After two months testing 16 different fitness trackers, I鈥檓 sitting on the sofa watching Game of Thrones, jiggling my wrist to push the step count on my Garmin Forerunner smartwatch to the 20,000 mark.

I am a shallow, petty man.

A local 10K in the morning, some yard work in the afternoon, and the constant motion that comes with being the father of an infant brought me to 19,841. Even though I鈥檝e already determined step counts to be a pointless metric for athletes, I鈥檓 too obsessive-compulsive to just leave it at that. Yet, walking around the block to reach a specific count of an imprecise measure of an activity I don鈥檛 even care about seems less honest than just lying to the Garmin. Better to deceive the watch than myself. So I sit there waving my arm back and forth while Jon Snow strikes an uneasy alliance with the Wildling leader.

It鈥檚 no secret that fitness trackers are a mess of a success story. Manufacturers shipped 9.7 million of them in 2013, a number expected to hit 135 million by 2018. The proliferation of wearables . We鈥檇 run faster and sleep better, get injured less and lose weight. The problem, of course, is that change is hard. While wearables have undoubtedly helped spur millions of people to be more active, the effect for many can be temporary. Indeed, a report last year from consulting firm Endeavour Partners found that more than half of the people who buy fitness trackers . A third do so within six months.聽

鈥淲hat鈥檚 the common experience for individuals? They get a fitness tracker, and it sparks them to start walking,鈥� says John Bartholomew, a professor of health education at the University of Texas at Austin, who specializes in exercise psychology. 鈥淪o they walk three miles in the morning, and that gets them 4,000 steps. Over the course of a day, maybe they get another 3,000 and do an extra walk to get to 10,000. After a couple of weeks it鈥檚, 鈥業 do my walk in the morning, and then I go about my day and I hit my goal.鈥� The novelty of the information is removed. The step count is no longer useful. And that鈥檚 why people set these devices down.鈥�

But that鈥檚 a sweeping generalization, data averaged out across the masses. Move a couple of standard deviations away from the center of the bell curve鈥攐ut toward the motivated fitness junkies who wake up at 5 a.m. for pre-office workouts鈥攁nd things look different. I started using a bike computer to track speed and mileage 25 years ago and have been getting real-time performance data like power and heart rate for more than a decade. As both an athlete and a tech journalist, I wanted to know how wearables were evolving for more specialized users: those of us accustomed to, say, comparing steady-state power output on Strava. The masses can have鈥攁nd abandon鈥攖heir Jawbone Ups. What鈥檚 out there for us?

I spent months working my way through fitness trackers built into watches, bracelets, belt clips, apparel, and jewelry. (See here.) I didn鈥檛 start a new training routine or pick up any new sports; I didn鈥檛 change my bedtime or set weight goals. I incorporated these gadgets into my life, not vice versa, and then watched what happened. Eventually, I settled on a few that made me not just a fitter athlete but also a more effective worker and a better husband and father.聽

And I have the data to back that up.

The classic feedback loop for behavior change is: act, measure, learn, modify. If you鈥檝e ever housebroken a dog you鈥檝e done this, and you know how important it is to provide feedback immediately following an action if change is going to happen. You also know that there鈥檚 no point in continuing to offer it once Biscuit has learned to do her business outside.

For activity trackers to spur change, they need to be part of an effective feedback loop, and they need to continue offering novel information. Data telling you what you performed鈥攁 workout or a certain number of steps鈥攊s not novel. Data telling you how you performed鈥攕peed, heart rate, power鈥攊s. A lot of wearables, including most step counters and sleep trackers, fulfill only the measure step. As a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association , 鈥淭he gap between recording information and changing behavior is substantial 鈥� and while these devices are increasing in popularity, little evidence suggests that they are bridging that gap.鈥澛�

Critics of fitness trackers鈥�and there are many鈥攆ault them for not operating more like medical devices. They want their wrist straps to give them their resting heart rate and also tell them that their LDL cholesterol is too high and to prescribe statins and a meal plan. In March, Wired ran a story titled 鈥�.鈥� It argued that fitness trackers mainly measure problems without offering solutions.

