November 4, 2025

Plus, why student athletes should train with Garmin.

If you’re a student athlete, you’re used to doing it all: balancing schoolwork, getting to practice on time, traveling for competitions and keeping up with friends.

If you’re a runner, triathlete or golfer looking for gear that can do it all too — whether that’s the best running smartwatch, heart rate monitor, bike computer, golf launch monitor and more — you’ve found the right place.

Gear for runners

Garmin running smartwatches — with an option for every budget and every runner, including advanced competitors and elite athletes — offer premium training and recovery tools to help you perform at your best. (We recommend our Forerunner® series.) With dedicated running and track-run activity profiles, you can easily keep track of your progress and improvement. When you start a running activity, it will track your pace, distance, heart rate1, wrist-based running dynamics and more.

Training by heart rate zones? Take it to the next level with a compatible Garmin heart rate monitor (HRM). Plus, the premium HRM 600 (paired with Forerunner 970) will give you access to additional dynamics, including running economy and step speed loss.

Gear for triathletes

Garmin multisport and triathlon smartwatches, heart rate monitors, power meters, bike computers and indoor trainers can help you swim, bike and run to the finish line. Select Garmin smartwatches can automatically record splits with built-in profiles for triathlons, duathlons, brick workouts and swimruns. Plus, you can create custom step-by-step multisport workouts in the Garmin Connect™ app and send them to your compatible watch to seamlessly switch to different sports.

If you’re a triathlete who wants the most accurate heart rate data, you can benefit from Garmin HRMs. With these, you can accurately track your heart rate in real time and sync to your favorite training device. You can even customize specific heart rate zones for running, cycling and swimming.

Edge cycling computers include bike-specific mapping (with preloaded maps) and advanced training features to help you get to peak performance. If you want the best-of-the-best, we recommend Edge® 1050. This is our most advanced GPS computer and has a bright and vivid display, as well as up to 20 hours of battery life in the most demanding situations or up to 60 hours in battery saver mode.

Ride all year long with Tacx® smart trainers, such as the top-of-the-line NEO 3M indoor smart trainer, for a highly accurate ride (including power and cadence accuracy measured to within 1%), most realistic feel and multidirectional movement.

For additional ways to monitor your performance, browse Rally™ power meters. To stay more visible and get alerts for approaching vehicles, consider adding on a Varia™ rearview radar.

Gear for golfers

First things first, you’ll want to upgrade your golf game with Garmin golf laser rangefinders, so you can choose your club and plan your path to the hole with precision. These rangefinders help take the guesswork out of your golf game. Plus, you can still take your rangefinder to tournaments. Tournament mode, shown by an external indicator light that can be turned on and off, disables features such as PinPointer and PlaysLike Distance.

Our rangefinders also integrate with Garmin GPS golf smartwatches. These lightweight watches won’t interfere with your swing. Plus, Garmin golf smartwatches offer a tournament mode so you can use them during tournament play.

On the course, you’ll get features such as AutoShot game tracking2 (which automatically tracks where your shots land) and PlaysLike Distance (which tells you how far each shot is playing with yardage adjusted for elevation changes). When you golf with Garmin, you’ll also gain access to even more, including:

• Premium CourseView maps: You’ll see a more realistic and detailed overview of the course.
• Touch targeting: Make informed decisions about club selection and shot strategy with touch targeting. Simply touch the screen to measure precise distances to any map point, such as hazards, layups and the pin.
• Green contour data: See the slope direction of the green so you can plan the best shot approach.

Select Garmin golf smartwatches pair with the Approach® CT10 club tracking sensors or Approach CT1 club tracking tags for shot-tracking capabilities that give you a clearer picture of your game so you can view accuracy stats and see how far you typically hit each club.

Approach R50, a premium golf launch monitor with a built-in simulator, is the perfect tool for your team to dial in at practice. Three advanced high-speed cameras capture each frame of ball movement so each golfer can get precise metrics3 to help fine-tune their form. For individual practice, consider the Approach R10 portable launch monitor and simulator that uses radar to provide metrics including club path, ball speed, spin rate, estimated distances and direction. Both launch monitors give you access to the more than 43,000 golf courses in the Home Tee Hero4 app with a Garmin Golf™ Membership.

