Polar FT40 Women’s Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Green)
Stay within your ideal training and intensity range while jogging or working out with the Polar FT40 women’s heart rate monitor watch. The FT40 works by first checking your daily condition, and then guiding you to the ideal training intensity for your age and fitness level. Knowing your heart rate not only helps you reach your personal fitness goal, but also improves your physical condition in general, as it’s vitally important to train at the appropriate intensity level. If you exercise too hard, you may quit before you reach the real benefit, but if you work out too leisurely, you’ll struggle to lose weight at all. The FT40 helps overcome these problems by encouraging you to map out a complete fitness routine. The FT40 is packed with innovative training features to help you toward your exercise goals. First off, the watch displays heart rate info in several ways, including as a percentage of your maximum heart rate, as beats per minute, and within a graphical target z … >>> Special Offers & Product Promotions
This heart rate monitor is definitely worth the extra over the cheaper versions. My husband has the Polar F6 and we both agree that this is worth the extra $50. It’s has enhanced my running and strength training more that I thought it would. The alarms are very useful, and I love the fitness test and that it tracks my training. The chest strap is high quality and comfortable, and the wrist unit is also comfortable and attractive. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that the green band looks a little cheaper in person than it does in the picture. The design isn’t as evident as I expected. Otherwise it is perfect for my training. I love it!
This is a good adjunct if you are prone to overtraining. If you are doing cardio to lose fat, the energy bar provides a visual cue to keep you from pushing too hard and breaking down muscle for that particular cardio workout based on how well rested you are. Of course we are relying in Polar’s secret formula regarding heart rate variability to do this; but this seems to correlate well with other markers of overtraining to include HR recovery and change in morning resting heart rate. Using it with the flowlink is a great way to keep track of calories burned as well as to troubleshoot any lack of progress.
Regarding looks, it’s no uglier than a generic timex, but looks better and calls less attention than the 1st generation polars. Not to crazy about he unisex green detailing. The lack of looks costs it one star. I covered the face with a screen protector, as deep scratches from training had been a problem with my previous heart rate monitors, and this seems to work well.
Regarding the chronograph function, I didn’t like how the face setting with “time only” does not have seconds. This made it unusable in my line or work where I need to measure things in beats per minute. In order to display seconds, you have to also display the “polar FT40″ graphic, which cuts the font size of the watch from an 18, down to about a 10 to fit everything on the screen. Not a deal breaker, just annoying.
I would recommend this for strength and power athletes who have a tendency to lose muscle while trying to lose fat due to overtraining. If overtraining is not a problem, you don’t need to shell out the extra cash for the polar energy bar.
The watch is great. I really like the fact that it keeps your cal output over a period of time. It helps me to determine the intenisty of my workouts for the week and month.