Here鈥檚 the thing: in a lot of cases, the problem isn鈥檛 that fitness trackers don鈥檛 offer advice; it鈥檚 that they鈥檙e actually prohibited from doing so.

The FDA defines a medical device as a product that is 鈥渋ntended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease or is intended to affect the structure or function of the body.鈥� These devices are subject to onerous regulations and approval processes. Given our understanding about the roles that exercise and healthy lifestyles play in disease prevention, apps and wearables designed to measure and promote exercise butt right up against those regulations.聽

Earlier this year, the FDA meant to help clarify things. While apps and products that help people record workouts or make decisions about health and wellness could meet the definition of a medical device, the FDA says it will 鈥渆xercise enforcement discretion,鈥� meaning they鈥檙e mostly cool鈥攆or now. But the agency says it will look much more closely at products that use 鈥渂uilt-in features such as light, vibrations, camera, or other similar sources to perform medical device functions.鈥澛�

In other words, as soon as a company starts pulling data from a sophisticated piece of hardware that reads physiological markers like blood pressure and oxygen levels, regulators might get involved. That means engineers are doing far less with wearables than they could be.

鈥淲e know there鈥檚 a lot more potential,鈥� says Alex Frommeyer, founder of , an electric toothbrush that pairs with an app to measure and promote dental hygiene (and is regulated as a medical device). 鈥淚f the regulatory environment was completely different in how you could look at the prescriptive and diagnostic side of the world, we could have considered investing more deeply in those technologies.鈥�

For now, the available fitness trackers can measure and nudge, and that鈥檚 about it. But if you鈥檙e already motivated, that鈥檚 plenty, especially if the data you鈥檙e recording remains novel and engaging.聽

鈥淔rom an athlete鈥檚 perspective, you are somewhat variable in terms of both your workouts and how you respond to them,鈥� Bartholomew says. 鈥淵our heart rate鈥檚 not always going to be the same, for example. Tracking for athletes continues to give interesting information in a way that tracking for the general population does not.鈥�

Moments after I set out for a seven-mile evening run, a woman鈥檚 voice, calm and Siri-like, interrupts the Japandroids song blasting in my Jaybird headphones: 鈥淵ou are averaging 156 steps per minute. You should be averaging at least 162.鈥� Over the next hour, she鈥檒l continue to check in with cadence numbers as well as mile splits and reminders to keep my back straight and to strike the ground with good form. 鈥淭ry shortening your stride,鈥� she suggests.

The voice is from my app. The company, which launched last year on Kickstarter, also has free apps for cycling, swimming, and the gym. The 1.5-inch puck strapped to my right ankle, which pairs with all the Moov apps, collects data on cadence, range of motion, stride length, and impact. Once I end my workout, I can view all this in the app鈥檚 graphical report, with a table of my splits and with charts showing metrics for performance and form down to degrees in my range of motion and the G-forces of my foot strikes. The watch on my wrist does the same stuff, but the Moov鈥檚 in-ear reminders have me hooked. The 920 is there for post-workout analysis and聽trends鈥攕omething Garmin presents better than any other company in this space.

In the swimming pool, the two devices switch roles. The 920, with its huge display and broad capabilities around timed intervals and customized workouts, provides in-the-moment feedback. The Moov sits quietly on my opposite wrist until I get back within range of the Swim app running on my iPhone. It grabs the data from the puck and gives me an in-depth look at my workout, not just total distance and times for every lap, but also time and distance per stroke, fastest splits, and longest uninterrupted swim.

Crucially, Moov also explains what the numbers mean and what I should be shooting for. My 2.26 seconds per stroke is well off the 1.5 to 1.7 seconds that the app says strong distance swimmers average. So I start focusing on my arm turnover. Within three weeks, I鈥檓 down to 2.12 seconds and I鈥檓 getting a bit more distance with each stroke. I am objectively a better swimmer.

These devices are measuring the same things myriad other trackers do鈥攎otion, distance, speed. At this point in our technological history, the trick isn鈥檛 gathering metrics; it鈥檚 presenting them. Garmin and Moov package tens of thousands of data points in a way that鈥檚 both understandable and addictive. Proof? Moov says greater than 75 percent of those who bought the device are still using it more than a year in.

