Polar A5 Heart Monitor Adds Calorie Counting To Your Workout Aims

If you're training for an endurance sport, than you've seen your share of gimmicky gadgets; watches, pedometers, stop watches and more.  The Polar A5 heart monitor was one of the first digital heart rate monitors on the market to get a broad based appeal, and is anything but a typical exercise gadget.

For the latest Polar models, check out the wider range of Polar Heart Monitors

What set the Polar A5 apart on its release earlier this decade was the attention paid to fit and comfort – it was one of the first devices to use short-range wireless transmission to get the data from the chest band to the wrist unit.  The bands fit snug, without constriction, and the console of the wrist unit has large, easy to use buttons.

Notable Features on the Polar A5 Heart Monitor:

The entire rig is designed to be waterproof, the wrist receiver has 30-meter water resistance and it's also easy to take care of.  Both the chest band and the wrist unit are washable with mild soap.  It's got the ability to set "workout zones" and it will walk you through a walking test to calibrate itself.  This walking test, combined with your height and weight will give it a baseline metric for how many calories you're burning during a workout, which comes in handy.

In its standard feature set,  A5 polar monitor will give you your current heart rate, and you can tell it to let you know when you've both reached a heart rate zone, and have fallen out of it (or gone past it).  It will give you the total amount of time you exercised, and will showcase how many ten-minute slices you're using to get into your ideal heart rate zone.

The buttons are laid out for use when exercising – they're large, and easily accessible.  Likewise, the LCD display is large and well lit, making it easy to get the most out of the workout.  The ability to set and program heart rate related alarms allows the watch component to be used as a motivational tool.  It can even be programmed to nag you if you go a certain period of time without exercising; it's like having a gym buddy who won't take "no" for an answer.

Usability and Ease of Setup A5 Polar Monitor

The documentation that comes with the Polar A5 heart rate monitor is both first rate, and somewhat unnecessary.  It's possible to answer all the questions it needs to calibrate itself with two of the buttons on the wrist unit; most people manage to figure out how to get it set up just from playing with it.

From the end user perspective, the ability to cycle through all the display functions is a godsend; you don't have to stop working out to see how you're doing. This is what sets the Polar a5 heart rate monitor above the rest out there.  When you do decide to stop, you've got your choice of several different metrics to compare to. You can even use their Target Zone and OneCal programs to help you get into your preferred heart rate zone, and to track how many calories you've burned in this workout and over an averaged period.