Let’s hear it for the winners of the Tom’s Guide Fitness Awards 2026. These are the gadgets, watches, and tech that will help you train harder, recover faster, and sleep better. As a fitness team, we test hundreds of products to find the ones that go beyond the hype, and actually make a difference to your training. Below, we celebrate some of these innovations in our fitness awards.
Whether it’s a running watch that helps you train smarter for your next race, to the hiking equipment earns its weight in your pack, we’ve hand-picked products across three different categories: running, home training and recovery, and golf and hiking.
The best gear is the kind you don’t notice — it’s the kind that disappears, so you can focus on the sport. But these products are worth noticing, and more importantly, worth fitting into your training routine.
Running
Wahoo Kickr Run Tread
When it comes to a realistic indoor running experience, the Wahoo Kickr Run Tread is as good as it gets. The RunFree mode, combined with the large running belt and open front, creates a relaxing and enjoyable feel to indoor runs where you don’t have to worry about buttons and levers. It’s also suitable for runners of all levels, including experienced athletes using it for interval sessions, thanks to the high top speed and fast acceleration and deceleration.
It’s expensive, but for certain runners it will be a dream come true, and elevate your indoor runs to a new level, making it a worthy winner of Tom’s Guide Fitness Award.
Shockz Openfit Pro
The Shokz OpenFit Pro are the new flagship open headphones in Shokz’s range, sitting above the OpenFit 2 and OpenFit 2+. The most eye-catching new feature on the buds is noise reduction, but they also offer sound quality and battery improvements on the OpenFit+. Like all of Shokz’s headphones, these allow you to run while still being aware of your surroundings. The OpenFit Pro has independent earhooks that position a speaker near your ear canal without blocking it, so you can still hear the world around you.
During testing, we were impressed by the premium feel of these earbuds, as well as the comfort while wearing them, even with sunglasses on. They stayed securely in place during the toughest of workouts, earning them a spot in our awards.
Garmin Forerunner 970
The Garmin Forerunner 970 is our favorite running watch right now, and for good reason — it is the top-of-the-range Forerunner, packed with all of Garmin’s best sports tracking and training analysis features. It also has offline maps and excellent navigation features, and the only significant differences between it and the more expensive Garmin Fenix 8 Pro are that the latter has a metal case and LTE and satellite connectivity.
It was an obvious choice for a Tom’s Guide award — it is the best sports watch available for runners and triathletes, offering an upgraded design that’s more attractive and durable than the Forerunner 965, reliably accurate tracking, and detailed training insights that go beyond what we’ve seen before from a watch
Garmin Venu 4
The Garmin Venu 4 bridges the smartwatch/sportswatch gap perfectly. The Venu 4 has some of Garmin’s most premium health and training features, as well as a bunch of new ones built in, including the new sleep consistency and sleep alignment features, lifestyle logging, and health status. It’s pretty much identical to the Garmin Forerunner 570 from a features perspective, but with one less button and the addition of a flashlight and the ability to take ECG measurements.
If you’re someone, however, who wears your watch 24/7, the obvious selling point of the Venu 4 is its appearance. The smartwatch-style design has a more premium feel than the Forerunner 570 and its predecessor, the Venu 3. This is one of the best Garmin watches on the market, and a worthy winner.
Amazfit Cheetah Pro 2
The Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro offers many of the same pro-level design specs, training tools, and holistic features found on Garmin’s $750 flagship running watch, for $300 less.
The list includes dual-band GPS, a titanium alloy case, a sapphire crystal glass, an ultra-bright AMOLED screen, a built-in LED flashlight, support for 170+ workout modes, personalized training plans, advanced recovery metrics, and more.
It’s got an impressive spec, for an amazing price, making it a standout winner of a Tom’s Guide award.
Home training and recovery
Lifepro PowerStone Boulder Adjustable Kettlebell
This clever little adjustable kettlebell is like seven kettlebells in one, saving you money and space when you’re working out at home. It adjusts from 5 to 44 pounds, using a simple twist — you just put the kettlebell back on its base, and use the handle to turn the weight. The kettlebell clicks into place, and you’re good to go, allowing you to transition between exercises and increase the intensity, with little interruption.
The kettlebell itself feels sturdy and well-made, and the audible click offers heaps of reassurance when you’re, quite literally, swinging the weight around your living room. It’s a little larger than your average kettlebell, but you’ll only need the one, making this a great investment and an undisputed heavyweight for a Tom’s Guide award.
Alo Wellness Club
In a world of expensive studios, we’re thrilled to give an award to a completely free app. Alo Wellness Club is an evolution of the Alo Moves platform, and once you’ve created an account, you’ll get access to hundreds of classes you can do from just about anywhere.