鈥淚ntrinsic motivation is based on enjoyment,鈥� Bartholomew says. 鈥淟earning about yourself and testing yourself and demonstrating competence are inherently enjoyable. So from an intrinsic-motivation perspective, you need to keep learning. As long as you鈥檙e getting useful information, you鈥檒l continue to track.鈥澛�

And some companies are finally delivering on that promise.聽

Moov and Garmin are the pinnacle of this first wave of fitness trackers. The next generation is something else entirely. The tech startup has come out with compression shirts and shorts embedded with sensors that provide feedback that even the best personal trainers can鈥檛 match.聽

The garments send the data to a smartphone app that displays it as a real-time heat map on an anatomical diagram. Set your phone in front of the squat rack and you can see how well you鈥檙e using the target muscles, if you鈥檙e engaging them with the right intensity, and where you have imbalances.

At in Los Angeles鈥攁 gym with numerous pro-athlete clients, including about 30 NFL players鈥攖rainers use Athos to gauge users鈥� initial form and guide their workouts. 鈥淚 get to see which muscles are firing and in what order,鈥� says trainer Gabe Rangel. 鈥淚f I see that the left hamstring is firing and the right isn鈥檛, I know something鈥檚 wrong. If we鈥檙e doing sprints and I don鈥檛 see glutes firing, I know they鈥檙e not getting full extension.鈥�

As I push my way through a heavy set of squats, the eight sensors on the shorts immediately pick up on the weakness in my left hip that a physical therapist diagnosed a couple of years ago. The heat map shows left and right firing at different times and intensities. I press a button on the screen after my set and the app displays muscle-effort data for my glutes, hamstrings, and inner and outer quads. All the numbers are lower for my left side, save for the inner quad, which was doing almost 50 percent more work than my right inner quad, presumably to compensate for the imbalance.聽

For my next set, I reduce the weight and watch, in real time, as my focus on form slightly evens things out: another smart feedback loop leading to real change; no need for a visit to my PT.

The Athos app can also play back entire workouts, which is helpful for things like running and cycling.聽

Still, as much as I appreciate what Athos offers, I use it only once a week or so, to check in on my form. Even the 920 and Moov come out only when it鈥檚 time to train. After exhaustive testing, the only tracker I wear daily has nothing to do with athletic performance at all. At least on the surface. It鈥檚 called Spire, and it was based on research at Stanford University. It clips inside the waistband of my pants and monitors the rise and fall of my abdomen to record breathing patterns.

Spire uses this data to gauge whether I鈥檓 stressed, focused, or relaxed鈥攕tates that it displays on a smartphone app. I can set goals鈥攖hree hours of focus per day, two hours relaxed鈥攁nd the app shows progress on an elegant clover-shaped graph. Customized alarms notify me when I鈥檝e been tense for five minutes or after a calm streak of at least three minutes has ended.

Additionally, once every day or two, I plug in my headphones and choose a Calm, Focus, Energize, or Meditate session. The app then walks me through a few minutes of breathing exercises geared toward putting myself in those states. As I follow the commands for inhales and exhales, I can watch the oscillating line on my screen鈥攎y breathing pattern鈥攂ecome deeper and more rhythmic.聽

鈥淭his is one of the few actionable things you can do,鈥� says cofounder and CEO Jonathan Palley. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 really consciously change heart rate. What you can do, though, is take a few relaxing breaths. A long exhale isn鈥檛 something you do when you鈥檙e in danger. It triggers your mind to think, OK, if I have time to slowly breathe out, then nothing is going to attack me right now.鈥澛�

Being relaxed has a tangible effect on your performance. Athletes with high stress levels are more likely to get sick or injured. In 2012, Bartholomew and a co-researcher at the Yale Stress Center found that after a hard workout. They recommend that 鈥渁thletes and others undergoing bouts of strenuous exercise should undertake strategies to obviate the negative effects of chronic mental stress.鈥�

Spire can tell you you鈥檙e stressed before you鈥檙e even aware of it yourself. 鈥淓ighty-four percent of the time,鈥� Palley says, 鈥渨hen Spire surfaces that someone is becoming stressed, the user鈥檚 breathing pattern will change within 90 seconds.鈥� Another feedback loop in action.聽

