What comes in the box:

* Polar F11 watch

* Polar Coded Heart Monitor with Chest Strap

* Customer Service Card

* Polar F11 User Manual

* Polar Guide to Fitness

The Polar F11 Watch

I’m not a big fan of the fashion sense of the Polar watches. I think that these are some of the ugliest watches being made and wouldn’t buy one if it didn’t have a heart monitor. They should look at the watches that Nike or even Swatch is putting out. The Polar watches are some ugly watches. Ironically, when I went to purchase a Polar watch, they had a watch there that I didn’t think was so bad looking, but it turned out to be ridiculously expensive.

On the plus side, the watch seems pretty rugged. The buttons are easy to push (almost too easy.) On the minus side, the ugly wrist band on all the models I tried on are very stiff. This makes it a problem getting the thing off, because you can’t get the wrist band to bend enough to get it out of the buckle. I complained about this to my friend who also has a Polar watch, and she agreed that she had the same problem (She has a Polar RS200.)

The Watch Functions

There are enough functions on the watch that to really cover them all would take several reviews of this size, so I’m going to cover the basics that I find useful. Obviously, the first of these is as a heart monitor. The watch can also record your fitness information and you can use it to upload your exercise information to Polar’s website for tracking. The Polar F11 can also do “zones”.

To use the Polar F11 watch as a heart monitor, you wet the strap on the silvery parts, attach the coded heart monitor, and then put it around your chest. The coded heart monitor has to be in the center of your chest, and the text on the monitor should be right-side up. On your watch, you press the OK button once. This will take you to the main menu. In the main menu, the first selection is Exercise. In this menu you can see your heart rate, which is a little bit of a pain because it’s easy to forget that you are not yet recording your exercise data. From here, once the Polar watch has your heart rate, you can choose Exercise and the watch will begin collecting exercise data for the session.

Once you have exercised for a while, it’s nice to be able to track it. If you have a microphone for your computer, you can upload the data on your watch to Polar’s website. To do so you have to download their software and install it on your computer. Once you have installed the software, you use a microphone to transfer your exercise data. Following the instructions in the manual, you hold the watch up to the microphone and the Polar watch makes chirping noises like an old fashioned modem to transfer the data. The software tells you when the data has been uploaded. While this is fun and useful, I have to wonder why, with the Bluetooth standard so widespread, Polar doesn’t make their watches truly wireless, instead of requiring a microphone to communicate with computers.

The last feature I use on the watch is the exercise “zones”. Zones are designated ranges of heart rates. For example, you may choose a middle zone of 120 BPM (beats per minute) to 140 BPM. You can designate three zones or use ones which are pre-programmed into the Polar watch. The watch will keep track of how long you stay in each zone, and will also alert you if you are not in the zone you want to be. This is great for people who, on the advice of a doctor, need to do aerobic exercise, and their doctor has told them to keep a certain heart rate for a particular amount of time. For example, my doctor told me to exercise at around 130 BPM for at least 40 minutes, five times a week. The Polar F11 makes this very easy.

The Polar User Manual

The Polar F11 user manual is clear and seems well-written to me, even if it is a little dry. Some of the features are a little confusing, but I think that’s more because of the subject matter and my understanding than it is because of a shortcoming of the manual.

The Polar Personal Guide to Fitness Booklet

This 32 page booklet is kind of a throw-away except that it does serve to introduce the user to the ways that a Polar watch can be useful in a fitness program. It introduces basic fitness topics and provides an introduction to some of the more advanced Polar watch functions, like the Polar Fitness Test, The Polar OwnZone, OwnIndex, and Polar Keeps You Fit – Own Workout Program.

Summary for the Polar F11

If you care about health and fitness and want to be more fit, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong investing in a Polar watch. The Polar F11 has a great feature set for the non-athelete and is right in the price vs features sweet spot.

We have reviewed many a Polar Heart rate monitor watch for this site, the Polar F6 watch is the one we like as an competitive option for the entry level with a great price. The Polar f6 is a great heart monitor watch because it has the most needed features but keeping the watch very user friendly so that the athlete does not get overwhelmed. Another great feature of the Polar F6 heart rate monitor watch is that it is designed to fit most gym equipment. The Polar f6 can also has a great feature built into it that keeps the transmissions of the polar watch to not get mixed up with the others at the gym that have heart monitor watches.

