I have had my Polar heart rate monitor (a sweet Polar S720i) for about 3 weeks now, and yesterday I finally got brave enough to read about the fitness test feature that came with the watch. I knew the thing had a feature like that, but tried to deny it for a bit, no being sure about my current fitness level and some heavy testing to determine my fitness level might not work very motivating in these early stages of owning a heart rate monitor and still being happy with it.

After all, it was truly a great investment! Not essential I guess, as I don’t need a heart rate monitor to tell me I am struggling while trying to use a to big gear while climbing up a little hill… I mean, just listening to my breathing, or swearing will tell you that as well! :-) But it’s definitely interesting to see the graph afterwards, even more so combined to the speed and altitude.

Only the fitness test was nothing like the intensive interval testing at maximum power for a number of times… nothing like it. The fitness test was laying in bed for 5 minutes! Well, I am good at that, so when I finally had the guts to read about the test, I decided to do it straight away! :-)

Was a bit disappointed about the result though… the result of the test is a number, and what that number means you can look up in a little table that tells you how fit you are… before I did it, I was hoping/aiming for a number that would reach to “average” fitness… I didn’t make it. I only got to 41, putting me it to one category less… moderate. Although if I can maintain this level of fitness for a couple of months, I will automatically advance into the “average” fitness category when it’s my birthday, because the number-ranges relating to fitness level differ with age.

In the first 3 categories (very bad, bad and my moderate), the advice they give it is: “Increase the number of training sessions for a better health and shape”. Outch… especially as on another page they give an indication on how much time it takes to improve your fitness: “If you want to improve your shape, on average you have to exercise at least 6 weeks to notice a difference in your VO₂ max.” Oh my… guess I will be busy the next 12 weeks (3 months!!!) if I wanne reach average…

I could maybe praise myself lucky with the following: “Less fit people will notice a difference quicker then fit people, who it will take more time.” *HAHAHA* now I am starting to feel happy about just being moderate! :-)

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 16:33 and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.