Contrary to criticism that mobile technology takes users out of the moment, Spire has taught me to be more connected鈥攖o listen to my breathing for a sense of how I鈥檓 reacting to things and to use that knowledge to be more present in what I do at work, at home, and while training. My wife noticed enough of a change that she鈥檚 getting one for herself. I鈥檓 certainly no Zen monk, but I鈥檓 better than I was.聽

I started with 16 fitness trackers and worked my way down to four. That means I abandoned 75 percent of the ones I tested, all within just a few weeks. That鈥檚 an awful return. But the four I didn鈥檛 discard have become part of my regular routine鈥攐ne that is now healthier and more productive. So is this product category failing or succeeding?聽

Both. Understanding why makes all the difference.

Three key mistakes have hurt people鈥檚 relationships with fitness trackers. The first is a tendency to lump them all together. An entry-level pedometer is not the same as an Apple Watch with optical heart-rate detection, and that Apple Watch is not the same as a Garmin Forerunner 920XT that can record swim workouts, analyze running form, and estimate V02 max. Just because a basic step tracker doesn鈥檛 change things doesn鈥檛 mean the entire category is without merit.

鈥淭he idea that a single wearable is for everyone is wrong,鈥� Palley says. 鈥淭hese are specific tools designed to help you do something better that鈥檚 both very personal and very diverse.鈥�

Second, from the consumer perspective, the focus on hardware is misguided. People buy a tracker, then build their goals around what it can measure. The trick is to start with what you want to accomplish, determine which data best reflect it, then find the hardware and apps that deliver that data. Goals, data, technology, in that order.

The third mistake is the most important: a failure on the part of both buyers and manufacturers to understand feedback loops and the psychology of behavior change. The data must be novel and relevant, but also presented in a way that encourages and measures transformation.聽

鈥淭he big challenge with apps or fitness-tracker technology is that, in general terms, they鈥檙e asking a huge percentage of their customers to do a new behavior,鈥� says Beam founder Frommeyer. 鈥淪o the premise is, you have to wear something new, every day鈥攁 physical change to your appearance. And after you make that change, you have to adjust your behavior.鈥�

A few months ago, the Apple Watch entered this space with huge expectations. It鈥檚 a watch鈥攁nd an elegant one at that鈥攕o for most people it doesn鈥檛 require a change in appearance. But the only attractions for me lie in the productivity features鈥攖hings like texting, screening calls, and checking my schedule from my wrist. Those ultimately weren鈥檛 enough to keep me coming back. (And I鈥檓 an Apple guy: iPhone, iPad, two MacBook Pros, and two Apple TVs.) In terms of fitness tracking, the Apple Watch is all steps and daily goals. Even the standalone exercise app measures workouts only in terms of time, distance, heart rate, and calories. It鈥檚 a diary, not a coach.聽

That was the takeaway for most of the wearables I tested. Of the trackers I started with, only the Garmin, Moov, Spire, and Athos shorts have hooked me with their data while asking nothing new of me. I simply go about my workouts or my daily routines as I normally would, except with continuous opportunities to adjust and improve. It鈥檚 not about hitting huge 24-hour goals built around arbitrary metrics. It鈥檚 about thinking, from moment to moment, how I can train and live a bit better.聽

That gap the JAMA researchers found between recording information and changing behavior hasn鈥檛 closed, but it鈥檚 starting to narrow.

What fitness tracker should you buy?聽We reviewed 16 of the best on the market.

Read more:聽What it will take for fitness trackers to finally become indispensable.

John Bradley () is a former 国产吃瓜黑料 senior editor. Currently he鈥檚 the editor in chief of VeloNews.

