Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor Review
Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor
Yay, I finally got my new Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor 2 days ago! Since I got it later in the afternoon on Tuesday, I wasn’t able to use it during a workout until yesterday. My initial impressions are that I love this heart rate monitor.
For starters, the watch itself looks nice to me, although I have heard people say it doesn’t look stylish, I kinda like it. It has that sort of futuristic 60’s feel. The other plus is that it is extremely light so I barely feel it on my wrist. Also, the wristband itself has about 50 slots to adjust the snugness on your wrist. In other words, they are very close together giving you the opportunity to get just the right fit.
The chest band is also top notch. Maybe it’s because I have only had cheaper heart rate monitors in the past, but I didn’t realize they make bands like this one. The entire band is completely flexible and made of fabric. It does not have the hard plastic front like the ones I have worn before. That was my biggest gripe with my old one is that it would slip down while exercising. This band can be tightened as much as you want and stays put because it is able to fit so snugly against your chest. It’s very comfortable and you can forget it is there. I had no problems with it moving around, even during the intense Insanity workouts.
Ok, on to the features. This watch has just the right features for me. First you set it up with all of your personal information: height, weight, age so you can get accurate target levels. Of course you can manually adjust your levels if you wish. When you finish a workout it records the following and stores past data if you want to look at it daily or as an aggregate:
- Max heart rate
- Average heart rate
- Calories burned
- Total exercise time
- Time in fat burning zone
- Time in fitness building zone
Those last 2 were new to me and quite interesting. Apparently, under a certain heart rate your body taps into fat in your body for fuel and that is when fat burning occurs. With higher levels your body taps into carbohydrates and you build your fitness levels in this zone. At the end of the workout you can see the time spent in each zone.
Overall, I initially love this monitor. It never lost a signal and the heart rate appeared to be accurate the entire way through. I also believe the calorie burning number to be accurate as well. I would highly recommend this watch to anyone that is serious about fitness, but doesn’t necessarily need every bell and whistle available.
If you have any questions, or own one yourself please post some comments below.
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Hi, can you tell me that if this (FT7) watch can show the %BPM of max heart rate during the training?
Yes it does, you can set it show a percent of the max, or the actual heart rate. You can set your own ranges as well, it is quite flexible.
Hey I just got my ft7 and put all my settings in. My question is that I have the correct day, month and year entered, but it displays the day on the watch as Saturday, when in reality it’s Friday. Can’t figure out anywhere how to correct this. Thanks!!!
That is really odd! I don’t seem to have this problem. My first reaction would be the year is wrong, but you say it is correct. I don’t know what else to check!
Everyone burns fat according to their age, weight, height etc.. I know this information cannot be entered into the watch,so would you still be getting accurate feedback from the watch ex. calories burned, etc…?
Yes, you enter your birthdate and weight and it calculates calories burned off of that information.