Polar F11 Orange

The Polar F11 is an exerciser’s perfect personal training aid, and the Polar F11 Orange is no exception. I’m in love with the bright orange color, but I love the revolutionary functionality and the ease-of-use of the Polar F11 heart rate monitor even more.

It’s one of the latest Polar designed heart rate monitors that can create a total workout program for you. This beautiful mini computer with its stand-out orange band, straps to your wrist, it’s comfortable to wear, easy-to-use, and it’s accurate.

And, this sport watch easily helps you reach your fitness goals by to telling you how much, how hard and how long to exercise. The Polar F11 Orange really is the next best thing to having your own human personal trainer right with you all the time.

The F11 features the famous Keeps U Fit, which is a workout program that guides you so that you can easily reach your fitness goals.

The OwnIndex determines your present fitness level, then, it tracks your progress, and all the while it gives you a concrete and constant source of motivation.

The Polar F11 has a couple of other really neat fitness enhancing features. The first being the OwnZone feature, which determines your target heart rate zone for each day, and the second being the OwnCal feature, which counts the calories and the fat you burn during your workout.

Also, the Polar F11 Orange, as well as all the other F11 models features what is called a WearLink Coded transmitter. The transmitter is made from a soft, comfortable fabric material.

The parts of the Polar F11 heart rate monitor that picks up the heart beat signals are called its electrodes, and these electrodes are woven right into the chest band, which gives you even more comfort and flexibility.

Heart rate monitor chest straps or bands have been notoriously uncomfortable in other models and brands.  Avid users of the F11 HRM state that it is the most comfortable chest strap they’ve ever used.

In earlier Polar sport watches, and in other heart rate monitors being made and sold today, there was a problem with interference from other nearby monitor, not so with the Polar F11, its coded feature is designed to eliminate interference from other Polar and other makes and models of heart rate monitors.

This is a handy feature, as it is a little disconcerting to look down at your heart rate monitor display only to see that you are picking up someone else’s heart rate signal.

Women that have selected the Polar F11 Orange are avid users and describe its features as terrific,  really cool, dependable, comfortable to wear, and easy-to-utilize.

Polar Fs2 Heart Rate Monitor

The Polar Fs2 Heart Rate Monitor is one of latest heart rate monitors from leading brand Polar.  The name Polar is so well recognized that today it virtually means ‘heart rate monitor’.

Polar’s respected reputation is well founded as they have been the leading manufacturer for heart rate monitor sport watches for many, many years.

The Polar Fs2 is Polar’s entry level (HRM) heart rate monitor, and while it is basic, it does work very well for both the newbie exerciser and the life-long fitness enthusiast.

As almost everyone knows, if you want to get the most out of your workouts, it is important to be working out at an appropriate intensity. However, it is very difficult to judge intensity in an objective way.

How do you put a number on how “hard” you are working? If you try, you are just guessing, and it is impossible to be consistent when you are doing it this way. That is why heart rate monitors are so useful. They provide an objective measure of your workout intensity, second by second.

The Polar FS2 HRM provides many features aside from the basic heart rate monitoring. The included watch can be used as a stopwatch or as a normal digital sports watch, thus eliminating the need to have more than one watch.

One of the common gripes among people who use HRMs is the fact that the numbers are often hard to read. When you are running fast, for example, you need big clear numbers on the screen since you head is bouncing all over the place. Fortunately, the Polar FS2 heart rate monitor fills the screen with your heart rate readings; the readings can be clearly and easily seen from arm’s distance away.

The Polar FS2 also eliminates your need to frequently check up on your heart rate. You can set maximum and minimum heart rate targets into the watch. Then, if your heart rate falls out of the set range, the watch will give you some visual and aural feedback so you know what is happening.

The watch will record various values that you can later upload to your computer for further analysis. The watch records, your average heart rate, your maximum heart rate, the time you spent in your target heart rate zone, the number of calories you burned, and the total time you spent exercising.  Sounds like we are describing a computer and that is exactly what the Polar Fs2 is, a mini computer.

As we’ve said, Polar is well known as the leading brand in HRMs so you know that your sports watch will be a high quality device. However, the Polar Fs2 Heart Rate Monitor comes with a good warranty to give you that extra piece of mind.

