Polar Sport Watches

A fitness tracker or sports watch usually offers three functions, as follows:

1. Recording your workout, so you can measure and review it afterwards.
2. Measuring your pulse with the heart rate monitor. The built-in optical heart rate monitor in the watch works via diodes which measure your heart rate through the light in the diodes.
3. Measuring the distance of your runs or bike rides through the built-in GPS.

If you are a beginner at fitness, a sports watch can be a good way to measure your workouts in order to see your development and how you improve over time. It’s also a good tool to use to optimise your fitness results; you could, for example, use it for your interval training and keep track of how fast you have to run to get your desired results.

By working out according to the different pulse zones, you can optimise your workouts based on your needs. Depending on your pulse, the body will focus on different things, such as endurance or fat burning. You can also use the watch to stay under a specific pulse level to avoid wearing yourself out.

This depends on what you want to use the watch for and what your budget is. There are many different models of sports watches, from simple ones made for running to more advanced multi-sports watches, which have settings for most sports. If you wish to find out more about which ones we have rated the highest, you can read our test of sports watches.