Suunto t3

My first introduction to heart rate monitors came ten years ago, and I’ve since gotten hooked on knowing my heart rate in realtime. Since I finally acquired my own four years ago, I almost never work out without it.

I’ve had my Suunto t3 for three years now. (Before that I used a Polar HR monitor.) Overall, I really like it. I wear it every time I work out (usually 4-6 times per week), though I probably don’t use it to its full potential. In the three years I’ve had my t3, I think I’ve replaced the chest strap battery once and the watch battery twice. I understand Suunto no longer makes the t3, but it’s still widely used and some retailers still carry it.

Pros of the t3:

• Like all HR monitors, tracks your heart rate during a workout, making staying aerobic easier
• Displays your average HR during a timed workout
• Displays your calories burned during a timed workout
• Allows you to program in your height and weight to more closely estimate the amount of calories burned during a workout
• The training effect feature is probably what most sets the t3 apart from other heart rate monitors I’ve used. “Training effect” is a concept which measures the impact of an aerobic workout on your overall fitness using a 5-point scale, based on how hard and how long you work out.
  

  5.0	Overreaching
  4.0	Highly improving
  3.0	Improving
  2.0	Maintaining
  1.0	Minor

  The Suunto t3 is one of only a handful of pieces of equipment that feature the training effect measurement. I love this feature because it allows you to plan your workouts accordingly: If on Monday you do a 5.0, you can know to take a rest on Tuesday. If Wednesday is only a 1.5, you know to bump up the intensity on Thursday. If Thursday’s workout is a 4.5, you can take the intensity down a bit–perhaps to a 3.8 or so–on Friday. And, you can watch the training effect increase as you exercise, so if you’ve been going for 30 minutes but it’s still only a 2 and you wanted to get a 3.5 or above that day, you know you have to keep going to get the impact you wanted. Really cool.

• Features a stopwatch with a lap timing option for up to 99 laps (50 of which it stores in the memory)
• During use, it switches easily between displays—heart rate, training effect, calories burned, average heart rate, etc.
• Stores workouts for up to six months, enabling you to compare your last six months of workouts. It allows you to see how many times you worked out each week or month, how many hours you spent exercising over the last week, how many calories you burned in the last week, etc. I think this feature is really genius, though in reality I rarely use it. Maybe I would use it more if I weren’t already in the habit of jotting down the same information in a little pocket-notebook I use as an exercise log, or if I were seriously training for something.
• The watch features an alarm, as well as options to display the day of the week, the date, seconds, and even time in another time zone in addition to the current time.
• You can set the watch to display time and other information in different ways (12 hr am/pm mode vs 24 hr military-time mode), your height in ft or m, weight in lb or kg, and your speed in mph or kph.
• Both the watch and chest strap are lightweight
• The chest strap is adjustable and fairly comfortable; once I have it on I almost forget I’m wearing it.
• Separate PODs (Suunto Food POD, Suunto Bike POD, or Suunto GPS POD) are available which will connect with the t3 and track your speed and distance. I’ve never tried these.
• The user’s guide is very detailed and user-friendly.

Cons of the t3:

• When I’m doing anything other than running, the wristwatch receiver frequently loses the connection with the chest strap transmitter. Hence, it works best with running and less consistently with any other activity (such as stretching, yoga, strength training, gardening or just sitting). It seems to be affected by either my posture or the position of my arms in relation to the chest strap (ie, if the wristwatch receiver extends behind my back, over my head, or down at my sides too far from the chest strap, it loses the signal). I don’t know whether the poor connection is peculiar to mine specifically, to the t3 in particular, or to Suunto HR monitors in general. It seems to do this more than the Polar monitors I’ve used in the past.
• The t3’s retail price is expensive. For what I use it for, which is the really basic use of tracking my heart rate during a workout, I could get away with a lot less expensive HR monitor and probably be just as satisfied.
• As far as I know, I have the smallest elastic band available for the chest strap. I have to wear it as small as it goes, and I’ve always feared that if I lost another 5-10 pounds it would be too big. A child or adult who was any thinner than I am would not be able to use it.
• The wristwatch, or ”wrist-top computer” as Suunto calls them, is not particularly attractive or feminine. It’s not a watch I’d wear on a day to day basis.