Training & Nutrition - Polar 710/720 users....

Does own index compare directly to Vo2max for most people?

How accurate is the calorie counter in it? If it says I burned 1000 calories and stayed mostly below 85% max heart rate, and I'm more concerned with speed and endurance than weight loss, should I replace all the calories lost, or assume I burned mostly fat and just eat enough to restore lost carbohydrates?

Just for fun I tried a few web based calorie counters, for a run that my Polar 720 said I burned around 800 calories, they came in around a 1000, and while they use weight, sex, average speed and height, they new nothing about the hills, start/stops and headwinds I was running into.

I don't want to eat too much, but at the same time I don't want to be under-nourished and limit strength or endurance gains. I know it is better to be tested for this stuff at a lab, but I do not know where to find one and the tests would likely be obsolete once my fitness changed.

The one good thing about the Polar 700 series is that it really narrows down the segment of the population that uses it (users are likely serious endurance fitness oriented), so it should reduce generalizations Polar used when deveopling it, hopefully increaseing its accuracy.

Has anyone out there compared hr-p (predicted heart rate max.), own index (VO2 max.), and calorie expenditure to an actual lab test? Is it close, consistently off, or just a shot in the dark for the average person?

If everything with the polar is like the trouble I have had getting mine up and running I would not trust it as a fishing weight.

I have had mine for 6 weeks now and am no further along than I was when I bought it. In fact I have lost ground. They don’t tell you but the USB ir port will not work with windows XP. So I got “permission” to send it back after 10 days of trying to get it to work. It is now three weeks later and I still have not gotten my replacement.

I am on the 4 th battery in the speed sensor. They will not give me a new one just say that some of them “…use batteries quickly” the speed sensor can not be used on the rear wheel for that you need to buy the equally expensive power unit.

All in all; in two more weeks if my unit doesn’t get working it is going on eBay or just in the trash I would not like to pass a bad thing to someone else but with the ir port and cadence sensor I have close to $500.00 in a cheep looking plastic watch.

I've never done a VO2 max test, but I think it's safe to say that both are slightly informed shots in the dark. Consider what goes into determining the actual values, versus what information is available to the HRM.

Possibly, the Polar "VO2 max" might be a useful index that you could monitor for changes and improvement as your training commences.

"They don’t tell you but the USB ir port will not work with windows XP. So I got “permission” to send it back after 10 days of trying to get it to work."

night_hawk I have a 710 and it works with my ir (I have XP professional). Granted I use a laptop with a built in ir port. I am not real sure about the operational aspects of a USB ir transeiver. I have had my Polar since Feb and it has worked flawlessly (with the exception when I needed to tighten my strap on the transmitter. I was wearing it too loose to accurately transmit my heart rate.)

Night_hawk/wyobiker, I cannot get my 710 working with my XP Professional on my desktop either. I plug the IR sensor in, the PC will not even boot. I wonder if someone else had this problem and has a solution. The same IR sensor worked in the past on Win 2000, but my PC crashed and I could never get it to work after new installation on either Win 2000 or Win XP. It is quite possible that sending the 710 back will not solve the problem, I believe that the problem is in the S/W and installation sequence.

comph

You will find that you Will never get the usb IR port to work correctly or accurately, consistently with XP it will work with all the other operating systems but not XP pro or home.

I do this for a living and could not make it work. finally wound up sending it back. On top of all that they lost the unit and if I had not had a Proof of Delivery I would have been out the $40.00 bucks it cost.

It will work with built in units but the drivers for their USB unit are not compatible with XP. Your computer will not boot because the drivers cause the machine to crash, I had this problem but knew to start in Safe and uninstall them. The software is the problem and they have had this ever since XP came out if they haven't fixed it by now they probably will not.

Thank you night-hawk. This is quite dissapointing information.......

night_hawk: the USB ir port will work with XP PRo, because I use it on my gf's computer all the time.

problem is that it won't work on my computer. I tried and tried to get it to work. supposedly my USB port just won't work with it, so like you said they've offered to swap it out for a serial one but I really don't want to go to the time and trouble of doing that. But like I said, it will work with the USB port in XP Pro (havn't tried home), on atleast 2 of the 3 computers that I've tried. I think it's just a hit and miss type thing as to which computers will allow it to work on.

I'd suggest getting the serial version of the IR adapter from the get go if you have the option. much less chance of a hassel.

All mine are XP pro. THe differenced between Home and Pro do not come about in the device manager so they are the same from that standpoint. I did have mine working for about three days but then they quite and I have never got them working again.

Polar has finally admitted that the drivers are not good for XP and they have offered to send me the serial IR port. That was three weeks ago I still don't have it.

Polar has finally admitted that the drivers are not good for XP and they have offered to send me the serial IR port.

That is a poor solution. New PC'especially notebooks don't have the old RS-232 (COM-X) ports. USB is the current serial I/F of choice. The real answer is to fix the driver, the 710/720 is expensive enough to be done right. Like I said, quite dissapointing situation. I sure wouldn't buy it, if I knew how poor the PC connectivity is.

I use XP Pro also. I think I remember downloaded a certain file for XP off of the polar website. But I have had mine for almost a year and it works fine.