The New Polar Grit X – Tried and Test by Will Burton
Late April Polar released their latest in wearable training aids in the form of the Grit X. Boasting longer battery life, some fancy new features and all in all an almost indestructible package. Accelerate team member Will Burton has been using a Grit X for the last few months and shares his likes and dislikes about Polar’s latest invention.
I have been lucky enough to own a few Polar watches since I started running, they M430, V800 and now the Grit X. Something that always impresses me with polar is their attention to detail, even when it comes to the packaging. However, the Grit X goes above and beyond what I have had before. It comes in a sleek black and red box, as you slide apart the box you are greeted with a clean, crisp and glossy watch face staring back up at you. Polar have made a very refined product that comes with more features than previous models.
At 64 grams this feather weight watch is hardly noticeable when you are wearing it and you can almost forget it’s even on. It comes with a comfortable and changeable rubber strap so you can choose from one of their many strap options. The watch is striking and fashionable so perfect to use as a normal watch as well.
Polar have worked wonders on the battery inside the Grit X. In its most accurate GPS setting (updating GPS every second) it has 45 hours continues battery and in ultra-mode it goes up to 100 hours continuous tracking. The highlight of this means I only have to remember to charge it once a week, despite using it on the most accurate mode and it only takes 2 hours to fully charge!
Unlike the V800, the Grit X has a newly refined wrist-based heart rate monitor, using 10 LED’s sensors 5 red, 4 orange and 1 green. This is to helps with different skin tones to keep an accurate heart rate reading. This helps me train accurately accordingly to my different heart rate levels, negating the need to wear a heart rate strap, which I find much comfier when running. The watch also uses your HR data to calculate the number of calories you have burned through during exercise and how much you need to consume with a handy reminder of the specific amount of fuel in grams. Sometimes a little more information than I would normally need yet for ultra athletes this could be invaluable.
Polar have also added in Power to the Grit X something I haven’t had before it is helpful when running off road and pace goes out the window but power take into account of the terrain so you can run at a consistent effort irrelevant of where you are running, this is calculated all through the watch negating the need for a foot pod.
The mapping feature is something I also haven’t used before, it tells you how far along your route you have covered, showing you when to turn and an arrow in the direction you need to travel. The mapping feature is not as advanced as I anticipated, it doesn’t show you the paths around the one you are following, which could make navigation difficult without a map to consult.
Other features included in the watch are details like distance ran uphill and downhill (Hill Splitter) this also show the gradient you are running on in real time, the quality of sleep and how much you are getting, hourly weather forecast and VO2 max estimator.
After finishing your run all the metrics are uploaded to Polar Flow where you have access to even more data and a guide to whether your training is progressing or if you are overtraining. Even better you can let a coach of access to your account and they can see all your data without having to share with them each time.
I’d recommend the Polar Grit X to people wanting to take their training to the next level and examine their training in more detail than was previously possible. It also functions as a great training partner while team sessions are off, encouraging me to keep improving for when races start again!
To get your own Polar Grit X follow the link here >>
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