Kieran Alger

How getting clever with song selection can speed you to the finish line.

Fitbit Aria 2
Part of the Fitbit family, which includes fitness trackers and healthy smartwatches, these second-generation wi-fi Aria scales use bioelectrical impedance to clock weight, body fat, lean mass versus body fat and BMI for up to eight users. There’s no heart rate monitor and you get fewer stats displayed on Aria’s retro porthole window display but firing up the Fitbit app yields some treasures. You can set goals for weight and body fat, track progress with charts and plug in activi...

STATSports Apex
AFTER embarrassingly failing to qualify for the World Cup in Russia, and with the country due to co-host the World Cup with Canada and Mexico in 2026, Team USA’s top soccer brains have turned to tech to build a winning squad.
They’ve teamed up with industry leaders STATSports to use its Apex tracking system — worn by the likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar — to uncover emerging talent on a national scale.
‘Athletes across 197 academies in the US can be tracked using Apex device...

Today, running shoe technology has become big business as brands search for new ways to give runners a comfy ride and an all-important edge. Once-revolutionary innovations such as Nike Air, originally designed for elite athletes, are now the retro sneaker of choice for the fashion crowd. Stability shoes and five-fingered foot gloves—all hailed as the next big thing—have piqued and tapered off. It's not always easy to predict where technology will take us next...

If I took a second off my marathon personal best every time someone asked me to recommend a pair of running shoes, by now I'd be smashing the two-hour marathon mark. With dozens of brands, thousands of styles and more baffling jargon than a Blockchain seminar, it's understandable that buying running shoes is hard. Weeding your way through all the promises to make you faster and prevent injury isn't helped by the fact that picking the right shoe has long been more of a subjective art than a sc...

THE way runners choose running shoes has been the same for years. You either ask an experienced running friend and hope what works for them works for you or you do a quick blast on a treadmill for a gait analysis on your running form, currently offered at specialist sports shops. But today’s technology is one step ahead, with increasingly capable wearable tracking technology.
DorsaVi, specialist in wearable sensors, software and algorithms that analyse the way we move, has come up with someth...

Marathon runner Kieran Alger tested three virtual running coaches while he trained for the 119km Lavaredo Ultra Trail. Each device monitors biometrics and gives real-time feedback to help you train smarter and run better. Alger tested for comfort, practicality, reliability and quality of the coaching insights.

These smart running shoes from Utah-based running brand Altra use razor-thin sensors, a tiny battery and a microchip embedded into each midsole to measure a variety of running-form data...

“Oh my good god! What have you done?” A young nurse has just poked my little toe, spreading it far enough from its swollen neighbour to reveal that one Little Piggy isn’t very happy. Where there’s supposed to be skin, there’s only giblet-esque raw, purple-red-yellow oozing unpleasantness. The nurse’s face twists into a look of horror, something you don’t expect to see on a person who works at the Minor Injuries Walk-In of a major NHS hospital. And it’s got me worried.
Her question should be e...

Believe it or not, the Apple Watch isn't even three years old yet. The wearable that arguably kickstarted the smartwatch market reaches that milestone in April 2018. However, in a relatively short space of time it has grown to become the dominant smartwatch on our wrists. It was actually the fourth biggest selling gadget in 2017.
In the past three years Apple has amped up the fitness features of the Watch and with the Apple Watch Series 3, it created the best running watch the company made, y...

Close to seven million of us Brits now put one foot in front of the other on a regular basis each month, according to Sport England. One big attraction to running is that it’s so lo-fi.

All you really need is a pair of shoes, a positive attitude… and some clothes.
But once the bug bites and you shoot higher than your weekly 5k Parkrun, other things come into play. To shave off the seconds, you start looking for better shoes, proper running gear that wasn’t dragged from the back of the wardrob...

It’s often said that running is free, you just step out of the door and go. Sorry to break it to you, but that isn’t quite true. While you might not need loads of pricey equipment or expensive gym memberships to get started, one thing you definitely will want is a pair of decent running shoes.
A good shoe absorbs the impact from your feet hitting the pavement, help prevents against injury, keeps you safe from blisters and ultimately makes for a more enjoyable ride. Not to mention helping you ...

The Apple Watch 3 is now a serious fitness tool. With built-in optical heart rate, GPS, waterproofing for swimming, auto sync with cardio gym equipment and continuous heart rate tracking, not to mention a suite of Apple-made and third-party health and fitness apps, if you’re looking for a smartwatch to boost your general fitness, it’s now a contender. But only if you know how to use it.
The basics such as tracking steps, logging swims and keeping tabs on calorie burn are all useful when it co...

It may be wet, dark, windy and all-round miserable out there but that’s not going to stop you going for a run, right? Right? Get ready to ditch the weather-related excuses, forgo the sofa and get those training miles in.

Thanks to the clever innovators kicking out brilliant new fabrics that keep you warm, dry and eye-searingly visible, the latest winter running kit will keep you training and commuting with nary a care for the climes.
From jackets that regulate your core temperature to – ho ho...

The Apple Watch is now a decent all-round fitness watch. There we said it. It’s workout skills have improved considerably since the first generation smartwatch made its debut around two and half years ago.

In that time we’ve seen phone-free GPS, waterproofing for swim tracking, a barometer for tracking your climbs when running or cycling and improved optical heart rate tracking, creating a more serious fitness device.
Now, with the launch of watchOS 4.1 and Apple GymKit, the company has made ...