If you are looking for a quality heart rate monitor and stopwatch then you should have a closer look at the polar rs100.
Polar RS100 Heart Rate Monitor and Stopwatch
Polar rs100 helps you exercise at the right intensity to get the most out of your workout. This is one of the top selling heart rate monitors on the market and for good reason. Recently reduced from around $120 down to $94 this is a great heart rate monitor that you will have no regrets about buying.
get a GREAT DEAL on the Polar RS-100
Take a look at some of these features:
- Improve your training with watch-style heart rate monitor with stopwatch functionality
- Monitor your intensity level to ensure you achieve the desired goal for each workout
- Calculates the amount of total exercise time spent in your personal target zone
- Comes with Polar T31 coded transmitter, which prevents interference from other nearby monitors
- Backed by a 2-year warranty
It’s unisex, easy to use, and has all of the features a runner needs without all of the expensive frills. I chose the RS100 because it had features that the women-specific watches did not, including interval timers, two zone limit monitors, and a back light (essential if you run at night or cross train in spin class where the lights are usually low). I recommended spending a half hour reading the manual and setting up the watch that way. It covers every feature simply and clearly.
Being able to set my own heart rate and percentage limits is great since those numbers change as my fitness improves. I also like that the running total tells me the percent of calories burned from fat, super essential for proper training.
The total only keeps track of one run at a time, which is fine. I log my runs in an Excel spreadsheet and I’ve found this to be more useful than storing them in the watch because I can write all sorts of formula combinations and create averages and see a big picture and completely geek out. Other models allow you to upload logs to the Polar website but paying the extra money wasn’t worth it for me. I like doing that stuff myself.
The medium chest strap fits me fine once it is adjusted (female, 34″ chest) and stays in place. Be sure to moisten the transmitters before wearing, a few drops of water will do, your sweat will take care of the rest …
My only issue is that the watch is a little bulky for my small wrists, which causes some discomfort at times, but I’ve come up with a few workarounds to solve the bulky problem:
1. I wear it somewhat loose but not so loose that it spins around on its own. This keeps some of the pressure off. It’s loose enough that I can manually rotate the face around to the inside of my wrist if I need to.
2. For longer runs, I sometimes wear the watch strapped to my gear belt or zipped in my pocket. Since the watch has interval timers and warning beeps when I go out of zone, I’ve been able to keep track using my hearing instead of my eyes. The beep is pretty loud so as long as my headphones aren’t cranked, I can still hear it.
3. The treadmills at my gym are Polar ready so they pick up the transmission without me having the wear the watch. While the treadmill doesn’t have any logging features, I can at least keep track of my heart rate during a run if I don’t want to wear the watch.
Overall, it’s a great running computer for the money.