Polar F11 Blue Glow

The Polar F11 Blue Glow as the name suggests is made by Polar.  This well known sport watch manufacturer has been making heart rate monitor sport watches for a number of years now, and they are without a doubt the leading brand in the market.

The name is almost synonymous with the term “heart rate monitor” among many athletes. One of company’s best products is the Polar F11. The  Polar F11 Blue Glow like all of the heart rate monitors in the Polar F11 series has a variety of features that will suit just about anyone’s tastes.

Read on to learn more about what the Polar F11 heart rate monitor has to offer people who are interested in keeping track of their heart rate.

If you are keen to get as fit as you can, you may have heard about the concept of V02 Max and how important it is to increase your V02 Max as much as you can. The Polar F11 heart rate monitor has an inbuilt V02 Max test that will measure your maximum oxygen output in about five minutes.

This is a great feature of the Polar F11 Blue Glow that allows you to check the progress of your fitness over a long period of time.  This terrific feature lets you track your progress as you go along, and it allows you to see how long and how fast your workouts were over a duration of time.

The Polar F11 heart rate monitor also comes included with a diary in which you can record your activities. This will help you stay on track to achieving whatever fitness goals you have set out to achieve.

If you have problems getting up in the morning to do exercise, the Polar F11 will help you get out of bed with its visual exercise reminder. This reminder comes with an alarm, which tends to get you up and going even on days when you would rather stay in bed.

The Polar F11 can synchronize with gym equipment such as treadmills and elliptical trainers. The synchronization happens automatically. All you need to do is get on the machine, start using it, and then your heart rate should appear on the display screen automatically.

Sometimes this feature does not work perfectly, and you may see a neighbors heart rate on the screen rather than your own, but of all the sport watches out there today, the Polar F11 is least likely to let this occur.  However, in general, this is a handy feature if you like to use and your workout program calls for cardio equipment

Moreover, if English is not your best language, you can even choose a different language for your Polar F11 Blue Glow output. German, French, Spanish and Italian are available.

Polar F11 Female

The Polar F11 Female is one of the most popular heart rate monitors made especially for women out on the market today.

The Polar company is highly regarded for producing high quality heart rate monitor sport watches on a consistent basis, so it is worth having a look at some of the features that make the Polar F11 Female so popular.

But first, if you are new to heart rate monitors, here is a little introduction. Heart rate monitors usually consist of a chest strap and a watch. The chest strap detects movements from your heart, and this information is then sent wirelessly to your watch.

The Polar F11 sport watch then computes this data and displays your heart rate on the screen. The chest straps are rarely invasive, and most people forget that they are wearing one after a few minutes.

The Polar F11 Female has a range of great features that go well beyond just showing your your heart rate. The F11 will tell you how much exercise you have done for the week. It also tells you how many calories you have burned in each workout session, it’s like a little mini computer.

In fact, the Polar F11 Female along with the other Polar 11 sports watches can connect to your computer, thus allowing you to upload your heart rate information for a more detailed analysis.

This is a very well regarded feature among more serious athletes and among people who just enjoy analyzing information, but it is also a very helpful feature for just the beginning out-of-shape exerciser who needs to exercise caution as she begins to bring her body back into physical conditions.

The Polar F11 HRM records a variety of different statistics, such as you average heart rate, maximum rate rate, the time you spent in your target heart rate zone, and so on.

Speaking of target heart rate zones, the Polar F11 Female allows you to program different settings to suit your workout.  You can set a maximum and minimum heart rate, and your Polar F11 will tell you if go out of this range.

When first starting any program to improve physical fitness, most of us are pretty determined, but almost as soon as we get into our routine, we begin to let other demands on our time get the best of us, and before you know it, we’ve forgotten our commitment to workout on a regular basis.

And that is why people with busy schedules find this next feature a terrific way to insure that they stick to their exercise routines.  The Polar F11 Female lets you set exercise reminders, which is very useful if you are inclined to forget to workout on some occasions.

The full list of Polar F11 heart rate monitor features is impressive and cannot be completely covered in this short article. To find out what other people like and dislike about the Polar F11 Female, check out review threads on various online stores.

Polar F11 HRM

The Polar F11 HRM is certainly one of the best  heart rate monitor sport watches on the market today.  Even a beginning physical exercise enthusiast knows that it is essential when you are working out to  keep an eye on how hard your heart is working.