Polar f6 heart rate monitor comes in a f6 pink coral color as well as other basic colors. If you have a small wrist and are concerned that the Polar f6 monitor won’t fit you then you should take a look at the Polar f4 as it was designed specifically for women. It is important to note that the Polar f4 does not as advanced of a heart monitor watch as the Polar f6.

Women that are looking at buying a Polar heart monitor watch now have another option with the newly added a new line of the Polar f6 which is branded with the Polar f6f. These heart rate watches have been designed for women with different wrist sizes, colors and watch face design.

One of the drawbacks of the Polar f6 heart rate monitor watch is that the batteries need to be replaced by a qualified service center. Unfortunately the batteries of the Polar f6 monitor need to be replaced as much as once a year. This can be a huge hassle but with plenty of qualified centers out there to do the battery replacement it is actually pretty harmless. The chest strap battery can last longer but we advise that it be replaced at the same time as replacing the Polar f6 battery so you know that you are ready to go.

The Polar heart monitor f6 is a pretty basic heart monitor watch and so big time athletes should not consider looking at this model because they will need the more advanced features. The Polar f6 heart rate monitor watch is perfect for the average person who is trying to get in better shape and does not want to spend 4 hours each night trying to figure out how to operate the heart watch.

Features of the Polar Polar heart monitor f6:

• time of day, daily alarm and stopwatch functionality

• accurate wireless heart rate monitor with continuous heart rate measurement very clear display with large digits and backlight

• elasticated heart rate monitor strap incorporating transmitter heart rate display which shows beats per minute or percentage of maximum heart rate optional target heart rate
• zone training alarm which will sound when your rate rate is either under or over the guidelines you have set. This can be set for either beats per minute or percentage of maximum heart rate and can be set to be loud or quiet. Using Polar Own Zone this can be easily set to various exercise intensities and changed during exercise.

• calorie expenditure and percentage of fat burning calories via Polar Own Cal technology coded transmission prevents cross talk with other heart rate monitor users during group exercise
• data recall feature so you can access the data from your last 12 fitness sessions (duration of exercise, calories burned, percentage of fat calories, maximum heart rate, average heart rate and time in heart rate training zone) and see the past week as an exercise diary ability to send data to and from Polar’s fitness trainer website via Polar Uplink and Weblink features. This interface is free of charge and can be obtained from the Polar website.

• fitness bullets – one appears on the watch display for every 10 minutes you exercise within your target heart rate training zone

• real time display of the total time inside the fitness zone while you are exercising

• real time display of calories burnt (when every calorie counts)

Check back soon for more heart rate monitor watch reviews.

There are many reasons for buying a Polar f11 watch. You can use the polar f11 monitor as a motivational tool to help you get the most out of your workouts. The Polar f11 can also help beginners to know their bodies better and keep them from over training. Be able to analyze race efforts and let the Polar f11 allow you to personalize your workouts.

Polar F11 heart rate monitors are like having your own personal trainer only a lot less expensive. Polar F11 heart monitors have won numerous awards for being innovative and reliable. If you are into exercise then you should not be doing your workouts with out a Polar heart rate monitor watch.

Some of the Polar heart monitor f11:

Polar F11 Polar OwnZone® Feature

Polar F11 Polar OwnCal® Feature

Polar F11 Fitness Test Feature

Polar F11 Keeps U Fit ™ Workout Program

Most of the designs out there right now look like a watch. The new strapless design look like small watch faces. Think an MP3 player over a portable record player. The strapless heart rate monitors feature a round design and can fit inside your hand. This type of heart rate monitor is great for someone who wants to use a heart rate monitor but does not want to wear it throughout the whole duration of exercise. The fact that you don’t actually have to wear it on your wrist all the time is a big benefit. Every company out there in the market now offers strapless technology designs. Most can clip on to your gear or some come with detachable straps that fit snugly over your clothes during a workout. This really frees up a lot of your motion, never again will you be worrying about a bulky heart rate monitor that gets in your way. With the strapless designs minimalism is key and you will probably forget it’s even there!

