HRM Polar FT4M - Bought one!

melanie3103

Right... I bit the bullet and ordered myself one from Amazon (the Polar one that I've seen so many people recommend). So.. I am now wondering if this is going to be easy to set-up and use.

Can anyone run me through 1) what I need to do (in layman's terms, as I will have the techie advice on the instruction sheet I'm sure, that I get WITH the purchase). And also 2) What I need to do each time I use it in the gym ??

I assume I am going to be able to set some settings (age, height, weight etc) - assume I can change the weight as I lose weight ? What else ?

I am guessing it's going to give me a better idea of how many cals I burn when I spend 30mins on the bike for instance ? So like a stop watch ??

dad106

Polar FT4 is very easy to use/set up.. I have it's counter part the FT7.

When you first get it, it will tell you what button to push to turn it on... I want to say its the OK button thats in the middle on the right side of the watch. From there it will have you set age, weight, height and gender. After that, time and date, etc.

Each time you go to the gym, just put your chest strap on(wet the sensors first), put the watch on, hit the OK button twice and your good to go!

It will give you a calorie estimation, but its not a stop watch... it doesn't have those features.

nukehiker

the ft4 comes with a chest strap, so I run the strap under a little warm water before using. the strap has sensors and a transmitter that sends data to the watch. it is pretty easy to set up just follow the guide book. and yes you can go edit your data weight etc.

melanie3103

Do they all come with chest straps ? I don't know why I assumed they measure based on your pulse or something (ie from the actual watch)... I did say I was a complete noob when it comes to HRM !! :-)

dad106

Do they all come with chest straps ? I don't know why I assumed they measure based on your pulse or something (ie from the actual watch)... I did say I was a complete noob when it comes to HRM !! :-)

All Polars come with chest straps.. which is what you want.

The watch only kind get your pulse when you touch the watch.. and if you want an accurate calorie estimation, then thats not what you want.

katy5692

Do they all come with chest straps ? I don't know why I assumed they measure based on your pulse or something (ie from the actual watch)... I did say I was a complete noob when it comes to HRM !! :-)

the HRMs that give your heart rate from the watch alone cannot be accurate at all, whereas, with a cheststrap it gives your constant and instant accurate readings...

i have the polar ft4. absolutely love it! you wont regret it :bigsmile:

melanie3103

Thanks all. Can't wait for it to arrive tomorrow. Will let you know how I got on.

mrandolph69

I just bought a Polar FT7M and used it for the first time today. I could not be happier with it! It allowed me to be right in the range I need to be in without the out of thin air guessing I was doing before. It was money really well spent.

You might also want to consider the Flowlink which is a little device that you set the watch on when you are done with your workout. It then picks up the data and uploads it seamlessly to PolarPersonalTrainer.com. From there you can track all of your workouts. It will show you the duration of your workout, the average heartrate, peak heart rate, estimated calories burned. All of that is on the watch but It is really nice to have it on the computer because it is hard to access on the watch (at least I think it is.) It was another $50 and you could certainly manually enter the info into PolarPersonalTrainer.com but it is really convenient to just take the watch off, set it on the Flowlink and have it sync automatically for you. It will even open PolarPersonalTrainer in your browser if you want so you can tweak it (I enter in my mileage.)