The Hidden Interval Training Feature in the Polar RS200sd

"The RS200sd has an interval training mode, and combined with PC Coach’s unique ability to show a graph of lap data, it can be used to help you do some standard interval workouts and view them on your computer."

The Polar RS200sd is more limited than most of the training hardware we mention. But its price and feature set have touched a large group, and we have a number of PC Coach users who are still just getting familiar with this new model. This article is a chance for them to delve deeper and get to know the RS200sd better.

The term “hidden features” is most often used these days as a euphemism for bugs. But in the case of the Polar RS200sd, the original meaning of the term is really the case. In the December ’05 newsletter we announced that although Polar itself does not report them, the RS200sd actually sends to the computer a set of data about each lap, and that we had built support for that into PC Coach 4.6.

Now here is another hidden feature that greatly expands the usability of this surprising little monitor, especially for interval training. The RS200sd has an interval training mode, and combined with PC Coach’s unique ability to show a graph of lap data, it can be used to help you do some standard interval workouts and view them on your computer.

Let’s say that you want to do a simple interval training session of a 1-mile work interval with 800 meters jog recovery. You can use the ‘multiple zones’ feature to define a workout that switches between two different sets of heart rate or pace limits, when you finish each 1M or 0.5 mile, alternating. If you prefer, you can set these two zones up with a time limit, and it will switch between them after the elapsed times. For viewing at the computer, it is very important to press the lap button each time the monitor notifies you that you have finished a work or recovery interval, because it does not store a lap automatically when it switches zones. But if you press the lap button each time, PC Coach will show you a graph that shows your time, average HR and average pace for each interval.

Graph of 800 meter intervals performed with the Polar RS200sd
and downloaded into PC Coach Athletic Training Software

Granted, this is not a lot of data compared to the reporting you get from higher priced units, but it might be enough, depending on your level of interest. To see a comparison of the information you get with the RS200sd compared to the Polar S625X, look at the screen captures of the same workout as reported by the S625X in another article of this newsletter entitled “Early Season Interval Training”.

To set this workout up in your RS200sd, look for the multiple zones feature. At the Settings menu, choose Exercise, scroll down to Interval, and select it. Scroll down to Edit, and choose that. You can choose 1, 2 or 3 zones. This example uses 2 zones. I set up zone 1 with my recovery heart rate limits and distance (0.5 mile), and zone 2 with my work interval limits and distance (1 mile). This allows me to start the workout and warm-up for 800 meters before the monitor wants me to kick it up for the first interval. If you want a longer warm-up, you need to do that before you start the monitor.