Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor Review

When I recently shared my favorite ways to burn calories, a frequent star in all the photos & various posts was my beloved little heart rate monitor. I wear my Polar FT7 HRM {heart rate monitor} for just about every workout! A few of you asked for a review post on my Polar FT7, so I wanted to share with you some details on how it works and why I love it so much – check it out:

The FT7  includes a comfortable and lightweight coded WearLink+ wireless chest transmitter, designed to eliminate cross-talk with other heart monitors and the watch itself- which comes in various color options, I like red! The coded Wearlink is removable, I unclip it after every workout so to safe battery life. I’ve had this decide for a year and haven’t had to replace the batter yet, which is awesome.

The strap is very easy to wear – it’s comfortable, quick to put on and adjustable. I’ve never had a problem with it chaffing or bothering me at all, unlike my Garmin Forerunner 405 – the HRM strap has given me a burn before on long runs, causing me to rarely wear it. I tend to wear my Garmin when Marathon Training {specifically on long runs} and my Polar FT7 for pretty much everything else. I’m currently not in marathon training mode, so it’s pretty much constantly on my wrist.

I specifically like the FT7 because of the different features and ease of use. When wearing the HRM you hit the start button for it to find your heart rate and then you are good to go. When in the active mode, you can toggle between viewing the time, calories burned, heart rate, length of workout or a combination – I like to switch between the calories burned and the heart rate, personally.

 

This bad boy stores up to 99 workouts – including a record of session durations, calories burned, average HR, Maximum HR, and the amount of time your workout HR was spent in the target range. The FT7 also features a stopwatch, alarm, date, and weekday indicator.

The large LCD screen with a backlight makes it easy to see you stats. The FT7 also tells you if the main effect of your training is fitness improvement or fat burning, so you can adjust your workout as needed. You can set target zones, where you want your heart rate beat to be, and a visual and audible alarm let’s you know when you hit it.

Another cool little tid bit that I really love about the FT7 is the fact that the transmitter is picked up by most machines at the gym. It automatically syncs with the treadmill, elliptical or spin bike I am on and shows my heart rate up on the machine screen. It’s nice to be able to see it up close and not have to continually look down at my watch for the stats.

When wearing my HRM strap, I usually wear it under my sport bra bottom strap. I popped it out for this photo so you can see it, but it fits perfectly under my bra and stays in its spot. I know there are other heart rate straps out there that are flatter, but I like being able to take this apart when I am not using it to save the battery life.

So there you have it, a few fun facts for one of my favorite fitness gadgets. Please let me know if you have any additional questions, I would be happy to answer them.

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What’s Your Favorite Fitness Gadget You Can’t Live Without?

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This is NOT a sponsored post. 

Just sharing with you my opinions

on a product I use frequently.