The Many Uses Of Stopwatches

By Oliver Richard

Stopwatches have many uses with the primary function being to count time. You will most commonly see athletes, coaches and even whole athletic teams using them. There is more than one type of stopwatch and read on for more information.

A stopwatch is basically just a hand held device that's used as a timer for various sports activities. From track & field activities, swimming, motor & car racing, etc, this kind of watch is highly useful for evaluation during training sessions.

Stopwatches are very handy for coaches that need to time the athlete's performance. To start timing an event, you simply push the button one time and when over you press it again. These are operated manually and used by coaches and trainers in their training and timing of the athlete's performance.

Stopwatches can be either analog or digital and it usually is similar to a regular pocket watch. However, there are also stopwatches that can be worn on the wrist. The large clocks used in sports arenas or stadiums, such as for hockey or basketball games, are known as stop clocks.

The stopwatch with digital technology is most likely more accurate than the standard analog stopwatch. The analog stopwatch, though, is a great gift for trainers and coaches who have just won some kind of competition and this is a practice often done by teams of students in high school or college.

Depending on the design and model, a more modern stopwatch can have a lot of functions, modes, and other features. However, this doesn't mean that the traditional stopwatch is rendered obsolete. A conventional stopwatch still serves its true purpose of doing countdowns, recording running times, and lap times. On the other hand, modern stopwatches have features that allow for easier access and better accuracy apart from the basic functions of keeping track of individual laps and events to accumulate overall evaluations.

There are stopwatch models that allow for storing records of up to 50 lap times, while others only hold up to 10. Other digital designs allow for calculation of speed and time as long as the distance of a lane or track is known. This is done by entering the distance into the stopwatch. The watch then evaluates the previous records of the athlete and will come up with an average time of how many minutes or seconds it would take to cover the given distance.

Lastly, stopwatches are basically used as timers for a countdown. The watch will count down to zero after you have entered a specific time and pressed the start button. This makes them valuable to coaches, athletes and trainers when working out, because you will have the time needed for an exercise or can keep an eye on when the exercise has exceeded the warm-up period. - 30553

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