POLAR FT7 Men's Heart Rate Monitor Watch M- XXL Strap (Black/Silver)

I have been extremely impressed with this monitor. I purchased it to use for P90X, kept using it for Insanity. Now, I won't start my workouts without it. I find it motivating to be able to look down and check my heart rate, hit one button and check calories burned. Additionally, I like that I could change the batteries myself with batteries purchased from any department store (although I'm about 6 months in of everyday use and still haven't had any battery issues yet).Cons1. The chest strap, although comfortable, will get stinky. I now wash mine and hang dry after every workout.2. If you are a guy with a hairy chest, plan on trimming to make a heartrate monitor work correctly (there is a reason they do so at the hospital when performing an EKG).3. I found that applying some electrode gel to the sensors (which is really cheap by the way) helps obtain accurate early readings.4. I am a 200 lb guy, and sweat copiously during a workout. I found that I needed to towel off above the chest strap when I got really soaking wet to keep the monitor working correctly. When I say "copiously", I mean "copiously". But once I figured this out, all problems solved.5. The watch face is just a tad small. In darker situations, you need to turn your wrist just right to be able to check the monitor.6. I found that about every 3rd plyometric workout, I needed to retighten the chest strap. Not a big deal, fairly easy adjustment. After a while, I became so used to the strap that I could immediately tell if it was tight enough.Pros1. Great piece of gear that does everything advertised. Heck, there are functions that I haven't even used yet.2. I really like being able to check my heart rate during a workout. As many of you know, some of the plyometric workouts can be crushers. This piece of gear allows you to keep the intensity up, by being able to instantly know how hard you are working (as opposed to some metaphysical pain sense). Importantly, this monitor is tough enough and accurate enough to hang with really hard workouts, and has not broken, chipped, failed to start, etc., for 6 months of everyday tough use.3. I also enjoyed knowing an almost exact number of calories burned, especially for tweaking my diet.4. Being able to input personal data makes the calorie counts and heart rate zones much more accurate and beneficial.5. The ability to go to a local store and buy replacement batteries is a really big selling point. The battery access ports are big, easy to find, and easy to operate.Overall, I like this monitor so well that I use it for every workout. Moreover, I'm buying my secretary one.

This is my first HRM. I almost bought the Garmin 110 but decided I didn't need the GPS functions in addition to the watch. I already have a nice $5 NIKE app on my iPhone that will tell me distances and pace so if I really need to know that information. Anyhow, I have two tiny children, a busy career and a busy wife that also works full time. I am a swimmer and I lift weights on and off over the last 10 years. About a year ago I moved into a neighborhood that offers a lot of great road and trail running. I tend to run a lot for 3 months and then stop for 3 months. My goal is just to get some motivation to keep working out, so I bought one of these units.The chest strap is made of a soft material that is comfortable to wear and easy to adjust. The watch was very easy to set up; no instructions were necessary. On my first run with it, my mind wanted to go faster but the watch was telling me right away that I was at my max heart rate given my personal stats (age, weight, height). So I eased up and went a bit slower than I would have ordinarily gone. What I noticed was that my energy level was strong all the way through the run whereas had I not worn this and went with my gut, I would have peaked out twice and been forced to walk for a little bit over my hilly 3 mile run. This gave me important feedback and I am not too cooked after a long day of work, bath time with kids, playing with kids, a 3 mile run and now doing more work and this review. I am eager to get back out and steadily increase my performance.One important note that I did not see on any of the other reviews is that when you begin a training session, a timer starts on the watch. This creates a workout session that is saved to the data files. Although it doesn't have a GPS, stopwatch, lap / interval functions, it does tell you the total time of your workout, your max heart rate and your average heart rate. If you really need to know your pace and distance just download a cheap app on your phone and time it every once in awhile. I am a busy guy and I just want to run 30-60 minutes 3-4 times a week. I may do a 5k but I just want to stay fit and be able to play ball with my kids in 10 - 15 years when I am in my late 40's. I think one of my problems over the years is that my mind would push me into difficult workouts and I would be reluctant to keep the body breaking pace up over long periods of time. In one use I can see that this HRM tells me where my body really is and keeps me from overdoing it, so I can keep up a more realistic workout schedule over the long term.