Your heart rate will tell you whether or not you are going too hard or going too easy.  Exercise scientists have concluded beyond question that the heart muscle itself and muscles in general improve safely and best while you are exercising within your target heart rate zone.

Monitoring your heart rate from session to session will also reveal insights into how your body is adapting to your workout routine. The Polar F11 can be used to record an accurate history of your progress as you gradually begin to increase the difficulty of your workout regimen.

This is why products such as the Polar F11 heart rate monitor are so popular among fitness enthusiasts. While there are a variety of different heart rate monitors on the market, this article will focus on the Polar F11 as it is unarguably one of the best out there in terms of value for money.

The Polar F11 HRM is a combination of a watch and a band. The band fits around your lower chest. Electrical signals from your heart are detected by the band. This allows the band to notify the watch each time your heart beats. The watch computes the rate as which your heart is beating, based on a weighted average from the last few beats, and displays this as a number on the screen.

The Polar F11 HRM does many things aside from simply tracking your heart rate. It keeps track of the amount of exercise you do each week. This is good for people who like to set targets but have trouble sticking to them.

It is a lot easier to stick by a commitment to yourself when you have constant reminders about how you are progressing. If you are into counting the number of calories you burn, then the Polar P11 can help you with that as well. While calorie estimations should always be taken with a grain of salt, they are useful for comparing the work you do from workout to workout.

If you have a gym membership, or if you have some gym equipment at home, the Polar F11 will send your heart rate data to the machine that you are using. This is good if you are exercising using an elliptical trainer or if you are doing some fast running on a treadmill.

From all the sport watches available today, the Polar F11 HRM makes for an excellent personal training aid for both beginning and experienced exercise enthusiasts.

Polar Fs2

If you are looking for just a basic heart rate monitoring sports watch, the the popular, yet inexpensive, Polar Fs2 could very well be the perfect heart-rate based training sport watch for you.

I remember when I first got into using a heart rate monitor during training for running marathons. I am one of those better, quicker, faster people. You know the kind that wants to get in there and run like crazy and then be done with it.  I want to stay in shape, but I want to do it as quickly as possible.

It wasn’t until I began using a Polar Fs2 heart rate monitor for keeping track of my heart rate, that I realized that I was training totally wrong.  Not only was I not improving as I should, but I was also stressing my body out in the process.

Using the Polar heart rate monitor Fs2 was literally my first experience with heart rate based workouts/runs.  For the first time, I could see at a glance when I was running to fast and therefore sabotaging my daily training routine.

Even though, as we’ve already said, the Polar Fs2 is relatively inexpensive, since it is made by Polar, the established leader in heart rate sport watches, it is still considered one of the highest quality and most reliable sports watches for fitness and athletic training the world over. With the Polar Fs2 heart rate, you expect and you get nothing less than a premier sports watch.

This Polar Fs2, being one of the Polar company’s cross training and fitness models, can be used for a almost all cardio based training routines.

The Fs2 sport watch comes with a digitally coded heart rate chest band, which is resistant to signals from other polar sports watches and other devices of an electronic nature that might be in close proximity.

There is nothing more frustrating that to be running along thinking you are in your target heart rate zone when you are actually picking up intermittent signals from another heart rate monitor in your nearby vicinity.  That has happened more than once to some of training buddies, but they weren’t using one of the Polar Fitness sport watches.

Although this sports watch is basic, the Polar Fs2 does come with heart rate zone and zone alarm capability. This feature sounds a alarm when you dip below or go above your targeted heart rate.  You don’t have to keep checking your display screen, the alarm will sound when you get either below or above your targeted range.

One of the only drawbacks to this popular yet inexpensive cardio based training sports watch is that it allows for storage of only your most recent workout, while other more expensive and complex Polar fitness sport watches offer multiple workout storage capability.

This could be important to a serious marathon runner, but might not be all that important for the casual runner.  The Polar Fs2 was designed for athletes and fitness enthusiasts that are just after a basic heart rate sport watch.

Another terrific feature of the Fs2 is that it allows information to be displayed without your having to actually touch a button on the watch. For example, just bringing the Polar Fs2 close to the chest strap will cause your heart rate information to appear on the watch display screen.