Once you’re in, you can receive personalized recommendations based on your interests. There are tonnes of Pilates content, but also yoga, strength, HIIT, barre, and mindfulness and meditation classes to choose from. We believe moving your body shouldn’t be expensive, and there’s a lot to love about this free app.
UREVO FoldiMix 5L
For the fitness awards, we’re always looking for innovative products that’ll help make movement easier, and the Urevo FoldiMix 5L does just that. It’s a standing desk and a walking treadmill rolled into one.
It’s super-quiet, allowing you to walk while you work, and it is super easy to fold and unfold, allowing you to stow it away when you’re not using it. A huge selling point, and the reason we deemed the Urevo award-worthy, is that, unlike most walking treadmills, this doubles up as one you can run on. It has a top speed of 7.6 miles per hour, which translates to a running pace of around a 7:50-minute mile. It won’t be quick enough for some runners, but it’s a great option for bad weather days or runners looking to train at unsociable hours.
Hyperice Hypervolt 3
The Hypervolt 3 is the mid-range massage gun in Hyperice’s Hypervolt 3 series. It packs a real punch, which is why we deemed it award-worthy, and it comes with redesigned attachments, which cover more surface area as you knead tired muscles.
Compared to its predecessor, the Hypervolt 2, the new massage gun offers five different percussion speeds for a more personalized recovery routine. It also has a longer, four-hour battery life, and a pill-shaped handle that’s more comfortable to hold. We particularly liked the heated head attachment, which has three levels of heat and warms in under a minute.
VKTRY Recovery Slides
Recovery slides aren’t just a fancy flip-flop; they are designed to provide active recovery and reduce the impact of walking on tired muscles. The VKTRY recovery slides feature the same carbon fiber technology found in the brand’s performance insoles, and have everything you’d expect from a recovery shoe, including shock absorption, arch support, and a bouncy, underfoot feel.
We’ve tried countless recovery sliders and thought the wave-textured footbed was a nice touch from VKTRY. The result is your tired foot gets a gentle massage as you move. The sole also has a rocker design, helping to make it easier to roll onto the ball of your foot as you move. Paired with a deep heel cup and arch support, which takes the tension off the plantar fascia and the Achilles tendon, these were an easy choice for a recovery award!
GoRuck Rucking Vest
Strapping the GoRuck Rucking Vest on instantly dials up any kind of workout. While it’s developed for hiking, you can deploy it just as easily for resistance training or callisthenics. The vest comes with adjustable straps to fit different torso sizes and a stretchable waistband that cinches nicely without restricting your breathing. The weight feels nicely distributed, and the plates are easy to swap in, from 10lbs right up to a gruelling 60lbs split between the front and back pockets. The vest is heavy and monumentally durable, but not uncomfortable because GoRuck has added padding under the straps and an interior lining to prevent chafing.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 8
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is one of the best smartwatches — in terms of full-featured models — and best smartwatches for Android in 2026, and a superb wearable for advanced sleep tracking insights and reliable fitness tracking performance. Moreover, unlike Garmin and Google, Samsung doesn’t charge a subscription for AI-backed sleep trends and highly personalised health and fitness advice.
Speaking of AI, the Galaxy Watch 8 supports Samsung’s personalised Run Coach feature, a highly effective motivational tool for newbie runners, whether you’re prepping for your first 5K or simply trying to incorporate a little more cardio in your workouts without overtraining.
Garmin Tacx Alpine
Our awards celebrate innovation, and for indoor cyclists, the Garmin Tacx Alpine stands out from the crowd. This isn’t just a smart trainer; it allows you to climb from your living room thanks to the motorized integrated riser, which physically tilts your bike frame as you pedal, with gradients up to 25% and down to -10%.
Mimicking the natural movement of cycling outdoors, the Alpine also has multi-directional motion plates, which allow for a side-to-side sway as you cycle indoors. If you’re cycling an indoor century, this is the product you want to do it on. This is the peak of performance for indoor cyclists, and a hands-down favorite for a Tom’s Guide fitness award.
Golf and Hiking
Garmin Fenix 8 Pro
The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro is one of the most impressive smartwatches Garmin has ever released; it’s also among the priciest. Cost aside, this premium, tough-built, GPS smartwatch is designed with hardcore outdoor adventurers in mind. What does that entail? Best-in-class smartwatch navigational tools, satellite messaging for off-grid communication, and even LTE connectivity.
