Polar RS100 Heart Rate Monitors

Author's product rating:   

Durability	Good
Comfort	Excellent
Value for money	Excellent

Advantages:	Just like having your own personal trainer
Disadvantages:	A little tricky to work out to start with

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Polar RS100 Heart Rate Monitor

This is the second heart rate monitor that i have bought, the first one was years ago and on the rare occaision it did pick up your pulse it went completely wrong if you were near anything electrical or any other heart rate monitors. Bearing this in mind i was a liitle wary of getting another but i have currently started training to complete a half marathon and depending on how well it goes i may enter a full marathon so i thought it was high time i got myself kitted out.

I have to say, times have definately changed, this monitor just everything you could ever ask (except for the running)!

The Polar RS100 heart rate monitor has its own code to avoid unwanted interference meaning you can be in a room with ten other monitors and yours is the only pulse it picks up

It features an easy press lap / split button for recording mile / km / lap times quicky and easily

It has a clear 3 line display that shows all manner of stats including lap counter, heart rate and workout time. This also shows the date and time

The Polar RS100 has the capability to enable you to set your own training zone to help you control and sustain your desired intensity. This is done by setting either a percentage of your maximum heart rate or as beats per minute.

You have the option to set an alarm that sounds if you go above or below your training zone and if you are unsure of what your training zone should be you can you the Own Zone function.

Polar OwnZone automatic ally calculatates your training zone intensity with audible and visual alarms, this is generally about 65-85% of your Max HR.

This is calculated by the watch following a 5 minute walking / jogging test.

If you prefer to workout your own training intensity then you can you the following formula

220 - your age = your maximum heart rate

It is generally accepted that if you what to increase your fitness then you need to be working around 65 - 85% of your maximum heart rate, however if you just want to shed a few pounds and are looking for a more gradually progression the a lower % is recommended.

Speaking of shedding a few pounds, this monitor can even calculate your calorie expenditure and also workout how many calories were fat burnt calories.

For those of you who are looking to increase speed for a partcular event and want to monitor your speed throughout a run, the Polar RS100 has a 99 lap / split stopwatch with 1/100 second resolution which is ideal for interval work or to check your pace for each part of your run as you can collect this information and then recall mile / km times.

Do worry if you are thinking this is too much detail, you can change the display to suit your individual needs and just show the information that is most relevant to you and once you have finished your run you can review all the information including duration of exercise, heart rate average for the entire session, the training limits applied, how long you spent "in zone" and the amount of calories burnt with % of fat calories and that not all, every time you excersise for more than one minute, the monitor creates a file with date and start time, duration of exercise, average heart rate (in bpm or %), maximum heart rate (bpm or %), training zone applied, time in this zone, time above the zone and time below zone. Total calories burnt during session and the percentage of those calories that came from fat You can even look at the number of laps, best lap time, lap time with average heart rate and heart rate at end of lap.

Overall this is a superb piece of equipment which has helped me training much more effectively. Sometimes you slow down without realising or just get a bit lazy during your run but with the own zone function you soon get an alarm sound and start working again. Its just like running with your own personal trainer.

All this for under £70, with the average personal training session costing £25 - £30 per hour its well worth the money.

The only negative i can find about this product is that it did take me a little whilst to figure out how to work all of the functions although you do get thorough instructions but im not that great with technology