This hands-free feature really comes in handy when you’re in the midst of your training run or exercise routine, it allows you to continuously workout without having to stop and push a button.

The basic Polar Fs2 is water resistant up to 50 meters, and it also features a  backlight, a date and weekday indicator, and a 12 and 24 hour time-of-day display.

For an entry level heart rate training device, the Polar Fs2 offers outstanding quality, performance, and dependabiltiy at a modest price.

Polar f11

For someone who has to have detailed information about their exercise and training workouts, the Polar F11 simply can’t be beat. It’s attributes are unparalleled in the sport watches industry.

It is a strap on wrist device that is a stop watch, a watch and best of all it is the perfect personal training unit that includes a heart rate monitor, and it tells you how often, how long, and how hard your training routines should be.

The Polar f11 is a master piece of advanced technology that is almost like having a high priced personal trainer with you each and every time you exercise.

Whether you are training for a marathon, or just running to improve your overall health, the Polar f11 is the sport watch that will help you meet your fitness and training goals. If you are a serious competitor, if gives you that needed competitive edge, the one that will move you into the winners circle.

Many times, a athlete in training just doesn’t know how to improve his performance. He or she is at a loss as to what to do next, the Polar f11 takes the guess work out of what you need to do to take your performance to next level.

The designers of the Polar f11 watch have thought of literally every possible eventual problem with this popular training device.

For example, because the f11 has become so popular with both training athletes and casual fitness participants, this device comes with a coded heart rate monitor, which prevents cross-signals from other similar Polar sport watches that might be in the same gym or nearby vicinity.

A chest strap tracking device is included with the Polar f11. It monitors your heart rate and sends the information directly to the sports watch itself. Any information that is captured by the f11 is easily transferable to the Polar website for storage and for tracking. You will always have access to the history of your workouts.

The f11 sports watch is set up to accommodate three different exercise zones. For example, with this advanced technology, it is possible to set one zone to 150 to 170 heart beats per minute. The f11 notifies you of when you enter and leave this particular heart rate zone. This function of the Polar f11 tells you when to increase or decrease your activity so that you continue training within your chosen heart rate zone.

For more than thirty years, Polar has been manufacturing heart rate monitor sport watches for both the elite athlete in training and also for the average guy or gal wanting to stay in shape. The the Polar name is synonymous with high quality sports watches, and the design and technology of the Polar f11 makes it one of Polar’s top sport watch achievements.

Garmin Fitness Watch

So you’re shopping around for a new sport watch, and you’re basically overwhelmed by all the different choices that are on the market today. And, boy is there a plethora of choices out there.

It seems like every watch manufacturer in the world has jumped on the sport watch band wagon.

Maybe you’ve owned several sport watches over the years and have worn them all out one by one, or they’ve gotten broken or lost, and now it’s time to see what’s different about our modern sports watches.

Or, it could be that you’re shopping for gift, or maybe you’re trying to guide someone into buying the most suitable sport watch for you.  Hey, I don’t blame you, might as well get the watch of your dreams, the one you really want, right?

Whatever the reason, the goal of this post is to help you quickly narrow down your sports watch choices to two or three and then you can go price shopping confident about the exact features you want on your new sport watch.

Don’t forget to shop the Internet, there are often terrific  bargains there that you won’t find at your local mall, or jewelry store.

Admittedly there are many makes and models to choose from, but thankfully there aren’t nearly as many  different types, brands, and model as there are with Wall Clocks.   Many wall clocks are  handmade or antique and you definitely need to educate yourself a bit more before you purchase one.

Back to sport watch essentials.  The possible watch picks run from a simple inexpensive sport watch costing around or under $40  all the way up to a wrist mounted complicated computer, which only a sports scientist would know how to use.

If you choose to purchase the sophisticated wrist mounted computer type sport watch, you should be prepared to flatten your wallet to the  point of  laying out several hundred bucks, probably in  excess of $500 – $600, not to mention that you’ll have to go back to school to learn how to operate the new expensive sports watch gadget you’ve just purchased.

When attempting to find the right sport watch for you, it is important to  determine what your must-have, bare minimum criteria is  for the time piece best suited  for your particular life style and training needs.

