Get Active!

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Get Active! - Editorial
2 minutes read
The outdoors beckons and it’s time for sports watches to come out and play.

The sun is out, and that means more outdoor sports. More outdoor sports means your sports watches finally get that workout that they were built for. The sports watch is a fairly recent phenomena — they didn’t really exist before the 20th century. The first timekeepers were not really mobile; they were certainly not intended for strenuous activity. A simple hourglass, while technically portable, is not something you can use to measure time while you’re on the move. Early mechanical clocks were literally the size of a church tower — not even the Incredible Hulk would fancy strapping one to his wrist for a casual game of tennis. Countless ships foundered before marine chronometers were invented that could withstand the constant motion of being at sea, allowing sailors to make accurate navigational calculations.

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Sports watches came about when watch movements grew smaller and migrated from the pocket to the wrist. They became more convenient to wear and more robust, thanks to the advances in chronometry that were required to create smaller watch movements in the first place.

But what makes a watch a sports watch? Strictly speaking, a sports watch should have features that make it resistant to shock, it should be well protected from the elements that one might come across in active situations (such as sand or water), and it should be ergonomic on the wrist.

According to some, any standard modern mechanical watch has enough shock resistance and case impermeability that it could be worn in a sporting context — leaving aside delicate mechanisms such as tourbillons and minute repeaters, of course. Therefore, creating a modern sports watch is more or less an exercise in design. This is true to some extent, but you will still come across timepieces that exult in their extreme ruggedness.

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Richard Mille, for example, purveyor of ultra-light (and ultra-expensive) sports watches, produces models such as the RM 36, which can withstand and measure up to 6 gs of g-force, or the RM 53, with its movement suspended within its case using an intricate web of steel cables to minimise the shock transmitted by a polo mallet strike, for example, or a powerful golf drive.

Other watches, such as the record-setting Omega Ultra Deep is rated to an astounding 15,000m of water depth. The previous record holder, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Rolex Deepsea Challenge, is rated to a depth of 12,000m.

Not everyone out there is destined to make a heroic record-breaking dive to the bottom of the ocean, but for those interested in having a little underwater adventure of their own, we’re giving away a DOXA SUB 200 with a turquoise dial and strap that would fit beautifully with that dream escape by a tropical lagoon. It’s water-resistant to 200m with a case of steel, so if you’re looking for a vacation watch, feel free to dive right into our giveaway contest right here.

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