These strapless heart rate monitors will help your workout immensely. They will not get in your way, they will also help you maximize your workout potential and help you see how you are performing during your entire workout. If you are not performing or you are over-performing your heart rate monitor will be a useful tool to use and constantly monitor your health during exercise with the minimum of fuss. With many new comfortable styles in these monitors you can find one that fits you perfectly and snugly, one which will maximize results during your workout. These heart rate monitors also feature many other types of technology that may allow you to track other things such as distance covered, outside temperature and the good ones will be fully programmable. Programmable strapless heart rate monitors will easily allow you to set minimums and maximums on your heart rate during exercise and will maximize results by letting you know if you are pushing too hard or too slow. It is extremely easy to find the strapless heart rate monitor that will work for you and your lifestyle online. The market contains many hundreds of different types of monitors to work for your. With a little bit of research you will be able to find a strapless heart rate monitor watch that will improve your lifestyle, your health and will be easy on the wallet.

Polar heart rate monitors are also very important for physical therapy clinics. Physical therapists can use these devices to help improve and track patient’s rehabilitation progress. Polar heart monitors are especially useful because of the mobility that the heart rate monitor watch provides the active patient. Patients’ love the Polar heart monitors because they can now have actual proof that they are on the mend.

There are a lot of benefits when it comes to using a Polar heart monitor watch and with the prices dropping dramatically in recent years the heart monitor watch has become an approachable gadget for most people. We all know that exercise is great way to keep your body and mind healthy. Polar heart watches can be especially helpful for people with hypertension, diabetes and those people that are considered obese. Since it is so important to improve exercise levels for these people a gadget that can give them precise information on what their body is doing can be a huge benefit. Polar heart rate monitor watches can tell users if they are over exerting themselves so that they can ovoid possible injury from distress.

It is no surprise that Polar heart rate monitors have exploded in popularity over the past few years. I big part of this growth is from people who are wanting to know what they are getting from their work outs and are concerned about being healthy. Science has proven that exercise is good for you, but with out a Polar heart watch you have no idea how effective your workouts are. For years heath professionals have been encouraging regular sustained cardio exercise because it reduces stress, lower high blood pressure, increase HDL cholesterol and of course execrate weight loss. It is well known through scientific work that people who exercise often and consistently live longer and more productive lives. The heart rate monitor watch is a great tool to get the most out of exercise.

The Polar heart rate monitor watch Fs1 features:

Tracks heart rate and exercise time continuously
Average heart rate
Manual Target Heart Rate (bpm) Zone
Visual and audible alarms
Clock
Stopwatch
Exercise Time
Extra large digits
Water resistant

The Polar RS200sd watch has interval-training guides that take you through a warm-up, target heart rate and of course a cool down.  The Polar heart watch uses a program called the Sport Zone that alerts with an alarm when your heart rate is out of the particular zone.

One feature we really like and find helpful is the Polar Personal Trainer website.  Polar has named this technology OwnCal and allows the user to count calories and fat burned. Other features of are: time of day with alarm, dual time zone, date and weekday indicator, stopwatch and low-battery indicator. Chest transmitter is designed for comfort and performance; OwnCode™ reduces possible interference between the Polar heart monitor watch and other heart rate monitors.

Polar OwnIndex – This resting heart rate test provides an approximate VO2 max figure and indication of fitness. Includes a Fitness test trend graph that graphically shows improvements in you Fitness score over time.

Polar OwnZone – Automatically calculates and sets your training zone with audible and visual alarms. This is generally about 65-85% of Max HR and is determined by the watch following a 5 minute walking / jogging test. You may choose to accept this zone, select your own manually prescribed z one or one of the 5 Polar Zones.

Polar S-1 foot pod speed and distance sensor Polar S1 wireless foot pod included for speed and distance sends data to the wrist monitor. The Polar S1 heart rate monitor watch is highly accurate. It is not a pedometer, it does not count steps, nor does it rely on an equal stride length. The Polar foot pod measures 360 degree, 3-D, forces of inertia (speed, magnitude, impact, direction etc). These sensitive accelerometers then translate these measurements in to real time speed and distance with approximately 95-97% accuracy