Watch Functions and Setup
When I bought the watch, it came with the manual, software installation CD, heart rate strap, heart rate monitor, USB sync dock, and the watch. I had to setup the watch first, since part of the software installation process was to sync the watch to the software. Watch setup was very easy; you put in your gender, height, weight, date of birth, and activity level, and set the time and date.
For more options from the main screen, press the bottom right button. The first option is settings. Now press the right middle button. Here are the Training Settings:
- Training Sounds
- Off, Soft, Loud, Very Loud
- Pick whichever you want. When I used to listen to music, I turned the sound off, but since I don't usually listen to music now, I usually set the noise to Loud, which is usually a good volume to hear over gym noise or a treadmill motor.
- Heart Rate View
- Beats Per Minutes or Percent of Maximum
- I do BPM because I don't train based on % of max, but if you do, you can
- HeartTouch
- The Polar explanation says it better than I can: "When HeartTouch is on, different training information during training can be accessed without pressing buttons, for instance, when gloves make pressing buttons difficult, by bringing your training computer close to your transmitter."
- I personally use it so I can keep session duration displayed on the watch, and then when I want to see what time it is, instead of scrolling through the displays, which is a pain, I just move the watch near the heart rate monitor, and the time will be displayed.
- Per the manual and my usage, HeartTouch only displays the time, and no other display values...HeartTouch is either On or Off.
- Heart Rate Upper Limit
- This value is set based on your personal info when you first setup the watch. However, if you are in amazing cardio shape, your max HR may be a lot higher. Therefore, you can change this if you know your max HR is different.
Other options on the main selection menu after Settings are Fitness Test and Data. You can read below about Fitness Test. For Data, you get some nice options:
- Training Files
- Starts with most recent workout
- Displayed date, time of workout, duration of workout
- Press the right middle button to see details
- Calories
- This is your calories burned during the workout
- Cal. Fat
- This is the fat percentage of calories burned
- Average
- Average Heart Rate during session
- Maximum
- Maximum Heart Rate during session
- Fat Burn
- Amount of time you were in the fat burning zone
- This time is usually higher during low intensity workouts, such as strength training
- Fitness
- Amount of time you were in the fitness zone (or cardiovascular zone)
- Typically for runs, biking, or other purely cardio workouts, most of your session time will appear here.
- Week Summaries
- Shows current week first
- Graph shows activity level of selected week vs. other weeks
- Pressing the middle right button, you can see the details for that week
- Duration (overall for all sessions)
- Calories (total from all sessions)
- Sessions (total sessions for week)
- Totals since
(when you first started using the watch) - This is a really awesome feature, as you can see how awesome you are
- The one problem is that the max Duration time is 99 hour, 59 minutes, so although it will keep adding sessions and calories, your Duration will stop at 99h:59m
- Displays Duration, Sessions, and Calories
- Delete Files
- Deletes your currently stored files...if your storage is full and you need to do a workout, you may need to do this
- Reset Week Summaries
- Same as Delete files
- Reset Totals
- Same as Delete files
- This is good to use if you are trying to achieve certain goals. This way you can see how many sessions, total duration, and total calories burned to achieve your goal. Then you can reset for you next goal.
Recommendations for Initial Use
After you have setup your watch, signed up on Polar Fitness website and are ready for a workout, I recommend doing 2 things. It's important to know 2 things; what is your resting heart rate and what heart rate range should you be working out in. Heart rate ranges for age and gender are good guides, but people who fall on either extreme end of the spectrum may either hurt themselves or not get enough out of a workout. For example, someone who is extremely out of shape, overweight, and has no real fitness stamina, then their heart rate range is going to be significantly less than another person who is in the middle of the spectrum in the same age group and gender. So, make sure to do the fitness test.
To do the fitness test, press the bottom right button 2 times, then press the right middle button. Make sure you heart rate monitor is on. You also want to do the following:
- Find a relaxed environment to do the test
- Avoid any physical activity prior to test, or any food, drink, or medicine that could alter your heart rate...do this for up to 1 day before test
- Avoid any large meals at least 2 hours before test (I tried test this way and right after a large meal and got the same results)
- Make sure if you are doing the test multiple times over time, always do it in the same conditions
Then, you can start the test, wait 5 minutes for it to finish, and see your results. You will then be asked to update your VO2Max, at which point you should, since it will make calorie burn more accurate.
My result for example, the first time I took the test mine was 42. Per the chart in the manual, that means my VO2Max was on the low end of being moderately good. The last time I took it I was at 53, which is very good. So, you can see I have improved. In essence, the fitness test is Polar's version of trying to determine your VO2Max. Compared to getting your actual VO2Max tested, it's not the greatest, but compared to most other calculators and competitor watches, it's one of the most accurate.
Training
When you want to start your workout, press the middle right button and wait for the watch to pickup the heart rate monitor signal. If you want to start, just press the middle right button again and go! If you need to pause, press the bottom left button, and the press the middle right button to resume. if you are done, press the bottom left button twice.
If you want to customize your workout, before pressing the middle right button a second time, press the bottom right button to see Training Settings, and then press the middle right button to see options.
- Training Sounds
- If you want beeps or not, and how loud
- Heart Rate View
- BPM or % of Max...whatever you want to display based on your training session
- Heart Touch
- I usually keep it on all of the time so I can see the current time if I need to
- Heart Rate Upper Limit
- If you are trying to keep from going above a certain heart rate, set the upper limit and make sure you have Training Sounds enabled so you know if you go over
Sadly, there are no other special training settings. However, there are plenty of other models you can get for this. But for a watch to get you accurate calorie burn from workouts, this is definitely the watch for you.
