Forerunner 310XT Forerunner 910XT or Polar RCX5

Hi. We get asked a lot of questions similar to this… “which is best for Triathlon training….. I currently use a Poolmate watch for swimming but nothing else… what would you recommend?”

Well this is our reply…

 Good questions !

 The Polar one is the Polar RCX5 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/polar_rcx5.html

 And the Garmin one’s would be the310XT and soon to be released 910XT

 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/garmin_forerunner_910xt.html

 http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/garmin_forerunner_310xt.html

 The Polar RCX5 is great. It is missing ALTITUDE, which is a shame, but it does everything else I want (please note, I swim for FUN only….)

 The RCX5 will give everything your partner wants when RUNNING and CYCLING… and when SWIMMING it will give him HEART RATE. This is something the GARMIN will not do as it uses a DIGITAL signal ALL the time, so does not work in the pool… Polar use an ANALOGUE HR signal when swimming… thus HR in the POOL and digital all other times.

 What the Polar will not do is provide any SWIM METRICS… no distance or swim efficiency.

 Possible solutions for your partner are

 1) Polar RCX5 with RUN POD and Bike speed / cadence sensors (he’d keep using his Poolmate when swimming) - no altitude data when running/riding

2) Garmin Forerunner 310XT has advantage of swim distance and speed when in OPEN water.. but no swimming HR and no swim metrics when in pool.. so he could continue to wear Poolmate when in pool

3) Garmin Forerunner 910XT and have everything except HR when swimming…. the 910XT has swim metrics similar to the Poolmate, so he wouldn’t need to wear that anymore.

 They are the three main options. All will provide great feedback and help him achieve his IronMan goal. I think it depends how much he wants to get everything from just ONE unit.

Hope that helps…

 Regards - Tris Haskins BHIP Ltd - www.heartratemonitor.co.uk

This entry was posted on 14/11/2011 at 12:52 pm and is filed under HRM questions, General heart rate. 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.