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Where other companies see products, Apple sees features. Think of all the gadgets the iPhone has subsumed: music players, navigation systems, point-and-shoot cameras. That last example has particular salience when considering how the is affecting wearable tech. As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. The same is true for activity trackers: the gadget you鈥檒l wear is the one you鈥檒l use.聽

More than half of all people who buy trackers stop using them, and a third do so after just six months. That鈥檚 a lot of devices logging nothing more than the opening and closing of desk drawers. Why the falloff? We buy trackers with the hope that data will spur us to be healthier. Instead, we briefly get interested in the rush of numbers, then give up. The Watch gets past this by being first and foremost a connectivity tool鈥攁 convenient extension of the iPhone that delivers text messages, e-mail, phone calls, calendar alerts, payments, and app features in an elegant package with mass appeal. It鈥檚 an everyday device that people will stick with for years.聽

With a heart-rate monitor and a sophisticated accelerometer, it also happens to be a more capable tracker than most of us have ever considered buying, though few users will tap this potential immediately. That鈥檚 because the real value of the Watch isn鈥檛 in its hardware鈥攊t has the same sensors other trackers do鈥攂ut the fact that, with tens of millions expected to be sold by the end of the year, it鈥檚 the device that developers are obsessing about. Sure, the Activity and Health apps that come preloaded on the watch offer some smart ways to analyze your activity data, but in the not-so-distant future a third-party engineer is going to create the Instagram of fitness apps. And when that happens, the Apple Watch will become an activity tracker in the same way the iPhone is a camera.

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I fail, frequently and enthusiastically. When I stopped embarrassing myself as a competitive swimmer, I started failing as a triathlete鈥攁nd as a rock climber, snowboarder, and mountain biker.聽

Several years ago, while not struggling as a senior editor at 国产吃瓜黑料 and stumbling along as a novice skier, I pitched an idea that became our first Zero to Hero package. The idea: Take writers who define themselves, at least in part, as experts at some 国产吃瓜黑料 pursuit and force them to become complete beginners in something else. We were big at dishing out advice on how to get started in various active pursuits, but we spent our free time excelling at things we鈥檇 done since we were kids. I wanted to see what would happen if we turned a bunch of alphas into .

So we sent a guy with no skateboarding experience off to camp to master the half pipe. Associate managing editor Ali Troxell tried the same on a snowboard. Research editor Ryan Krogh did what any North Dakota native would do if he found himself living in New Mexico without a girlfriend: He volunteered to fight in a cage match. Totally won the first two rounds before getting taken out in the third.

Associate editor/professional photographer/expedition kayaker/world-class skier/master hunter Grayson Schaffer, who gets the whole polymath thing but somehow seems to skip the failing part every time, traveled to Mississippi to learn how to train dogs. (聽And a senior editor.聽We hate that guy.)

It was all good fun, but an expanding body of research suggests that we were onto something more important than face-plants: Growth doesn鈥檛 happen in the comfort zone. And while we鈥檝e long known the physical benefits of changing up our workouts (see: cross-training, plyometrics, CrossFit), we鈥檙e increasingly finding out that just as 鈥渕uscle confusion鈥� delivers a better body, actual confusion builds a better brain.

A 2013 study at the University of Texas at Dallas bore this out. Researchers divided 221 subjects between the ages of 60 and 90 into three groups. The first group was tasked with learning new skills: digital photography, quilting, or both鈥攁ctivities chosen because they involve high-level thinking and long- and short-term memory. The second group was assigned stimulating hobbies with which they were already familiar, in this case doing crossword puzzles or listening to classical music. The third group was asked to participate in social activities like field trips.

You can guess where this is going. After three months, the first group showed a greater overall improvement in memory than the other two.

鈥淭he change was significant, about half a standard deviation,鈥� says neuroscientist Denise Park, PhD, who led the study and is a specialist in the mechanisms of age-related cognitive decline. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to oversell the results, but they were meaningful.鈥�

The question is whether the members of the first group physically altered their brains or, by virtue of solving new problems, developed strategies that made them better at the memory tests. Park is hoping subsequent studies using MRIs to map neural connections will answer that. But for now, she鈥檚 guessing it鈥檚 the former. 鈥淭hey were still better even a year out, which would suggest that something changed physically,鈥� Park says.

When a new skill starts to feel less awkward, it鈥檚 because repetition has made the brain better at connecting the different regions involved in completing the task. Scientists are discovering that repeated signals along new paths spur the brain to product more myelin, a fatty substance that, in basic terms, speeds up the signals between neurons. The more novel and complex the skill, the more regions get activated and the more myelin is produced.

Bonus if it also makes you sweat.

