This was so COOL!

dragonflydi

I used to have a New Balance style wrist watch HRM. I used it for months and it gave me a much better idea of MY actual caloric burn than the estimates that either the elliptical or treadmill had been giving me when I used the hand pads on the machines to check my HRM during my workouts.

However, I wanted an HRM that was more reliable because I could not wear the watch style for weight lifting/strength training. As such, I invested in a Polar FT4. I love it.

I was doing sprints on the treadmill yesterday and realized about 10 minutes in, that the treadmill was showing a heart rate, even though I had not used the hand pads to calculate it at all. I didn't think much of it (I had other things to concentrate on ... like not falling off the stupid treadmill while that little rubber 'walkway' was spinning very very fast!) ... and then during one of the cool down minutes, I noticed that the heartrate was not only displayed, it matched my Polar watch excatly! When my watch went down a beat or two, so did the treadmill display.

When I was almost done, I noticed there was a little decal on the treadmill that said "Polar Ready". These treadmills are designed to automatically read a Polar HRM chest strap! I can just put on the strap and go use any of the Life Fitness machine there and it will automatically read my HRM accurately in big red number that I can easily see! (I am almost embarassed to saythat I have been on this stupid machine for over two years and never did I notice that before).

I will still use the watch part of the component in addition to having the display show me where I'm at (which is easier for me to see when I'm actually working out) because I don't tend to enter my info into my exercise log until the evening and if my data is in the treadmill and not saved as a training file, I'm likely to forget the info, but I thought that was pretty cool and thought I'd share it for anyone else who has a Polar HRM and might have a gym with Life Fitness machines!

mallorybriann

Love that!
Also, a little birthday cake appears on the watch face when it's your birthday hahaha. Thought it was cute

juliapurpletoes

that really is cool! good for you

loseatonlady

Yes - isn't that great! I just switched to a new Garmin HRM and lost that feature - they don't read them all =(

jbug100

Yes! The same thing happened to me! For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how it was displaying my HR until I noticed the "polar ready" sign. Nice little benefit to the polar brand. On a sadder note, the elliptical read a higher cal burn than the hrm. Oh well. I guess it just makes me work harder:)