First, think about what you will be using the watch for.  For example, will you be running or swimming laps, doing interval training, or do you just need a simple stop watch function on the sports watch you choose?

Maybe you don’t actually need a sport watch with all the latest and greatest features.  If a simple sport watch with just the three basic features is all you need, then you will be saving yourself a ton, and many of the  less expensive ones are smart looking, durable, and function perfectly.

There are many sport watches manufacturers, and each one of them makes several different models with varying features to accommodate the different serious athletic training requirements for any particular sport, or, for that matter, the casual participant in any particular sport.  As an example, people that just occasionally compete in fun runs often train on a regular basis.

Then, there are the millions of sport watch owners that just want a sport swatch for its sporty or casual look.  They may be the outdoorsy type, or the guy or gal that likes to keep in shape by visiting the Gym or exercising at home, or he or she just might not be the type of person who likes to wear a dress or fancy watch.  Most sport watch buyers fall into this category.

While it is true that we generally think of sports watches being used to help you train in a particular sport, you will probably be surprised to know that the feature most used on today’s sport watch is the sport watch’s ability to monitor your heart rate.

Continuing sports science research has firmly proven that physical improvement and therefor sports athletic  performance can be greatly enhanced and accelerated by maintaining different heart rate’s while advancing through the different workout phases.

These are called target heart rates.  For example, an athlete in training, would regularly use his sport watch to monitor his or her heart rate during the warm up portion of his workout, but he would have an entirely different target heart rate for the main portion of his workout, and yet another target heart rate for his cool down phase.

An individual’s ability to monitor his heart rate during various phases of his workout was not possible until the sport watch became so economical and easily accessible worldwide.  For this reason, many more young athletes have been afforded the opportunity to compete for high school, college, and even professional sports.

Not all  sports watches are created equal, of course, and what would be a terrific sport watch for one person would be totally unacceptable for the next.  Having said that, however, there are a few features that would usually be considered necessary in virtually every sport watch.

1. The chrono short for chrononmeter, the stopwatch function is the most important feature of any sport watch watch.

The chrono lets you to record your time whether you’re competing long runs, short competitive races, or swimming laps. Really, any physical activity that you’re trying to record your time in doing.

2. The digits on the face of the sport watch need to be clearly visible while moving and from an arm’s distance away.  As obvious as this feature should be, many buyers tend to overlook this very important feature and end up with a sport watch that is difficult to read while on the move.

It is also an advantage, depending upon how serious you are as an athlete, if your sports watch lets you to view two or three data fields simultaneously and it wouldn’t hurt if it supported customizable screens.  If you are a just casual athletic participant, these last mentioned features wouldn’t be necessary.

3.  Session, recall, and lap storage. Even the casual athlete that trains only 2-3 times a week will want to make sure that their new sports training time piece has this capability.

Many sports watches have enough memory to store a session log including the individual laps or attempts of the session.  And, the more advanced sport watches can even record  the warm-up and recovery periods as well as the main part of the workout.

4. The Interval or Countdown feature allows you to count down to zero from any specified time.

A countdown timer features is exactly what it claims to be. It counts down to zero from a specified time.  This particular feature allows you in repetition training to observe both timed attempts and timed recovery periods.

An interval timer on a sports watch is a series of varying length countdown timers that run in sequence.   Depending on how you have it set, the session either repeats or stops when the last countdown timer in the sequence has run.

5.  Some would consider a heart rate monitoring feature absolutely essential. Many good advanced sports watches feature a heart rate monitor, which does just what it says, it measures your heart rate in real time and displays it on the display.

Performance gain will be achieved if you’re exercising at a high enough heart rate intensity level (target heart range).  Also,
in order to avoid over training and a poor response to you training it is good to be able your heart rate during the recovery phase of your session.

There are many more advanced features that are available on today’s more advanced sport watches.  Some of them are speed and distance measurement, pace measurement, GPS function, and foot pods.

If cost is one of your considerations, be aware that these more advanced features will definitely add to the expense of the sports watch.  It’s best to determine what you will actually be using your new watch for before you put down your hard earned money.  Go over a typical workout in your mind and see which features you will be needing

With these essential features and suggestions in mind, you’ll be able to save yourself some time and also shopping headaches, and you will easily be select the sport watch that fits your individual training goals.