While research like Park鈥檚 is still fairly new, 聽between exercise and healthier brains. So the question is whether the combination of physical activity and complicated skills would provide an extra kick. 鈥淒oes the addition of a high cognitive load in something like rock climbing鈥攚hich involves special skills, geometric problem solving, mathematical calculations, constant risk-reward evaluations鈥攈ave extra benefits for the brain?鈥� Park says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we know that yet, but I suspect that it would.鈥�

So: Complexity, physical exertion, and novelty. If you鈥檙e a great skier, more skiing isn鈥檛 going to deliver as much of a cognitive boost as taking up kayaking or spending weekends falling on your ass at the skate park (assuming you don鈥檛 know how to kayak or skate).

But that falling-on-your-ass part can really get in the way.

If you pride yourself on your ability to on-sight a 5.12 or rip technical singletrack, you know how things are supposed to work. Even if you鈥檝e never surfed, you appreciate the aesthetic beauty of a good bottom turn. The flip side: Bad form hurts your soul鈥攅specially if you鈥檙e the one struggling. So when you paddle out for your first surf class and flail just as horribly as that accountant from Des Moines who鈥檚 never heard of Kelly Slater, the temptation to quit and go for a bike ride will be strong.

Don鈥檛 give in. Paddle back out there and embrace the fail.聽

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At some point each fall, certain shoppers start looking at waterproof breathable outerwear and figuring out which permutation of the 40-something-year-old technology will get them through winter.

While some remarkable new membranes have come along since in 1969, most executions have been variations on a theme: A membrane between two layers of fabric, or a membrane between a layer of fabric and a polyurethane coating. That鈥檚 where you get terminology like 鈥渢hree-layer鈥� or 鈥�2.5 layer.鈥�

thinks it can change that. The Colorado startup鈥檚 new Core Construction technology, which it鈥檚 debuting this month, weaves fibers directly into a functional membrane. The result is a fabric platform that allows for additional loft or different surface textures by simply weaving in more fibers鈥攏o glue or layering required. You get a single-layer fabric with, say, the functionality of a hard shell and the look and feel of your favorite hoodie.

鈥淲e start with a functional membrane鈥攚indproof, waterproof, UV protecting, whatever鈥攖hen we build a knit around that core,鈥� says Voormi marketing director Timm Smith. 鈥淭he knit is fully in, out, and around that core. Then we can process that in various ways to either fully seal it and shut it down or leave holes.鈥�

Smith describes Core Construction as a 鈥渞eset button鈥� for the industry. And while marketing directors are paid to hype, if Core Construction delivers as promised, it could indeed change your winter wardrobe in a big way.

While Voormi has worked primarily with merino wool since its 2011 founding and will be using wool in the Core Construction rollout, the tech isn鈥檛 about a specific fiber. Rather, it鈥檚 a process that can apply across the garment industry.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got all the different kinds of fibers and yarns out there,鈥� Smith says. 鈥淲ool, cotton, nylon, aramid, fiberglass, whatever. And there are all sorts of functional cores that we can build with鈥攊nsulative batting, windproof barriers, protective barriers, textiles that have stretch and recovery, etc. So now you鈥檝e got all the different combinations. On top of that, I can make holes or not make holes to deliver different levels of protection. You can start to see virtually infinite combinations.鈥�

Imagine a windproof membrane co-constructed with wool yarn to create a light, single-layer pullover鈥攜our favorite merino baselayer but with windproof core. That鈥檚 something like Voormi鈥檚 new Access Hydro, one of three garments in the Core Construction rollout. The other two are the Drift Hydro (think: soft shell) and the AN/FO 3.0 (think: -meets-).

That last one is a variation on the company鈥檚 surface-hardened AN/FO wool jacket, which Voormi creates by interlocking what Smith calls a 鈥渞azor-thin鈥� layer of wicking fibers on the inside of a wool fabric. An additional weave of nylon on the outside delivers the surface toughness full-blown outerwear requires. The result isn鈥檛 a wool-nylon blend in the way you think of, say, an 80-20 blend being consistent throughout. It鈥檚 a single fabric incorporating different yarns in different places.

