Getting to Know the Polar Heart Rate Monitor

Is your workout a waste of time?? Who else wants to make sure their time at the gym or pounding the running trail isn’t all in vain? Why go at all if all the effort doesn’t do any good?

I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to spend time working out, I want to know for sure that the time and effort will give me the beach body I’m after. There are a lot of things I’d rather be doing.


Making sure your workout is hard enough, but not too hard is vital to success. Too little or too much intensity in exercise can make all your effort a waste of time. If you don’t see results, you will probably just quit.

Don’t make that mistake!

When it comes to an effective workout, it’s got to be “just right.”

It was 1968 that Dr. Ken Cooper (MD and Air Force Colonel) coined the term “aerobics.”  He showed scientifically that for cardiovascular fitness, heart rate must be elevated to a specific level (percentage of maximum) for a specific number of minutes, 5 days a week. Many scientific studies since that time have proven his ideas. Revolutionary at the time, today the importance of healthy daily exercise and diet are widely known.

Exercise, when you are not fit, is like medicine when you are not well: for it to effectively cure your illness, you must measure and take a precise amount. Too much or too little ---- it does not work. Similarly, accurate measurement of your “dose” of exercise is critical to the “cure” of being unfit.  

You could do some research, learn the formulas, learn to take an accurate pulse rate and do the math to find out whether your workout is the proper “dose.” You could hire a personal trainer to “prescribe” and monitor the most effective “dose” of exercise.

But stop, do the math!  The average cost of a personal trainer is $50 per hour. Three to five times a week for twelve weeks is what you need to get started.  Crazy when you can get a Polar heart rate monitor for less than the price of a single week of personal training services. You can be confident that your workout is time well-spent. And, there’s no danger of a personality conflict!

Polar heart rate monitors are so easy to get along with --- just a transmitter strap around the chest and receiver watch on the wrist. And if you are a data-tracking type, the monitor will connect wirelessly via Bluetooth to a fitness tracking app, such as Endomondo, on your iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows-based/Android device.  

When you buy a Polar heart rate monitor, you also gain access to other benefits such as the Polar Personal Trainer service, which allows you to analyze your progress in detail.

Special fitness programs that involve cycling, running, and walking can also be measured with the Polar heart rate monitor. For people who lift weights, using a heart rate monitor can help to determine the optimal rest period in between active workout sets. Many people don’t know that the recovery period between sets is just as important as the set itself.

Whatever your fitness goal, you can use your Polar heart rate monitor to adjust the intensity of your workout so that you don’t waste your time. You will probably get better results than with that expensive personal trainer anyway (unless he is using a Polar heart rate monitor)!