Photo: Oakley.com

If you're exercising outdoors this summer, you've got to protect your eyes from the scorching sun, and did you know that wearing shades without UV protection can be worse than not wearing sunglasses at all? Sure enough. You see, pupils dilate behind dark lenses, which makes the retina more vulnerable to the sun's rays. So unless there's UV protection in those dark lenses, they're just doing damage to your eyes.

Follow these eyewear tips from Ladies Home Journal, and you'll keep yourself safe and sporty while tackling your warm-weather workouts.

• Purchase sunglasses that block 99 percent of UVA and UVB rays.
• Buy glasses with polarized lenses to cut glare and improve vision.
• Choose a wraparound stye to block rays from the sides.

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That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader. We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other. That's Fit Club members are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind.

Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Adidas is giving gorgeous gym bags to each featured member. To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions, with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Jared Seymour

Age: 32

Occupation: National Account Rep for Oakley

What type of exercise do you do? Running, Bike, Swimming, Basketball

What gets you to work out, even when you're feeling lazy? My wife. She is a great motivator when I won't get off the couch.

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Oakley came out several years ago with the THUMP, a sunglass/mp3 player combo. It was a really cool idea, because, really, how much extra stuff do you to carry when you go running? And it's great to not have to worry about cords or earbud slippage. Plus, the earphones hover just outside your ear, so while you can hear the music, other noises aren't entirely blocked, which is a nice safety feature.

They've now come out with an improved version, the Oakley Split THUMP. The first improvement I noticed was the fact that the earphones are removable, so if you show up at a race and find out only then that you can't have earphones (not like that's ever happened to me or anyone I know), you've still got glasses. Plus, if you're out for a run and then head out to the beach or park to hang out with friends, you can remove the earphones.

Additionally, the sound quality has improved (though, I actually hadn't noticed it being all that bad to begin with). They come in two varieties, a 512MB for $249, and a 2GB for $399, so you should be able to fit enough music on there to last your entire workout. The battery life is estimated to be around seven hours, so that should hold out for you, too.

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It's hard enough to find sunglass that look good and feel good -- it gets even more complicated when you throw sports into the mix. You need to make sure your sunglasses stay put, of course, but if you're doing something active, like running, you also want shades that don't weigh too heavily on your nose or cheekbones.

Oakley has always made a point of designing glasses that stay where they need to be, which is why they've been popular with professional baseball players, volleyball players, and golfers. Take a look through the gallery and see which ones suit you and your sport!

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