Monitoring progress is certainly a good way to stick with a fitness routine, and to that end Polar has introduced the Polar Active. This is designed for students of all ages, who want to improve their health and fitness. It measures the impact of daily activities, and can track just about every moment. With it users can monitor steps taken, calories burned and even time spent in various activity zones.
Students can use the Polar Active to measure and record their physical activity along, and the device can be used with PolarGoFit.com, an online service for teachers and students to monitor and track activity. The portal allows for easy documentation of activity data including daily and long-term progress as well as the ability to share reports with students, parents and school administrators. This can help encourage activity and motivate students to remain active for longer periods of time and maintain a healthy weight.
The device works as a wrist unit that students wear, and via a built-in accelerometer it can measure daily activity. As a user gets going the device tracks the activity level, and since the Polar Active is always on, it will know when a user is less active. But it can be used to track a variety of activities, including running swimming, jump rope, basketball and softball among others.
“Polar Active will forever change the ways teachers educate and students learn PE” said Jeff Padovan, President of Polar USA. “. “With the activity monitor, students exercise based on their individual fitness level, so it shifts the focus from athletic ability to personal improvement, which is key to developing positive lifelong habits around exercise.”
Given that today one in three children is consider overweight or obsess it is good to see that someone is coming up with a way for activity to be monitored in a way that can be positive without seeming intrusive.