A sport watch combines the functions of a stopwatch, alarm and classic wristwatch into one technological timepiece. It is designed to be tough, handsome and useful. A sport watch is water resistant, shock resistant, and can help you improve your lap time or 5K.

While dress watches have bezels of polished metals, a sport watch is made of plastic or rubber composites. Originally manufactured in black, they now come in many colors from construction yellow to fire truck red. Time and date on a sport watch are in digital LCD (liquid crystal display), and mode buttons change function and input settings.

A chronometer is one of the key features of a sport watch. By pressing a button until "chrono" flashes, you can switch from date and time to stopwatch mode. Clock laps, mile markers, or your 5K run time, right down to split seconds. The stopwatch function of the sport watch saves individual lap times to memory while keeping track of accumulated time. To see individual times, you can cycle through with the press of a button. You can also save or erase recorded times. Triathletes wear sport watches because they are shock and water-resistant. This makes them perfect for pool laps, kayaking, boating, skiing, bicycling and many other activities.

To make sure you won't be late to your meet, the sport watch can also function as an alarm. Some models support up to three separate alarms per day. This is a great feature for personal training. For example, the first alarm can let you know it's time to move from upper to lower body exercises; the second to move into cardio; and the third alarm might signal that your workout is over. If the alarm has a repeat function, you can also use it to time your sets. If set to three minutes, for example, it will beep once when the interval has expired, then start the count over. This can keep your workout on schedule to make sure you get all of your exercises in.

The specific features of a sport watch vary depending on the manufacturer and model. Included among the most popular sport watches are the Ironman by Timex, the D1 by Oakley, Casio's G-Shock, and many more by companies like Nike, Polar, Freestyle and Animal. Sport watches are available everywhere watches are sold, at sporting outlets, and online.