鈥淭his is a move to a much more streamlined construction,鈥� Smith says. 鈥淟ook at how much sleeker things have gotten with membrane construction since the 鈥�70s, with things like lamination. And what 础谤肠鈥檛别谤测虫 has been able to do in terms of streamlining all of that has been remarkable. But we thought, 鈥榃hy are we buying all these components and gluing them together? Why don鈥檛 we create one composite that does it all?鈥欌��

While this is a brand-new technology from a very new operation, Voormi has an impressive pedigree in both innovation and apparel. The company was founded in 2011 by former Microsoft managing director Dan English, who left the tech behemoth in 2005 to enter the specialty apparel industry, as an executive with the hunting brand Mossy Oak. After spurring a tech-driven overhaul of that brand鈥檚 product-development process, in 2010 he lured 43-year veteran and product guru Doug Lumb out of retirement to launch Voormi.

The company didn鈥檛 start selling to consumers until late 2013鈥攁nd then only in very limited quantities鈥攂ut it鈥檚 been testing products in the field since its founding. English鈥檚 son, Dustin, managing director at Voormi, is also a guide with the . He鈥檚 spent four years putting Voormi apparel to the test on expeditions to Denali and Antarctica, providing feedback that the company can quickly incorporate into new prototypes.

Voormi does everything domestically, from sourcing wool to creating fabrics and finished products. Smith credits that with giving the company a 鈥渟mall batch, mircrobrew鈥� flexibility in terms of both prototyping and full production. Apparel brands鈥攅specially those made in Asia, as most are鈥攇enerally need several months to fill retailer orders. (That鈥檚 why all your favorite winter brands are showcasing their 2015/16 lines at industry tradeshows this month.) Voormi says it can get that lead-time down to just a few weeks.

While Voormi plans to continue creating finished consumer products, the company also has designs on being a fabric supplier to other companies. If Core Construction takes off, you could be seeing it on hangtags like Gore or Polartec.

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e going to be presenting is only the tip of the iceberg,鈥� Smith says.

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You may have seen stories bouncing around last week about , a Canadian “recovery ale” that’s expected to be sold as a sports drink later this year. And you may have filed that story away to use as justification for your next post-workout trip to the bar.

Don’t.

Without getting into all the various ways alcohol can do more harm than good, booze is particularly counterproductive after exercise. It messes with the body’s ability to utilize testosterone and inhibits post-workout muscle growth. “We also know that alcohol can turnoff anti-diuretic hormones for up to 24 hours, meaning it dehydrates,” says nutritionist Monique Ryan, author of Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes. “It can impair protein synthesis, too.”

In other words, alcohol helps you recover like caffeine helps you calm down.

“Beer” and “alcohol” are not synonyms, however, and that’s where Lean Machine comes in. It’s just 0.5 percent alcohol by volume, for starters. That’s the threshold for non-alcoholic beer (and less than what you can find in a lot of kombuchas). Lean Machine is basically nutrient-fortified O’Doul’s.

That might make it an effective recovery drink. Back in 2011, researchers at a German university who drank two to three pints of non-alcoholic beer per day had less inflammation and fewer incidences of upper-respiratory infections than a group who drank the same volume of alcoholic beer.

The researchers suspected that the plant-based polyphenols found in beer support the immune system but that the alcohol in regular beer might cancel out those benefits.

Of course, the study looked only at the recovery effects of regular beer versus non-alcoholic beer. In that regard, alcohol-free brews win. But nothing in those results suggests that even non-alcoholic beer would be superior to a sports-specific recovery drink.

Another oft-cited and misunderstood study, , found that post-workout beer helps athletes rehydrate faster than plain water. Subjects were given either two pints of beer or water after a vigorous workout, then allowed to drink as much water as they wanted.聽 When they had their hydration levels tested, the beer group came out slightly ahead of the water-only group.

Some context: Water may be our most abundant hydration source, but it’s not our most effective one. Sodium, potassium, and other substances commonly found in sports drinks (and, to a lesser extent, beer) open pathways that force extra water across the intestinal wall before it has a chance to empty into the bladder.

The researchers suspect that this is what was happening here鈥攖hat the sugars and salts in the beer helped transport more of the water that followed. Without that extra water, it’s safe to assume that the dehydrating properties of alcohol would have won out.

