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Picked up a Polar S150 at Performance Bike in Chicago today. On sale for $79 down from $150 (I think)

It's a bit confusing and took me a couple of hours to get a handle on navigating the menus. There are 3 timers, 3 heart rate limits, and a recovery setting. Can someone explain this to me? Is it so I can try to train in 1 of 3 different zones and the HRM will beep at me if I am out of the zone?

Ah technology.

LowCel 

Congrats on the new toy.

If it has three zones you can actually use it so that it is all five of your zones. Set the first zone on it to what your zone 2 is, second zone to zone 3, third zone to zone 4. Now whatever is under the first zone (on the watch) is your true zone 1. Whatever is over the third zone (on the watch) is your zone 5.

Hope this makes sense.

$0.00/Gal

Kind of made sense. My max HR is 196 based on my age, so...would it look like this?

Zone 1: 80-100 (resting/light recovery)
Zone 2: 100-120 (warm up/recovery)
Zone 3: 120-140 (light to moderate intensity zone)
Zone 4: 140-160 (moderate to heavy intesity zone)
Zone 5: 160-196 (heavy to maximal intensity zone)

I got the wording from the Polar manual. Not sure if it's common lingo.

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So, looks like I didn't know what I was talking about when I made that last post. Here are my real zones:

1: 88-105
2: 105-123
3: 123-140
4: 140-158
4: 158-177

From what I've researched most base training should be done in zone 3 at a high cadence. True?

LowCel 

Depends on what you read, most of my base training is upper zone 1 and zone 2. Zone 3 is my tempo work. Your zones still sound a little weird though, your zone three is huge.

Here are my zones, granted they are not supposed to be same as yours.

zone 1: <136
zone 2: 136 - 149
zone 3: 150 - 155
zone 4: 156 - 166
zone 5: 167 - 177 (or I just fall over, it does go above 177 though.)

demoncyclist

Remember that age predicted HR can be off of your actual by +/- 20 beats or more. I had myself sub-max tested a few years ago, and my age predicted AT was off by 21 beats. If you have to use a formula, try googling the Karvonen formula. It is a little more accurate than the straight 220 (226 for women) minus your age to get your max HR.

LowCel 

Another way to determine it is to do a 30 minute time trial on relatively flat land. Take your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes of the time trial, this will give you your lactic threshold. From that you can get a very close guestimate on your heart rate zones.

$0.00/Gal

I did a home sub-max test that I found online. It had me stepping up and down some stairs and another test with a chair to determine mine. I ended up with 177 being my max HR and a chart on timex website gave me the different zones.

I'm meeting with my team tonight so I'll ask the coach what he thinks.

DocRay

It's here:

https://pages.zdnet.com/bodybuilder/id27.html

Formulas fall apart once you reach above normal fitness levels.

Bontrager

Unless the formulas are based on above normal fitness level subjects