Laura: Fat to Fit: watch

Review // Garmin Forerunner 620 Running Watch

2/18/2014

For full disclosure purposes, I bought the Garmin 620 running watch with my own money. I was not paid to write this review and all opinions of the product in this post are my own. Any links marked with a * are affiliate links.

Ever since I started getting into running, I've always wanted something that would monitor my running. For the longest time, I used the Runkeeper app and a HRM to keep track of my runs. It was fine and convenient, but its not something that I could LOOK at and monitor that way.

So both me and Phillip decided to make an investment and started looking at getting a running watch. After much deliberation, we decided to go for the Garmin 620.

In the Box

- Garmin 620 Watch

- USB Charging Lead

- Instructions

The watch does not come with a HRM as standard, but I did get the watch with a HRM, so my box also included:

- Chest Strap

- HRM Transmitter

Features of the Watch

Running Dynamics - Ground Contact, Candence and Vertical Oscillation

Fitness Metrics - Recovery Advisor, VO2 Max and Race Predictor

Running Features - Auto Pause, Workouts, Personal Records, Vibration Alerts, Connectivity

The running dynamics don't interest me so much and I've never really looked into them. I'm sure they'll be of much interest to someone else though!

The Recovery Advisor is pretty nifty and advises you on how long you should take to recover from a run.

The Race Predictor is pretty good too. Although, I'm not going to be competing in any races any time soon so I'm not sure how accurate this is. It gives you a projection on your current VO2 Max (which can also be measured via the watch). You get a time for 5k, 10k, Half Marathon and Marathon Times.

Now, the running features is something that I use on more of a run by run basis. I have the Auto Pause enabled on my watch, so when I come to a stop light or when trying to cross a road, when I'm stationary, the watch pauses and when I start moving again, my run resumes.

There's also Personal Records, the watch lets you know when you've achieved a personal record like your fastest mile, longest distance, or your race record from the mile to the marathon, which is good when I'm trying to beat my previous run.

Which brings me on to the Virtual Partner and the Workouts. You can race against a 'Virtual Running Partner' using your watch. It will let you know how close or how far away you are from being near your target.

Workouts are another cool feature and one that I looked forward to using. These workouts can have a variety of targets such as pace, cadence, heart rate and speed, and can have preset duration such as time or distance.

These workouts can be created on Garmin Connect and then transferred over to the watch via USB.

Garmin Connect is a website that will contain all of your running data to look at on one screen, including your runs, workouts and it also includes training plans that you can transfer over to your watch!

There are 4 different screens available on the watch, you can have them display anything that you want and there are tonnes of options to choose from like Timer, Heart Rate, Running Dynamics, Cadence, Pace and Speed fields including other info like calories, laps, time of day.

So, I think I've covered most of the features that are available on the watch.

With regards to the actual watch, its light and I hardly notice i have it on my wrist. It's touchscreen and very easy to use, there's sound and vibrations for notifications and the screen is touch.

The Verdict

I think the watch is brilliant and I literally never go out for a run without it anymore. Its SO easy to be able to look at my pace, or anything else that I want for that matter, there are enough screens available to choose from depending on what data you want to see.

Setup of the watch was pretty easy. Finding Satellites for my first run was quite slow, but the watch then remembers the satellite you were last connected to and it becomes MUCH quicker to connect to them afterwards.

Of course, I would naturally recommend the watch to anyone that was thinking of getting a running watch. However, this might be a bit much for some people and there is also another watch down from this, the Garmin 220 that has less features.

Availability

The Garmin 620 watch is available in Blue/Black and White/Orange and is available for purchase on the Garmin Website, amazon* and many other online fitness stores.

Question: What do you use to monitor your workouts/runs?

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gait

You need to start stretching!

12/05/2013

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So, this past weekend has been a busy one. I had a consultation this weekend, but that's a completely separate subject and I'll get onto that in another post.

So, I've been umm'ing and arrr'ing about getting a running watch for quite a while. I had been looking on the internet all Saturday and couldn't make up my mind. Eventually, me and Phillip decided that we were gonna get the Garmin 220's and we started looking for places that had them in stock.

We found out that Sweatshop was the only place in the UK that was stocking the new Garmin watches as they had some sort of exclusivity thing with them.

Phillip ended up changing his mind when it came to ringing the Cambridge store and we ended up reserving to of the 620's instead.

This is my new baby. :)

We headed to the Sweatshop on the Saturday afternoon to go and pick them up. We actually had no idea that there was a sweatshop in Cambridge until we looked online. The sales advisor in the store was great and she was very knowledgeable. She spent a lot of time talking to us.

After we'd purchased our watches, I asked her about the pain that I've been having with the ball of my foot lately and she offered to fit me in the same shoes that I currently have and get me on the gait to make sure the shoes were right for me.

