Jan. 30, 2025 — When he isn’t performing cardiac stress tests on heart and lung disease patients, Brian Clevan is training for his 14th Ironman competition. A clinical exercise physiologist at Bellin Health in Marinette, Wisconsin, Clevan has run at least 1 continuous mile daily since July 2, 2010, (that’s more than 5,300 running days and counting) and has his eye on the World Marathon Challenge (seven marathons on seven continents in seven days).
Like many, Clevan relies on his smartwatch and chest band to monitor his heart rate and fatigue and for logging miles. And he recommends those tools to anyone trying to keep active – from the hardcore athlete to the weekend warrior.
But new wearable tech is coming of age. Smart clothing – shirts, sports bras, and yoga pants –offer the ability to track similar metrics and more. Are these smart second skins all that they claim to be?
“Wearable technology has come a long way. But every wearable has its own strengths and weaknesses,” says Glenn Cain, associate director of strength and conditioning for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights Women’s Basketball team.
How do you know what will work for you? Read on.
What Are Athletes Using?
Cain says a good way to get information on new wearable tech is to see what the elite athletic teams are wearing.
At Rutgers, he says, the women’s hoops team uses the Sensoria Fitness line of sports bras (which contain a built-in, washable sensor that connects to the company’s own or other apps) and the Polar Heart Rate sensors (attached to a belt worn around the chest) to measure heart rate and heart rate variability. (Sensoria also has a line of T-shirts, socks, and footwear, all of which offer a range of metrics tracking options.) The Scarlet Knight team members have the option to use either device, although Cain said that many players prefer the comfort that the sports bra offers.
Still, an important consideration is how to balance comfort with accuracy. Cain says he believes that the Polar Heart Rate sensors are most accurate for monitoring heart rate, which may be an important factor for fitness junkies who want to track how much time they spend in each heart rate zone. (Zones range from 1, low- to moderate-intensity efforts using 50% to 60% of your maximum heart rate, to 5, very high-intensity efforts using 90% to 100% of your maximum heart rate.) On the other hand, “they’re not as accurate in terms of measuring GPS-based metrics, like velocity and speed,” he says.
Metrics That Matter
Heart rate is only one measurement to gauge performance; GPS-based metrics like pace/speed and velocity (the speed at which someone changes position), mileage, and cardio load (heart rate plus total mileage) are used in professional, collegiate, and elite athletic settings to improve fitness outcomes and team ranking.
Toward that end, an important consideration is that smart clothing does not necessarily capture all these metrics.
At the University of Louisville, Jennifer Daily, MD, head doctor for the athletics department and medical director of the University’s Sport Medicine Service, has opted for smart clothing that relies on Catapult technology, which is used by more than 4,000 teams across 40 sports. Daily says that the bralette (or vest) “goes underneath your clothes and has a removable GPS tracking device that measures mileage, speed, and intensity.” It can also measure an athlete’s overall workload and calorie expenditure. Of note, the company recently introduced a consumer line, Catapult One, to help monitor performance, provide insight to optimize workouts, and prevent injury.
Another important consideration before jumping on the smart clothing bandwagon is data. What data, exactly, do you need? Only a fairly advanced athlete needs more than the basics.
Serious data is advanced science. Professional and collegiate coaches and medical personnel often rely on sports data analysts, deep-dive experts who crunch and compile numbers. This information is then used to inform coaches about individual players’ training volume, challenges, and advances or declines. Cain relies on wearable technology for court play and weight technology in the weight room to monitor the players, improve outcomes, and avoid injuries.
Fashion, Meet Function
Another selling point: This stuff is made to look sharp.
Tom Martin, PhD, program director for computer and information science and engineering at the National Science Foundation and a professor at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, is an expert in wearable computing and electronic textiles. In the spirit of “everything old is new again,” Martin says that the smart clothing concept is hardly a new one. He’s been working on it for decades, and sports manufacturers have also been looking into its applications.
“About 10 years ago, Adidas deployed a smart textile system to measure European pro football players’ fitness. My recollection is that the goalies hated it because it made them look like they were out of shape compared to everyone else,” says Martin.
When it comes to design, smart clothing manufacturers have also had to choose between fashion and function. “Whatever that piece of smart clothing is, it has to have all of the features of the ‘not smart’ version,” says Martin. “Clothing doesn’t just cover us and protect us from the elements; it really signals who we are.”
Wearable X’s Nadi X Smart Yoga Pants appear to come closest to this consideration. The pants look and feel high-tech and lightweight, addressing design concerns. From the technology standpoint, the washable pants have attachable sensors that monitor posture and provide vibrations that can correct alignment and guide users into better poses. Additionally, the technology connects to a smartphone so users can track their progress as well as receive audio instructions with each pose.
Define Your ‘Prime Time’
Lucy E. Dunne, PhD, is professor of apparel design and co-director of the Wearable Technology Lab at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She points to the variety of challenges facing the industry — challenges that have led to overall imperfections.
“Clothes are hard in an invisible way. A lot of sensing modalities need good, stable skin contact, so the fact that they’re moving around on the body adds error and noise to the signal, meaning the garment has to be stable, and a sizing system that understands and can adapt to the body at a granular level,” says Dunne.
“There’s no way for our current systems to really do that. The app part is the trivial part; the problem comes from the actual fabric. For now, we only see applications that are really localized, like a sensor in a bra strap,” she says.
This raises the question: Is smart clothing ready for prime time?
“It depends on what your prime time is,” says Dunne. “You need to get value out of something that is not necessarily perfectly accurate.”
Before you buy, consider the following:
- Availability. Some of these items can be purchased via online retail sites (Sensoria, Catapult), online and in brick-and-mortar sites (Polar), or only on the manufacturer’s website (Nadi X).
- Price. The cost for Sensoria and Polar options are on the lower end ($12 to $99), while Catapult (~$180) and Nadi X run a bit higher (~$300).
- Comfort and wearability. Is the clothing comfortable and washable? Can the sensor be removed? What’s its shelf life?
- Accuracy. How accurate is it for what you seek to measure?
- Goal: What are you trying to achieve and how important is the article of clothing for that goal?
The main question once again: What, exactly, do you need?
“There’s many layers to (these) answers for each person,” says Cain. “You still have to do the work.”
