In order to reach your fitness goals, you need to exercise at the right intensity. Enter the Polar RS200 wrist heart rate monitor, which helps you easily and accurately measure your heart rate to help you get to just the right exertion level. The RS200’s heart rate monitoring delivers data on your maximum heart rate (fitness test-based and age-based) and your maximum/average HR for each lap (up to 99 laps), while also offering three target zones and audible alarms. More significantly, the watch includes five Polar Sport Zones that make it easy and efficient to select your training intensity and monitor your progress. You simply choose a training program and the RS200 will tell you which zone to pursue at each stage. The zones include very light (50 to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate), light (60 to 70 percent), moderate (70 to 80 percent), hard (80 to 90 percent), and maximum (90 to 100 percent).
The watch is also equipped with a Polar Own Cal function, which tracks your energy expenditure during a single exercise session as well as your accumulated kilocalories throughout the week. As you progress, you can set daily and weekly exercise goals in terms of calorie expenditure, helping you achieve both short- and long-term goals. The Polar OwnZone feature, meanwhile, guides you through an appropriate warm-up routine and automatically determines a safe and effective exercise heart rate zone. And habitual runners and cyclists will love the RS200’s speed and distance modes, which require one of Polar’s foot or cycling pods (sold separately). The pods make it easy to measure your speed, distance, and pace (in kmph or mph) or your target pace, with alarms and differential readings, while also offering a trip odometer that captures your run distance, your mileage totals, and your calories burned.
Add in such basic watch functions as time of day (12/24-hour), dual time zone, a day and date display, a stopwatch, and an alarm with a snooze option and you have an ideal watch for almost any athletic activity. Other details include an Event Countdown Timer that manages your training for an upcoming race; the ability to upload your settings to a running computer and then download your workout files to the Polar Running Coach Web Service for analysis; the ability to save up to 16 exercise files with summaries, date and time, and total calorie expenditure; an oversized display; a comfortable WearLink fabric transmitter; and easy-to-manipulate buttons. The RS200 even offers coded transmission signals that prevent crosstalk with other monitors, giving you a personalized workout even in crowded workout classes. All Polar heart rate monitors carry a two-year warranty.
Note: Polar heart rate monitors are precision instruments, so consumers are not advised to change their own battery. Polar recommends that all service be done by an authorized Polar Service Center, which will include a warranty for 90 days on repairs and six months for batteries.
About Polar
Polar invented the first EKG accurate wireless heart rate monitor back in 1977 as a training tool for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski Team. The concept of “intensity training” by heart rate swept the athletic world in the ’80s. By the 1990s, individuals were looking to heart rate monitors not only for performance training needs, but also for achieving everyday fitness goals. Today, heart rate training is employed by world-class athletes as well as everyday people trying to lose weight, and Polar is the leading heart rate monitor brand among consumers, coaches, and personal trainers worldwide. The company is committed to not only producing the best products, but also being the leading educator on the benefits of heart rate based exercise.
