Polar H7 Heart Rate Monitor

Taken from Polar's website

I recently purchased the Polar H7 HRM in hopes that I would track my caloric burn and heart rate more accurately. I don't trust the machines at the gym to accurately tell me how hard I'm working. Before purchasing the Polar H7 I did a lot of research because I was really hoping that my needs would be fulfilled with a Jawbone UP or Fitbit Flex. Sadly though with the amount of weight training and other multisport activities I do, neither of those fitness bracelets would be the most beneficial to me (even though I think they would look really cool in mint green on my wrist).

Anyways, after doing some research I decided I, personally, did not need a Polar watch because I wasn't looking to have something beep at me every time I went out of my target heart rate zone (yes, I know you can turn this feature off). Being a college student, trying to save for everyday expenses, my needs were fulfilled with just the H7 and my handy-dandy iPhone. I keep my iPhone on me while I work out to listen to music as well as use it as a stopwatch for my ab workouts.

Setting up the Polar H7:

I currently don't use any of the apps that the H7 is compatible with so I decided to download the app it was designed to work with: the Polar Beat. After nearly throwing the entire package out the window, I was able to rip the plastic casing apart and grab the HRM, chest strap, and instruction manual. The instruction manual offers very little instructions (ironic, I know). It said to lightly wet the chest strap before putting it beneath your bosoms, so that's what I did. I wet the strap, clicked the monitor in place, and to my surprise it stayed in place. I went to the Polar Beat app and opened up "Settings". It first asks you to fill out your basic information (age, gender, height, etc.). Now the important part; syncing the H7. Luckily, this is a lot easier than it could've been. All you do it go to "HR Sensor" under "Settings" and the Polar H7 shows up immediately. That's pretty much it. You just pair it. If the app can't seem to find the HRM, make sure your Bluetooth is on.

First Week with the Polar H7:
So far I'm really enjoying the heart rate monitor. It's easily worn with little to no slipping underneath my sports bra. I usually forget it's there to be honest. My typical workout includes a 5 minute warm up run, strength training, and some interval running. I use an armband (TuneBand to be exact) so I haven't had a problem with the receiving distance. The only complaints I have so far is that the app has randomly stopped working once and luckily I noticed in time to probably only work out for about five minutes without my heart rate and caloric burn being recorded. The caloric burn seems to be fairly accurate. It's relatively low compared to what the treadmill states I've burned so I'm going to go with that one. On the application you can state what type of exercise you are doing but I have a tendency to forget to change it from strength training to running and vice versa. One thing I'm really pleased with about the H7 is that it has encouraged me with my interval training. To maximize fat burning you're supposed to do interval training (dramatically increasing and decreasing your heart rate for short amounts of time) and the H7 allows me to monitor my heart rate accurately so I know when to switch gears. After my workout session I manually create a new exercise on my "Lose It!" app and just record the time and caloric burn.

So to sum everything up, I highly recommend the H7 for anyone who wants to accurately track their heart rate and caloric burn.