Nike+ SportBand training aid

Expanding on its "Nike+ experience", the sports giant has released a new SportBand designed to help runners monitor performance and enhance their training. The Nike+ SportBand is a minimalistic wristwatch that monitors steps and allows runners to check time, pace, distance and calories burned at a glance. The watch face is a detachable LINK that captures all the run data from a sensor located in the runner’s Nike+ ready footwear. Once a run is completed, the LINK plugs into a computer via a USB socket so data can then be sent to nikeplus.com where a runner’s progress is tracked.

The new SportBand offering is specifically targeted at runners who choose not to run with music and for those times when you can’t use music. By using Nike+, runners also get an easy access to the global Nike+ Community via the internet where they can track their workouts individually or alongside other runners from around the world. The Nike+ website helps runners monitor their running experience with dynamic graphs that compare distance and time between single sessions, as well as weekly and monthly totals.

In 2006 Nike and Apple teamed up to create the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, a wireless system that allows Nike+ footwear to record time, distance, calories burned and pace with info displayed on the iPod nano screen and real-time audio feedback through headphones. By offering runners a second way to track run data and progress, the Nike+ SportBand opens the Nike+ experience to runners across a variety of situations - it gives runners who are part of clubs or running groups a chance to keep track of their run information while on a social run and provides athletes with a simple way of seeing nuances in their performance in real time.

Nike has also announced the upcoming release of Nike+ Coach, a new personal coaching tool designed with every level of runner in mind that helps runners wanting to engage in the Nike+ global online running community. Beginner and intermediate runners can access existing programs to train for a 5k, 10k, half-marathon or full marathon. For advanced runners, Nike+ Coach will help users build and edit their own training programs.