Timex Expedition Sports Watch

The invention of the sports watch has totally changed the way athletes train for virtually any sport. When I think about how sport watches have totally revolutionized athletic training, I’m just completely blown away.

Sports training of the past required the athlete to carry a stop watch, or have someone train with him to carry the watch and push the start and stop button.  And, the stop watch function was just about the extent of the old training watches.

Not so with the modern sports watch, however, where every conceivable feature known to help in athletic training can be readily engineered into sport watches.

These relatively new (within the last 30 years), affordable, and convenient sport watches have enabled literally millions of athletes to train alone for a place on athletic teams.  In years gone by that would not have been possible because, frankly,  the average athlete just didn’t have access to a stop watch.

Many sports watches are sports specific, that is they are engineered to help the athlete improve and improve both physically and excelperformance wise in their chosen sport.

From track and field to triathlons the sports watch is today considered a very necessary personal training aid. For example, if you are a triathlete, take a look at the Timex Ironman sports watch.

This sport watch has specific Ironman ready features that will easily take you from your practice workouts to competition day.

It has 3 different time zones plus daily, weekday, and weekend alarms, which makes completing your workout sessions a breeze. The Ironman sports watch is water resistant and will keep on ticking through swimming laps and even rainfall.

Additionally it has over sized digits on the watch face that are easy to read at a arm’s length and at a glance while practicing any sport including running and swimming laps.

This particular sports watch comes in a 30 a nd 100 lap models, and is sure to be the prized possession of any athlete aspiring to compete in a triathlon.

If you’re running trails, through woods or over opstacle courses, the Timex Expedition Trail sports watch is a terrific and smart choice.  The 100 hour chronograph that highlights a lap or split option is a must have feature, and the lap counter can track up to 99 laps.

The 24-hour countdown timer on this Timex sport watch has a countdown/stop and countdown/repeat mode for that helps you measure your various lap performances.  Like the Ironman sports watch, it too has three alarms that can be set for day, weekday, weekend, and week and it comes with five minute snoozes.

It has two time zone settings, so you will never have to worry about calculating the time difference.  I live in the southwest, and I’m always forgetting whether California is earlier or later than us, so I particularly enjoy the time zone feature on this sports watch model.

The Expedition sports watch has a tough resin case and the durable rubber strap stands up to heavy use during your outdoor workouts and competitions.

From Timex, there is also a Ironman’s womens sports watch for the women  triathletes.  It’s the Timex Women’s Ironman Triathlon SleeK 50-lap watch, and it features quartz movement, training log to store workout history, 2 interval timers, 3 alarms, and Indiglo night-light, and it is water-resistant to 330 feet (100 M).

Believe it or not, Timex also has a unisex sports watch.  It is the very popular Timex Unisex M Ironman Sleek Digital Resin Strap Watch.  This sport looking watch has all the features of  the Timex Women’s watch above and it allows for multiple interval timing.

Users love this feature as it lets you alternate intervals; you can run for a certain number of minutes and then walk for a specified number of minutes while sounding an alarm after each interval.

Here’s what Anna Hamel, the traveling biker from Birmingham, Alabama had to say about this terrific little personal training aid,

“From the pool, to the bike, to the run; this sports watch does it all. Even when not racing this watch is a great daily wear and easy to navigate through all the options.  Multiple time zones and alarms make it easy as a traveler’s watch and fits small wrists nicely.”

All of these Timex sport watches can be purchased for under $60 and some can be had for as little as $34.  Not bad pricing for all of those keen features, is it.

The  sports watch favorites all come from four leading sports watch manufacturers, Garmin, Timex, Polar and Suunto.  We’ve already  looked at sports watches from Timex, but we’ll look at sport watches from each of these other leading sports watch manufacturers.

Garmin is king of all the GPS watches.  It makes theForerunner GPS watches, which are popular with geocachers, cyclists, triathletes, runners and rowers.

The Garmin Forerunner sport watches come engineered with some extremely useful sports watch features.  And, let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Garmin has gone to great lengths to ensure their sports watches readily meet the specific needs of athletes no matter what the sport.

If you don’t require a GPS, the Forerunner 50 is a great entry-level heart rate monitor that also measures speed, distance and cadence with a Foot Pod unit. And, it also supports a bike Speed/Cadence Sensor, which makes it an intelligent choice for triathletes and cyclists.