If your team is using a Clippd plan, a coach can see the entire team’s strengths and weaknesses in one place. After a round is saved on a compatible Garmin golf watch, the shot data will automatically transfer into the Clippd performance dashboard so players can analyze, learn, train and improve with Shot Quality and Player Quality scores for each area of the game as well as see trends, opportunities to improve and a personalized priority list for practice.

So, why train with Garmin?

Maybe you’re a dedicated athlete and you want to take your training to the next level. Or if you’re a coach, maybe you’re committed to finding the best gear for your team. Garmin gear is designed to help you do it all.

Let’s start with a few health tracking features on compatible Garmin smartwatches that can benefit any athlete.

• Body Battery™ energy monitoring: This feature is a real-time look at your personal energy resources, reflecting your physical activity, stress, rest and sleep1.
• Advanced sleep tracking** and **sleep coach: Advanced sleep tracking uses your heart rate1, heart rate variability (HRV) and body movement data to give you a sleep score between 0–100 so you can see how well you slept. Sleep coach will suggest how much sleep you’ll need for the upcoming night.
• HRV status: This is the ever-changing length of time between heartbeats. Changes in your HRV status can reflect how well your body is responding to stress and relaxation.
• Stress tracking: All-day stress tracking on your Garmin smartwatch can reveal how your body is regulating itself. Worried about a final exam? Excited for a first date? Both could lead to higher stress levels.

OK, you’ve got the health features down. What about performance and training features?

• Recovery time: This feature is essentially a countdown timer that lets you know how long it will take for your body to fully recover from a workout. (The recovery time feature probably won’t get you out of that dreaded conditioning session, but it’s still helpful to keep an eye on.)
• Training status: Your Garmin training status — which ranges from peaking to detraining — connects the dots between your training and your results, helping you see the bigger picture.
• Training readiness: This feature is part of your Garmin morning report and tells you how ready your body is for a tough workout using a combination of activity, sleep, recovery and lifestyle data.
• Real-time stamina: With real-time stamina, you’ll know how much you have left in the tank for running or cycling workouts at your current level of effort.
• VO2 max: This is the defining measure of cardiorespiratory fitness and aerobic capacity. Generally, the higher an athlete’s VO2 max, the better.
• Preloaded and downloadable workouts:Your compatible Garmin smartwatch is the perfect cross-training companion, helping to add variety to workouts with preloaded activities, including HIIT, pool swimming, Pilates, breathwork and much more. You can even download workouts from the Garmin Connect app or create a custom workout.

Beyond health and training features, Garmin smartwatches can help make daily life more convenient with smart notifications, music storage and Garmin Pay™. Athletes and coaches can make and take calls on smartwatches paired with Android™ and iOS® smartphones. Plus, we’ve got features for coaches to track athlete performance that can help offer peace of mind.

• Garmin Clipboard™: This app helps coaches track their athletes’ health and workout data. Coaches can build and schedule personalized running, swim, bike and strength workouts, and send them to athletes’ compatible smartwatches (once they sync with the app). After the workout, coaches can review advanced metrics — including lap splits, training load and more — from all their athletes in one place. Coaches can also see their athletes’ health metrics such as sleep and HRV.
• Incident detection** and LiveTrack**5: If your Garmin compatible smartwatch or cycling computer detects an incident, it can send a message to your designated contacts with your live location. Plus, the LiveTrack feature on a compatible device allows you to share your rides or runs with contacts (selected in the Garmin Connect™ app) who can track your location and see where you are in real time.

Whether you’re a runner, triathlete, golfer or coach, Garmin has your back. Browse our full collection of smartwatches for high school and college athletes here.

1See Garmin.com/ataccuracy

2Lie and ball contact may affect shot tracking. Putts are not tracked. Some shots, particularly chip shots around the green, may not be tracked.

3Included tracking sticker required

4Subscription required

5When paired with your smartphone. For safety and tracking feature requirements and limitations, see Garmin.com/safety.

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