Polar Heart Rate Monitor Watch

Find out why a Polar heart rate monitor watch may be your best choice in a heart monitor.

When it comes to heart monitor watches, the Polar brand immediately comes to mind. In fact, Polar heart rate monitor watches are rated number one by many athletes and training facilities. (There is a reason why exercise machines in many gyms are compatible with Polar monitors.)

So why have Polar heart rate monitor watches remained so popular even with lots of other well known companies manufacturing heart monitor watches?

Well first and foremost, Polar has always been at the forefront of new developments in heart rate monitors.

Secondly, it’s hard to find a more rugged and reliable heart rate monitor.

Third is the sheer variety available. Whether you are just getting into fitness or are a serious athlete, Polar makes a heart rate monitor that will have every feature you could ever want.

To make it easier for you to find what you are looking for, Polar divides up their product lines. 

The Polar Product Lines

Their F/FS series are for those who want to get fit and would like to lose weight at the same time. The features of this series are designed to be used in many kinds of training situations. Some watches in the F series include a calorie counter with ability to track fat percentage.

The Polar RS series of monitors is designed mainly for runners, whether you’re racing competitively or just running to get in a good cardio workout. As you’d expect the features include speed and distance tracking.

The Polar S series are intermediate right up to advanced monitors for sports such as cycling or running. These include features like manual heart rate training zones, multiple timers, fitness tests, calorie counter and the ability to download your stats to your home computer.

So let’s take a look at a few of the many Polar heart rate monitor watches on the market.

The Polar FS1 Series Monitor is the most basic monitor offered by Polar. Even so it has some very useful features. It comes with a chest strap to transmit data to the receiver on the watch. It offers continuous monitoring and your heart rate training zone can be manually set. To let you know when you go outside of your preset zone, there is a combination audio and visual alarm. The FS1 keeps track of the average heart rate of your exercise session.

The Polar F6 is an intermediate monitor. It is designed for weight management and fitness training and can store training data from multiple exercise sessions. It also comes with a chest strap to transmit information to your watch, but this strap is coded, so there won’t be interference if other exercisers are using heart rate monitors close by.

In addition to the features of the FS1 the Polar F6 has lots of nice extras. It has 2 automatic settings for your heart rate training zone along with 4 exercise intensities to choose for each. 

It also displays the number of calories burned both during your workout and after it's finished. Data from your last 12 training sessions can be saved. With the Polar F6 you can transfer data from your monitor to the Polar fitness training website.

With the Polar F6, it’s easy to track as well as analyze your training results over a long period of time.

Polar RS800 Heart Rate Monitors are considered advanced monitors and it’s easy to see why. It has many features that are aimed at endurance athletes as well as competitive runners.

For example, while the RS800 offers continuous heart rate monitoring it will also measure heart rate variability. It also measures any change in altitude as you run.

Heart rate can be set to display in one of two ways; either beats per minute or percent of maximum heart rate.  There is also an alarm system to let you know when your heart rate falls out of the optimum level.

It keeps track of up to 99 training sessions with data records including calories burnt, total number of sessions, total duration and total ascent. There are many, many more features. But one that will appeal to many who have previously used heart rate monitors, is the ability to replace the chest strap and the batteries in the watch yourself.

One of the top heart rate monitors is the PolarS625X. This is a state of the art monitor intended for both runners and cyclists. It comes with the Polar S1 Foot Pod used for distance measurements and running speed.

You get the most out of this monitor by utilizing the choices it allows you to make. For instance, you can record your heart rate in either the basic setting or the exercise setting. From there you can set up multiple training zones and choose from 4 types of interval training sets.

The S625X automatically records laps of preset distances, as well as keeping track of lap and split times. It provides tons of the usual real time information but also records things like speed, pace, ascent, altitude, temperature and more.

And as you would expect, data storage is complete for up to 99 sessions. You also have access to the Polar Precision Performance Software for detailed analysis of your training data. Then use this analysis to fine tune your upcoming training sessions.

And now you know why a Polar heart rate monitor watch may just be your best choice in a heart monitor.