How Pro Triathlete Matt McElroy Levels Up His Training

G-SHOCK’s new GBDH2000 multi-sport watch is simply the ticket for garnering insights throughout swimming, biking, and operating.

This article was produced in partnership with G-SHOCK

For nine-time World Triathlon Cup medalist Matt Mcelroy, “data is absolutely the most important thing to collect in terms of training.” 

The 30-year-old skilled triathlete is a three-time All-American, who ran for Northern Arizona University and was recruited to go professional via the USA Triathlon Collegiate Recruitment Program. 

He received his first World Cup gold on the 2019 World Triathlon Cup Tongyeong in South Korea, and holds the excellence of being considered one of solely three U.S. males to medal in a World Triathlon Championship Series race, with a silver in Leeds in 2019.

Mcelroy averages six strenuous exercises per week, to not point out his regular day by day actions and bonus classes. Throughout every, he gathers tempo, coronary heart fee, interval, cut up, and stroke rely, to call a couple of. 

“In order to work on weaknesses and see improvements—the fundamentals of my training—I have to be able to trust my gear,” he says.

Strapped to Mcelroy’s wrist is GBDH2000, the most recent addition to the G-SHOCK MOVE collection of watches. After each session, he shares his splits and coronary heart fee along with his coach. 

“It has to be spot on because a lot of the time I’m training solo,” he says. 

Mcelroy lives in Flagstaff, AZ, whereas his coach resides 690 miles north in Boulder, CO. From analyzing the info, the 2 focus on exercise modifications and potential enhancements.

Multi-sport Specs

The first GBDH timepiece, GBDH1000, debuted in April 2020. It’s successor, GBDH2000, has up to date design and know-how options, together with multi-sport performance with an extra sixth sensor. It’s in a position to monitor totally different components, supporting athletes throughout a variety of actions from operating to swimming to HIIT exercises, in addition to traditional measurements like a step counter.

“Having a watch that allows me to collect different data while I’m swimming, biking and running is meaningful. It goes from being a good to a great tool,” says Mcelroy.

“For example, the run activity has pace on it, meaning I can gauge my pace out on the roads. I finish an interval and hit the split button and I get an overall pace as well as heart rate for each. My foundation in racing is pace, and with this I can get super specific in terms of intervals.” 

GBDH2000’s optical sensor on the caseback measures coronary heart fee whereas the interior gyroscope measures physique motion, like flip turns in a pool. “I was swimming the other day and it was such a relief to know GBDH2000 was measuring my strokes. Instead of counting in my head, I was able to turn off every little aspect of the workout in my brain and just focus on breathing.”

There’s additionally a compass, accelerometer, altitude/air strain sensor, and thermo sensor that measures temperature. Weighing in at 63 grams, GBDH2000 is 38 p.c lighter than its predecessor. It additionally has built-in GPS performance to measure place, distance, and pace, all of which monitor a wide range of actions in actual time throughout bodily exercise.

“The data needs to be precise or I may not use the equipment again,” Mcelroy provides matter-of-factly.

When biking, he is in a position to file distance, pace, time, altitude, coronary heart fee, energy burned, and street gradient. “There’s a lot of different elements and features—being able to maximize them is really important long term.”

Mcelroy trains roughly 30 hours per week.

“I’ve done 20 workouts in this watch and I haven’t charged it once,” he says, including, “that’s impressive and a huge bonus when you’re working out three times a day. I can’t even tell you the amount of times I’ve shown up to a workout and I’ve had a different watch on and it’s low battery or won’t make it through. That isn’t an issue here, especially with the solar-assisted charging. That’s a relief for an endurance athlete like me.”

Although Mcelroy is laser centered on gathering information from his coaching classes, he opted to maintain the watch on even when the exercises stopped.

“There’s just so much loaded into the watch,” he says. “How I walk around throughout the day gives me insight, just like the workout data. I’ve got a newborn baby. At four months old, my wife and I are walking around town and running around the house. The other day I was wondering why my legs were more tired than normal and I looked at the step counter. I was doing too much walking outside of training. On a recovery day my step count was insane. It’s a simple measurement but definitely effective.” 

Source link