If you frequent muscle-building blogs, you might have seen that showed higher levels of testosterone in the blood of subjects who downed grain alcohol after resistance training.

That’s good, right? Probably not. As suggests, those high levels may be due not to higher testosterone production but, rather, to an alcohol-induced breakdown of androgen receptors in the muscle fiber. The testosterone that would normally go toward building new muscle stays in the blood, leading to higher readings.

So if you’re serious about squeezing every gain you can from your workouts, avoid the booze. And the next time you read a story sensationalizing the performance benefits of alcohol, ask yourself if the goal of the article is to find a training edge, or simply to justify another round at the bar.

“Honestly, this isn’t something clients ask me about very often,” says Ryan. “Serious endurance athletes don’t want to have a lot of alcohol. You want to rehydrate with electrolytes and recover with carbs and, depending on the workout, some protein.”

That said, Lean Machine, a beer stripped of most of its alcohol and fortified with the stuff you’d find in a sports drink, is most likely a good recovery option. In theory, it should contain the beneficial substances of regular beer along with extra protein and electrolytes.

And it would probably taste a hell of a lot better with your recovery burrito than a bottle of Muscle Milk.

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GT designed its new i-DXC around the latest version of the company’s superefficient i-Drive suspension setup, so it rides as comfortably as a cross-country bike—without sacrificing race-day speed. Whatever your singletrack agenda, this Gear of the Year winner is equally equipped to play in the backcountry or jump into the competitive fray.

1. GT’s ingenious i-Drive isolates the drivetrain from the suspension to keep the distance between the cranks and the rear wheel constant. This eliminates the annoying chain “kick” that plagues many suspension setups.

2. The aluminum frame provides a rigid and necessary counterbalance to the cushy suspension. The rear triangle holds up under aggressive turns and hard, side-to-side cranking.

3. Wildly popular Crank Brothers Eggbeater pedals top off a great components mix—including a Shimano XT drivetrain that’s precise enough for racing yet burly enough to spare you a lot of expensive visits to your mechanic.

4. Four inches of travel adjust on a dime with Fox’s 3.5-pound F100R fork. Laterally stiff and sensitive as you want it to be, the front suspension improves handling in all situations.

5. Fox’s new Float RP3 rear shock really shines. By flipping a small lever, you can adjust pedaling efficiency as conditions dictate—more for climbs, less for drops—without losing any big-hit reserves.

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A RACE-READY BARGAIN

Raleigh reclaims some of its Tour de France-winning heritage with its new line of full-carbon, race-specific frames. The Supercourse is the most wallet-friendly of the bunch, but the cost savings come from the components. The frame is the same one Raleigh’s sponsored riders race, and you can tell: Stand up on the pedals and the lively Supercourse seems to take off from underneath you. The drawback? It’s not the world’s most forgiving ride. If there’s a bump in the road, you’ll know it. But if you’re looking for a no-compromise race frame that won’t break the bank, the Supercourse warrants serious consideration. 19 lbs, 57 cm; raleighusa.com

Bonus: The black color and sharply angled cross sections of the main tubes give the bike a cool stealth-fighter look.

Bummer: At 19 pounds, it isn’t going to make steep climbs any easier.

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Visible channels woven into the chest and back are designed to wick sweat (check) and, in cooler temperatures, create an insulating air layer (harder to tell). We loved the close fit, but the cut is oddly long in the torso.
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This 63-piece collection has all the basics (hex wrenches, chain cleaner, cable cutter), plus enough advanced equipment (derailleur-alignment gauge, threadless saw guide, bearing-cup press) to open your own bike shop.

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Good for Backcountry

The Amalgam isn’t quite as breathable as the Lobuche or as tricked out as the Free Thinker II, but it’s better priced and more packable. One thing it doesn’t compromise on, however, is weather protection. When a wet spring snowstorm near Winter Park, Colorado, caught one tester by surprise, it easily sloughed off several hours of falling slush. Credit for that goes to the weight-conscious blend of waterproof-breathable Gore-Tex Performance Shell fabric and PacLite laminate. Our only nitpick: The sleeves were a bit long and baggy on some. 1.1 lbs;

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