The Fenix 8 Pro also lasts an impressive 15 days per charge in smartwatch mode or up to 26 hours of power when using full-system GPS for tracking outdoor activities. As you’d expect from a flagship outdoor watch, tracking performance is top-notch, and the build quality is designed to survive the harshest of conditions with 100 meters of water resistance. Toss in an ultrabright display, and you’ve got nothing short of a grail-level smartwatch for athletes.
Amazfit T-Rex Ultra 2
The Amazfit T-Rex 2 Ultra is the brand’s toughest built smartwatch, and answer to the Apple Watch Ultra 3, with better battery performance (up to 30 days per charge), more workout tracking modes, an onboard LED flashlight, and preloaded hiking maps, all for $250 cheaper.
The unique hexagonal case design boasts a titanium frame and a reinforced polymer case back. Water resistance is an impressive 100 meters, the same as the Ultra 3. Meanwhile, the 1.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen is a tad smaller than the competition, but just as bright, maxing out at 3,000 nits. This makes it a breeze to view in bright sunlight or even underwater.
Hypershell X Ultra S
I’ve tested roughly a half-dozen different consumer-friendly exoskeletons, and the brand with the most comfortable and easiest-to-use models has to be Hypershell, one of the OG players in the space.
The freshest addition to the brand’s lineup is the New Hypershell X Series, which comes in several varieties, most notably the Hypershell X Ultra S for $1,999. This package includes two ‘anti-cold’ battery packs to keep you cruising for up to roughly 37 miles. Moverber, thanks to a manageable overall weight, 15 mph max sauntering speed, and 12 intelligent walking modes — all of which analyse a user’s stride and gait to offer the best possible assistance — the Hypershell X Ultra series is the closest you can get to being Inspector Gadget in 2026.
Coros Apex 4
The Coros Apex 4 is a worthy winner of a Tom’s Guide fitness award, especially in the outdoor category. For multi-day hikers, the 90 hours of full GPS tracking and 45 days in smartwatch mode set this watch apart from its competitors.
The dual-frequency GPS, combined with Coro’s Satellite Signal prediction algorithm provides some of the most accurate GPS on the market. During our vigorous testing, the Coros Apex 4 tracked closely to the routes we actually ran, and easily kept up with the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Fenix 8 Pro.
The Coros Apex 4 is an accurate and durable sports watch with excellent battery life and all the features you need to train as a keen runner or cyclist, or to head out into the great outdoors for more adventurous activities.
Yeti Skala 50L Men’s Hiking Pack
The right gear allows you to explore freely, and the Yeti Skala hiking pack was a shoo-in for a hiking award because it does just that. While most ultralight hiking packs sacrifice durability for weight, the Skala does both — it’s made from Yeti’s Castaway 400D Nylon, a puncture-resistant fabric that’s water-resistant to keep your gear dry.
There are a few standout features on this pack that earned it an award — the AlumaLite frame does a great job of distributing the pack’s weight to your shoulders and hips, making it comfortable to walk miles with. Plus, the RipZip Opening makes it easy to grab your gear, wherever it is in the pack, plus there are enough internal and external pockets to organize the most disorganized hiker.
TNF Summit Superior FUTURELIGHT Jacket
There are waterproof jackets that leave you feeling like you’re hiking in a plastic bag, then there’s the Summit Superior Futurelight Jacket. A must-have for trail runners, fast-packers, or those heading out on a hike, this jacket is built for the mountains and was an easy pick for a Tom’s Guide Fitness Award.
The technology in this jacket is impressive — its seam-sealed Futurelight shell delivers excellent waterproof protection that’s also breathable, meaning you’ll never have to stop to vent out on a long hike or trail run. There’s an internal pocket that doubles as a stow pocket, allowing you to pack the jacket down when the weather gets warm enough. Plus it has a fully adjustable hood, with reflective details to help you stay seen in low-light. For trail runners, the pack is light enough to comply with mandatory race-kit requirements; for hikers, this lightweight jacket will fast become your most-used accessory.
Garmin Approach G82
Garmin consistently finds a way to create unexpected tech devices in the golf space, and the G82 is no exception. It blends the features of a handheld GPS and a smartwatch with a full-featured launch monitor. After just one use, I realized that the Garmin G82 is a device all golfers would benefit from. You can mount it to the cart so you and your playing partners will always know the distance to the green hazards and anything else you might need at a glance on the 5-inch display. Then you can set it behind you and get key data like club speed, ball speed, tempo and much more.
What really sold me on this thing is the putting practice. You can get detailed readings on your putting stroke length and tempo, which will make those warmups on the practice green actually productive. If your golf game is in shambles or you want to make some subtle adjustments, you’ll be happy to have the Garmin Approach G82 in your bag. It manages to squeeze a bunch of different functions into a single piece of hardware without sacrificing the quality or performance of any of them.