I jumped on the treadmill, wasn't on that long and then she had a look afterwards. She said that I'm definitely in the right shoes and I'm a neutral runner. I'm a heel striker. She said she did notice that when I roll onto the ball of my foot, I'm pushing off my pinky toes.

She said that the cause of my pain is probably due to tight calf muscles and and Achilles and recommended several stretches that I can do to help with this.

She also mentioned that I should get a small ball like a golf ball and roll my foot over it to stretch out the muscles.

So.. I'm working on actually remembering to stretch as I'm quite bad with making sure that I do, in fact, as of late, I've rarely been stretching after my runs which is probably the reason for my foot pain.

I suggest to everyone that wants to start running, get yourself fitted properly with the right shoe as it can do a world of good and make sure that you stretch properly AFTER your run.

I'll keep you updated on how the stretching goes.

Until Next Time!

Do you run? What type of running shoes have you got?

heartratemonitor

Review // Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

8/01/2012

For full disclosure purposes, I bought the Polar FT7 watch with my own money. I was not paid to write this review and all opinions of the product are my own.

Today I'm gonna be writing a review on the Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor that I bought a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully this review will prove useful to anyone that considering getting a Polar FT7 Heart Rate monitor or just a heart rate monitor in general.

This watch comes with a textile transmitter. The strap is really comfortable and when its worn, I can hardly feel that its there. It also has a coded heart rate transmission which means that it will avoid cross talk with other transmitters which is really useful if you're in the gym and someone has the same watch (like my boyfriend who bought the same Polar FT7 as me). This also means that the transmitter will also sync with the machines at the gym(not all, but most) this means that you wont have to constantly keep looking at the watch and will be able to read your heart rate from the machine.

The watch itself has some pretty nifty features which were the key selling point to me other than the price. The price of the Polar FT7 when I purchased the watch a couple of weeks ago was £65.99 which I thought was pretty good. If after reading the features you dont think it is worth it, there is the next model down (Polar FT4) for a smaller price.

The first feature is EnergyPointer. The EnergyPointer is a feature which tells you what the main effect of your training session is, whether this is fat burning or fitness improvement. It shows you when you are improving your fat burning or if you are improving your aerobic fitness. This feature has been great for me, seeing as I am still interested in fat burning, it has been a great help to see exactly when I am in the zone for fat burn and when I'm above or below this zone.

The next feature is the OwnCal. This is a calorie counter for your workouts. It calculates the number of calories that you have expended during your workout based on the settings that you provide when you setup the meter, your individual maximum heart rate and how hard you are training. I've found that the calorie counter seems to be pretty accurate for my workouts.

The watch has alot of measurement features including Heart Rate BPM / %. This is your heart rate and the watch will display your heart rate with BPM or as a percentage of your maximum heart rate.

The watch has an Automatic Age-based Target Zone which determines you heart rate target zone lmits automatically. At the moment, I have my watch set this automatically, however, this may not be too accurate, there is however the option to manually add your target zones instead of using the watch calculations.

The watch also has a Visual and Audio Alarm that can be enabled for HR-based target zones. When working out, you can define your target zones for a training session and the watch will give both a visual and audible alarm for when you are not in this zone. This feature can be pretty annoying when it is constantly bleeping whilst you are working out in the gym. I decided that it would be in the best interests of everyone in the gym if I just turned this feature off.

The watch is able to store up to 99 training files with summaries on the watch which can be helpful if you want to go back and see what you burnt at a particular point. It also has a totals and weekly history feature which are similar to each other. Totals includes your training data saved in the watch since the last time you reset the watch which will allow you to look at your training over a longer period of time. The weekly history is a similar feature and gives you a breakdown and summary of your workouts over that week.

Other features:

- The watch has a backlight so you are able to see your watch interface when you are in the dark.

- There is a low battery indicator on the watch and more importantly, the watch has user replaceable batteries (this was one of the big selling points, other Polar watches do not have user replaceable batteries and have to be sent back to polar to have the battery replaced. This would just be annoying so I'm glad that this watch has replaceable batteries.)

- The watch is water resistant up to 30m which means that the watch can be used when you are swimming as well which is a good feature to have (although i haven't tried this yet! but I've heard good things about it).

Summary:

- The watch was incredibly easy to setup, it had some basic settings such as sex, age, height, weight that were input into the watch. After this information has been entered, the watch is ready to use. Its as simple as that!

- The watch is quite affordable for the features that are on the watch (£65.99).

- The screen on the watch is large which means that the information is really easy to see and read.

- The strap that comes with the watch is very comfortable.

- Syncs with the machines at the gym which makes it easier for you to see your HR and what zone you are in.

Like I said, I've had this watch for a couple of weeks now and tbh, its the best fitness purchase I have made since I started getting fitter and healthier. I'm able to see what I'm burning in calories (which is helpful for when I'm tracking my calories and need to eat back exercise calories, look out for another post on this). I cant go to the gym without this, if i forget it, I HAVE to go back and get it. its become a staple gym piece for me.