Of all the Garmin Forerunner models, the Forerunner 305, which does support GPS, is probably the favorite and possibly the best all around sports watch in the Garmin line.

Moving on to the Polar sport watches, while the RS800CX is the undisputed king in terms of including absolutely everything both an athlete and sports scientist could ever wish for, it’s expense probably prohibits the average athlete from owning this sports watch with all the bells and whistles.

However, Polar’s RS400/SD delivers most of what an athlete could want and with 99 exercise files, has plenty of memory storage capacity for the average training athlete.

The RS400/sd sports watch does not support the Polar GPS pod, but does support the S1 foot pod device, which allows the athlete to track speed and distance.

Polar was the first to make a wrist strap on heart rate monitor, and its engineers have continued to build on that early success with its exceptional sports watches of today.

Last, we’ll look at Suunto, a Finish based company that is famous for its Suunto Training Watch.  It also is widely recognized  for making great heart rate  monitors and for its running sports watches, which includes the T3C, T4C, and T6C.  Of these, the T3C is the least expensive while the T6C is the most expensive.

Suunto is credited with being the only sports watch manufacturer that supports “Training Effect”, a feature that can tell you if you’re pushing too hard or too little during your workout. This feature basically guides you into the correct zones for optimal performance and training.

The Suunto Training Sport Watches also display real-time heart rate and calories burned, countdown and intervals timers, zone training and stopwatch with splits and laps and session history storage.  The display screen is easy to read from an arm’s length away, which enables you to see the display at all times during your workout.

Probably the favorite sports watch from the Suunto people is the T6C as it has 30 logs of session memory capacity compared with only 15 in the T3C and T4.

sport watchs, sport watch

Today’s serious athletes, no matter what sport or sports they participate in must go through the process of  looking at all the different features of the various sports watches that they may be considering.

And, this can be a time consuming and frankly it can be a boring task.

In this article, we’ll outline the various features that you actually need for athletic training  that are available on the current crop of sports watches.

You will be able to look at each feature and easily determine if that particular feature is one you would like to have on your new sports watch.

If you are like most athletes, cost is certainly a consideration when selecting a sport watch, however,  many sports watches are extremely economical, and yet upon close examination have the exact features you will need to get the most out of your regular training regimen.

Sport watches range in price from a few dollars all the way up to several thousand.  For example, you can get a Timex Expedition Digital Compass Sports Watch for between $40 and $55.

Look at the many features this relatively inexpensive sport watch has:

* Indiglo® night-light with all day Indiglo® display and Night-Mode® feature.

* Elextronic compass displays headings in cardinal points and degrees.

* 100-hour chronograph with lap or split option. * 99-lap counter. * Daily alarm.

* Hourly chime. * 100-minute countdown timer.

* 12/24 hour time.

* Month/day/date.

* Water-resistant to 100m.

Or, at the high end of the scale of watches in the sports watches category, take a gander at the features and the price tag for the Omega Speedmaster Broad Arrow Red Gold on Leather Strap.

* Water Resistant

* Scratch Resistant

* Date Indicator

* Chronometer

You can purchase one of these smart looking, status denoting sports watches for between $8,400 to $9,700, but, as you will soon see,  it does not have near the features that most serious training athletes will need.

Price isn’t always a good indicator of which sports watch you should choose for your athletic training. With literally hundreds of really smart looking sports watches on the market today, it’s certainly no surprise that athletes often feel quite confused and overwhelmed when selecting a watch for their training.

As sports watch making technology rapidly advances every year, the high level of complexity of many of the features engineered into the latest sports watches only adds to the overall confusion.

Having all those options to choose from is great, but it makes narrowing down your final selection from all the sport watches available more than a little perplexing.

Just as an example, lets look at the features required in a sport watch for a serious runner.

Runners have a certain set of needs and requirements that the recreational runner or fun runner doesn’t have. The occasional jogger or fun runner will be happy with a digital watch with just a stopwatch timer feature, but these minimal features just won’t do it for the serious runner who will want a sports watch, a personal training aid, that will help him or her strive for peak performance.

