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Newsletters 
April 2003
Comparison: PC Coach and Polar Precision Software
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| PC Coach
and Polar Precision Performance Software Comparison |
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With the advent of the Polar S-series infrared downloading,
Polar introduced a revamped version of it's Polar Precision
Performance (PPP) software. Here at PC Coach we bundle our
own PC Coach Elite software with a Polar infrared monitor,
to give users "a complete training system."
Hearing about two software programs, leads many customers
to ask: "What's the difference between PC Coach and
Polar's software?"
Polar PPP software has some great features, including its
excellent single exercise graphs. However, PPP software
neglects long-term analysis in its focus on producing individual
workout graphs.
In a nutshell, PC Coach differs from Polar in its scope.
While the PPP software does a good job at displaying heart
rate data from an individual workout, PC Coach is concerned
with both the workout data and with long-term planning,
prescription, development and analysis.
Click any of the links below to look at feature comparisions:
Training Plans
Long-term Planning
Calendars
Individual Workout Downloading
Reports
Emailing Features
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| PC
Coach Coaching Plug-Ins |
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One thing that sets PC Coach apart from Polar's Precision
Performance software is the line of PC Coach Coaching
Plug-Ins. The Coaching Plug-Ins are comprehensive,
interactive training plans that coach users for
PC Coach's Coaching Plug-Ins for running, cycling
or triathlon, fill your calendar with workouts designed
to help you achieve your goal. Each workout has a
suggested volume (duration) and intensity (heart rate
and/or pace). And the software explains how to complete
the workout with specific instructions —you'll
know you're performing the workout correctly and getting
the most out of your training.
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Portion of the PC
Coach Week View
with prescribed workouts. |
Here
the PC Coach Cycling Plan has prescribed very
specific workouts. To get more details of the
workout all a PC Coach user has to do is double-click
on the workout to pop open the Workout Vew. |
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The Coaching Plug-Ins are fully integrated with all
of Polar's downloading heart rate monitors. Users
can upload their specific workout settings - heart
rate zones, time, intervals - directly from PC Coach
to their Polar monitor. And, once the workout is completed,
users can easily download the data for quick, thorough
analysis.
Click
here for more on the PC Coach training system and
integration with Polar monitors.
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| To
find out more about the PC Coach line of Coaching Plug-Ins
click here
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| Calendars |
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The platform for the PC Coach Coaching Plug-Ins is
the PC Coach Elite logbook. PC Coach features multiple
calendar views that enable users to see different
aspects of their training.
PPP software offers only a month view of the user's
calendar. While I like the way I can I use the vertical
scroll bar to move from date to date, the PPP calendar
does not convey a plethora of information.
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At a quick glance I can see the days that I've
worked out and, since PPP allows me to assign
a certain color to each sport (defaults are
running, cycling, and swimming) I can see that
all my workouts are running (green).
PC Coach has a similar month-view, however,
the type of workout is indicated by a sport
icon, while the color of the calendar day indicates
the intensity of the workout, consistent with
the intensity zones in the heart rate profile.
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PPP Month
View
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Both PPP and PC Coach allow me to determine
the number of weeks I'd like to display in the
month view. And both month views display a summary
of the time spent in each heart rate zone for
that week.
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PC Coach
Month View
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| Multiple
Calendar Views |
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offers only a month view of the calendar, PC Coach enables
me to view a day view, a week view, month view and a
long-term planner view. PC Coach's week view, looks
and acts much like a weekly planner. The week view and
the planner view can convey a lot of information in
a small space. |
PC Coach Week View |
PC Coach Planner View |
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As you can see, the ubiquitous color intensities
are here, giving me a quick feel for my training
pattern. And in the week view the workout title
describes the details of the workout I want
to see. The planner enables me to see large
blocks of training and their patterns at one
time.
PC Coach's workout view provides a complete
overview of an individual workout and easy access
to all workout details (laps, intervals, splits
and other data), workout graphs for heart rate
and time-in-zone, and buttons for uploading
or downloading data directly from the workout.
PC Coach Workout
View
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| Individual
Workout Downloading |
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Both PC Coach and PPP offer the capability of downloading
and viewing workout data, the crux of integrating with the
Polar monitors.
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| PPP
does a good job of displaying the heart rate and altitude
of my recent Sunday run: both the heart rate and elevation
are clear and easy to read. Although I wish the timeline
were a little easier to read, the PPP exercise graph
does let me zoom in on a particular workout section
(e.g., a lap) to get nitty-gritty detail. |
PPP Exercise Graph |
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PPP Lap Details |
A
great feature of PPP exercise graph is the
mouse-over — when you roll-over a lap
on the heart rate graph it displays the
details of the lap: total time, lap time,
ending HR, average HR, average altitude,
ascent and temperature. A nice touch. |
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| While PC
Coach presents the heart rate and elevation profile
in much the same way as PPP, PC Coach adds a series
of color bands to give me a quick visual clue as to
how much time I've spent in each training zone. I like
this feature, especially when I'm doing a workout that
prescribes very strict adherence to a particular heart
rate zone. |
PC Coach Heart Rate
and Elevation Profile |
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| Color intensities
are visible throughout the PC Coach software interface.
Making it simple to see how often you're working out
in a certain zone. When you create a user in PC Coach,
the Intensity Setup Wizard helps you set up your intensity
zones. |
PC Coach Intensity Zone
Setup |
Once
you set up the intensity zones, you'll notice
how prevalent they are in PC Coach. Workouts will
be assigned a color-intensity when you download
data to them. |
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| Graphs
and Reports |
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Both PC Coach and PPP have features that display
workout data in a graphical format.
PPP comes with 5 different reports: Training Time,
Time In Zone, Number of Exercises, Distance and Average
Heart Rate, and Total Exertcion and Pace. While some
of the reports, such as Training Time, are interesting
and informative, when I try to add elements or customize
a graph, the results are dissappointing.
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PPP Training Time Report |
The Training Time report does a good job of
displaying my training time per week. It's clear
and easy to read.
However, take a look at the PPP report when
it graphs more than one element over the long-term,
as in the Distance and Average Heart Rate below.
As in the Training Time report, the distance,
displayed in thick green bars, is clear and
easy to read. The average heart rate values,
jammed up at the top of the graph, however,
difficult to decipher.
PC Coach takes a different approach to graphing.
By enabling users to "stack" multiple
graphs on one time access, users can quickly
compare different training variables, as shown
below in the 10K Race Times grapch and in the
Weekly Mileage over 10K Race Times graph.
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PPP Distance and
HR Average Report |
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PC Coach Report - 10K Race Times |
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PC Coach Stacked Report - Weekly Mileage and 10k
Race Times |
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| Emailing
Features |
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Finally, both PC Coach and PPP
have a feature that enables users to email workout
data to other PC Coach or PPP users. When I choose
to email workouts both programs give me a choice of
date range and both programs automatically create
an open email message with the appropriate files attached.
All I need to do is type a brief message to my coach
or friend and hit send. Pretty easy.
With PPP though, it gets a little
dodgy for the reciever. When the email shows up in
the receiver's email Inbox, it's in the common .zip
format. For the receiver, this means he or she will
have to save it, open it in their zip program, then
save the resultant files to correct Windows directory.
PC Coach on the other hand uses
its own .RCS format. When the receiver gets an email
with an attached .RCS file, all he or she has to do
is open the file and PC Coach starts automatically
and loads the new data onto the calendar of the correct
PC Coach user. Simple and elegant.
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