Like all types of fitness trackers, Garmin sports watches give its users unique insights about themselves that could aid in their fitness journey. Known for its history of quality devices, Garmin is a tried-and-tested sports watch brand of choice for many people. But is it the right one for you?

Before you invest in a Garmin sports watch, it's essential to ask yourself a few crucial questions.

1. What Does a Garmin Sports Watch Actually Do?

Garmin sports watches can be a tool to improve specific parts of your athletic performance, which are necessary for serious athletes and may not be easily measured in other ways.

Aside from the basic tracking features like steps, calories burned, and distance walked, Garmin sports watches open up a world of more granular sports data. Known for incredibly durable exteriors, Garmin sports watches are also lauded for their multi-sport tracking and navigation features, which isn't surprising given its history as a pioneer for GPS navigation for airplanes.

With Garmin Connect, you can even maximize the power of your Garmin sports watch by integrating a host of third-party apps which you can use to improve your fitness tracking experience. Lastly, Garmin sports watches also benefit from traditional smartwatch features like notifications, smart payments, and even music controls.

However, while a Garmin sports watch is excellent for optimizing fitness activities, it won't magically turn you into an athlete. As with most fitness tracking devices, Garmin sports watches can only help you understand how much movement you typically do and encourage you to optimize it—the rest is up to you.

2. Do Your Fitness Goals Require a Watch?

People work out for several reasons; losing weight, gaining muscle, and preparing for childbirth are just three of many. With this, it's essential to understand that fitness watches—such as Garmin—can only do so much.

For example, if your goal is to increase mobility or jump heights, it's something that no sports watch will not be able to help detect. After all, it's not something as easy as measuring calories. With this, you're better off just taking photos or videos every day of your progress.

In addition, sports watches tend to focus on data related to movement, which doesn't address the critical component of bad eating habits. While you can integrate third-party apps with your Garmin watch, it doesn't necessarily mean you need a watch to do it. If your specific fitness problem requires fixing nutrition, you may need to consult a nutritionist or download a food-focused app instead.

3. Can You Wear a Sports Watch With Your Particular Sports?

While sports watches are great for many sports, not all recommend having anything on your wrist—even a Garmin sports watch. In some cases, having a fitness sports watch can lead to possible injury because it prevents mobility or safety mechanisms from working accordingly.

For boxers or Muay Thai fighters, wearing a fitness watch on your wrist is not only uncomfortable but also puts you at risk of injury. By placing a buffer between your wrist wraps and boxing glove, you reduce wrist protection. Although it is possible to use a chest strap for sports like this, many fitness watches also struggle with tracking steps during sparring. Unlike normal walking, the movement during sparring is different, which leads to numbers not adding up.

In addition, if you're looking to use your fitness watch for deep sea, night, enclosed, or open water diving, you should consider investing in more durable watches specifically designed for their particular exposure. While Garmin sports watches are often rated high enough in terms of depth for entry-level and advanced divers, it is not a substitute for a real dive watch, which gives additional data necessary for safe decompression.

However, Garmin sports watches are definitely more suited for athletes that rely on GPS, such as bikers, runners, hikers, and so on.

4. Can You Commit to Wearing Your Garmin Sports Watch Regularly?

As with all types of data, sports watch data is the most useful when there is enough of it. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to or can have a watch on their wrist at all times, whether it be due to personal preferences or things beyond their control.

Should you be the kind of person to get allergies from wearing watches, have work that prevents you from wearing fitness watches for uniform reasons, and so on, it may mean that you won't be able to wear your Garmin sports watch enough for the data to be compelling or usable.

Although, if the reason you're not wearing your sports watch is that you're just lazy to charge, Garmin's Fenix 6X Pro features solar charging, so you have no more excuses.

5. Do You Actually Like Looking at Fitness Data?

In theory, fitness tracking can be a handy tool for ordinary people and athletes alike—but it can also trigger another set of problems. Many fitness trackers have an app wherein you can review your data from days, weeks, months, and even years. However, it fails to take into consideration other aspects of your life as well.

If you've recently recovered from an injury or gained a lot of weight due to prolonged movement restrictions, looking at the steep drop in activity can cause a lot of unwelcome emotions. With this, fitness tracking can exacerbate unhealthy coping mechanisms like under-eating or overexercising.

Should you find that seeing fitness data encourages these bad fitness-related habits, it may be a sign that you don't actually need a Garmin sports watch for the particular part of your fitness journey that you're on. However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't get a sports watch at all, just that it may be healthier for you to delay the purchase.

6. Should You Be Considering Other Fitness Watch Brands?

Many believe that Garmin is the best smartwatch for Android, but it's not the only one. You will find dozens of sports that don't require huge levels of precision.

Aside from Garmin, there are also plenty of Fitbit sports watches at more affordable price points—which have similar features. Apart from its watches, Garmin also offers a variety of fitness tracker options for those who don't need that many features.

Before even considering any fitness watch, it's always a good idea to evaluate if your particular needs can be fulfilled with your existing smartphone. For basic things like checking your step counts or setting up stopwatches, most mobile phones will already be able to do the job.

Which Garmin Is Right for Me?

Before making the jump with a Garmin sports watch, it is best to evaluate if it will really add significant value to your fitness journey. Although it's tempting to want to get fancy sports watches right away, the particular fitness problem you may want to address may require an alternative solution.

But if you've asked yourself all the questions above and still think a Garmin sports watch is right for you, there are plenty of options for varying price points and wrist sizes.