Serious runners are looking to improve their physiological condition for better competitive performance and they race regularly whether on a 400m Olympic standard running track, or they may compete in road races on tarmac or cross country through trails and mud.

They will also probably do frequent Interval Training, do several slower and longer runs weekly, and they will want to record their training activity in their Training Diary.

Like the fun runner or jogger, the serious runner will want his sports watch to perform the basic requirement of tracking time over a run.

But, the serious runner when looking at all the sports watches on the market today will also require his personal training aid to have the ability to record and recall segments of a run or lap splits. This feature will be required for both long runs and for any distance based interval training.

A interval timer or what is sometimes called a countdown timer is also useful for those athletes including time based interval training in their workout.

If you are a serious runner, when you are evaluating the various sports watches, be sure that the sports watch you end up with has at least these three basic top features:

1. A Stopwatch Chronograph is an absolute necessity.  The Stopwatch Mode or Chronograph of a running sports watch keep a running time in hours, minutes, seconds and fractions of seconds.

Inexpensive or cheap sport watches usually only have start/stop and lap buttons that start, stop and pause the display without stopping the stopwatch.

Very few cheap sports watches have the memory needed to store sessions or laps, so all your times will be lost when the stopwatch mode is reset.    Serious runners require that their sports watch has the memory capacity to store laps and sessions.

Additionally, good running sports watches feature a display with the capacity to show two or more data fields on the screen. In the Chronograph mode, one half of the screen usually shows your overall time or split, the other half displays your current lap time.  While the digits on the display screen don’t have to be as large as the numbers on digital wall clocks, they should be large enough to see at arms distance away.

The more advanced sports watches have a greater ability to allow you to customize the real-time display and you will also find a larger variety of data fields in these more advanced sports watch models.

Choose a running sport watch with a digital display that is easy to read at arms length while you are on the run. As simple as this consideration may sound, many runners omit really examining and practicing with the display screens of the different sports watches they may be looking to buy.

You want to end up with a sports watch that is easy to read as you are in the midst of a lap or run.  Can you imagine what having to stop and focus on you display screen would do to your times?

2. It should have a Lap Storage and Recall feature for distance based interval training and long runs. Sports watches with Lap Storage have the memory capacity to save splits and laps.  Some digital sport watches save laps in memory but can only store one session, while others maintain a session history.

Serious runners wishing to save their repetition times should get a session history sports watch. Sports watches having the session history function allow you to pull up a list of your sessions by date and time.

Sports watches with a session history feature can greatly aid your training progress as each session contains important information about any particular workout.

It is very useful to have access to saved information such as overall time, lap times, and your best and average lap times.

Many sports watches are equipped with a heart rate monitor that records your heart rate.  If you are training with a target heart rate in mind, this feature is a prime consideration.

Typically, the number of sessions a watch can store is from 10 to 150 laps, but the high end or top line sports watches have storage capacity for a lot more.

While 150 laps of memory might seem like tons of laps to you right now, as you progress and really get into your training, you’ll be surprised at just how fast you’ll use up 150 laps full of memory. Many runners use this up in just a week.

Keep in mind that the more session storage capacity the sports watch has the longer you wait to update your diary. If the watch you select has room for only a few sessions, you will have to update more frequently.

Really, the amount of session storage you need depends on what you can live with. Personally, I would opt for a runner’s sports watch with more, rather than less, session storage capacity.

3. Check out the various makes and models of sports watches to make sure they have a Countdown Timer or Interval Timer feature for time based interval training. A Countdown Timer on sport watches lets you set a time and when started, it counts down to zero.

The classic Countdown Timer lets you choose if you want the timer to beep and repeat the countdown at the end of the first cycle, beep and stop or beep and count upwards, but there are some drawbacks to the classic countdown timer.

The main drawback is that it runs over a fixed time interval. In actual practice, most timed interval workouts require you to run at varying length time intervals. For example, 4 minutes of running, followed by 2 minutes of recovery, repeated 8 times.

A Countdown Timer or Interval Timer feature is not absolutely necessary, unless you are doing fixed time repetitions, but it can be an very useful training feature.

In summary, when shopping for sports watches for athletic training, first, decide on and look for the features that will help you advance in your specific sport.

Consider only the sports watches that actually have the specific features and the memory capacity to help you achieve your personal training goals.