical use. The most advanced come with the ability to record multiple split and lap times, with stop watches that are accurate to 1/100^th of a second.

 Water Resistant Watches

Having a watch that has a suitable water resistance rating for the activity you are undertaking is essential. A watch with a 3 or 5 atm rating is not suitable for jumping into water. Although it can be worn whilst swimming. 100m watches are the ideal standard for most water sports. The rating determines how much pressure can be placed upon the watch rather than the depth to which it can go down. Specialised divers watches are essential kit for divers and there are a number of watches that are specifically designed to be able to resist the pressure of great depths. Other sports may not appear to need such high levels of water resistance, but if a watch is being used as a tool for sports it is probably worth having one that has at least 3 or 5m water resistance.

Materials

Functions are not the only attributes that you should think about if you are buying a sports watch. The material that the watch is made from will determine how practical it is. Titanium watches are always light weight so they are often a favourite for sports enthusiasts. Rubber straps are also popular as they are easy to clean and are likely to last a long time even if they are used in the water. For much the same reason stainless steel bracelets are also popular. It is worth remembering that they are heavier than rubber straps but that they are also more durable.

Best Selling Sports Watches

Casio have a lot of watches that are designed for sports.  Most of the Casio watches are digital so they can have memory in which data can be stored, the digital set up also allows for switching between different functions with ease.  The Casio G-Shock range is designed for adrenalin fueled sports.  This global best selling range is designed to be shock proof so they are perfect for extreme sports.  

Citizen and Seiko both make high end sports watches, designed with the sporting professional in mind.  They look great and are packed full of functions to enable maximum benefit from sports. Citizen’s Promaster and Skyhawk rangesand Seiko’s Sportura Collection  demonstrate the immense capabilities of sports watches. 

Ladies Eco-Drive Riva - Click here for more Eco-Drive Watches

Citizen make high quality watches, reknowed for both their reliability and their style, which is the reason that they are the ‘Official Timekeeper and the Official Watch of the U.S. Open’. Citizen’s role as an elite sponsor of the event is to ensure that every match is perfectly timed and that every score is quickly shown on large screens after every ball is played. The tennis players at the U.S. Open will all be striving to finish their season on a high as this event is the final Grand Slam of the year. Over the last five years there have been more T.V. Viewers of this competition than of any other tennis tournament in the world. With so many viewers and the top tennis players in the world to please the organisers have to insist that exceptional equipment is used throughout the tournament to create an streamlined experience for everyone involved and to bring out the best in the world class players. Citizen are well equipped to achieve this.

Citizen are the worlds largest watch maker, a position that they have held since 1986. They have made many key technological advances in the world of watches. Citizen made the first dive watch with an electronic depth sensor, proving that they have the necessary know how to combine time keeping and electronic functionality. Their eco-friendly Eco-Drive technology has revolutionised the way that watches are powered. Citizen Eco-Drive watches are powered by light and never need a battery change. They frequently produce cutting edge watches such as the Citizen Gents Perpetual Calendar Watch that needs adjusting only four times in every 400 years and it is powered by light, truly impressive technology!

Watch out for more amazing tennis this year at the U.S. Open which is taking place between August 31^st and September the 13^th.

You can buy many watches from the esteemed Citizen Eco-drive range here.

Citizen Skyhawk

Perpetual calendar watches are designed to combat the intricacies and inconsistencies in our calendar and to show the date accurately at all times. The invention of the complex perpetual calendar mechanism that first achieved this is credited to Abrahain-Louis Breguet, a renowned watchmaker and horologist, at the beginning of the 1800’s.

For the last 500 years we have used the Gregorian calendar,which poses a number of technical difficulties to the watchmaker when making a perpetual calendar watch.  The problems are the uneven amount of days in each month and a leap year every 4 years, which adds a day to the end of February. Each deviation from the 31 day month requires a special function to remain accurate. If you consider that each one must be achieved by fundamentally a system involving little more than cogs and levers you can appreciate how difficult a task this is, especially when you consider that it must also be small and light enough to be worn as a wristwatch!

The amount of time that it actually takes the sun to orbit around the earth is 365.2422 days. A normal simple calendar watch counts a year as 372 days, 31 days for each month. This means that the date will have to be adjusted 6 or 7 days throughout the year to remain accurate. A perpetual calendar watch measures a year as 365.25 days. There is a small discrepancy between that and the real measurement but it is so small that a perpetual calendar watch will only have to be adjusted 3 times in every 400 years, which is pretty good going.

Those who require perpetual accuracy from their watch often want to wear a watch of the highest calibre. Citizen Skyhawk watches are a prime example of this. They are high-end watches that deliver on every aspect of watch technology, they are solar powered and radio controlled with a myriad of other practical functions. This range of watches are designed for those with an active lifestyle that demand quality and accuracy from every part of their watch.

Perpetual calendars can most frequently be found in luxury watches as the mechanism needed to sustain this accuracy is extremely complex. But now there are a number of products available which can provide this useful and impressive feature at a fraction of the price you may have previously expected to pay. For example the Pulsar Perpetual Calendar watch is available from Find Watches for half its RRP at only £67.41 including shipping. We frequently get new perpetual calendar watches in, but those at this kind of price seem to fly off the shelves!