There was a time when you simply trained - and that was that. Whether the training was good and effective was revealed - depending on the objective - by the degree of fatigue, the scales or the competition. But then scientists discovered that constant heart rate measurement is of crucial importance in endurance sports. As a result, running and cycling coaches were happy to engage their protégés in conversation during training, because they were told that those who could still speak well were moving in the basic range. Advanced runners grabbed their carotid artery with their index finger and thumb, stopped ten seconds on the stopwatch and multiplied the perceived result by six. However, this was very imprecise and often led to miscalculations, especially during hard training sessions.
Finnish electronics professor Seppo Säynäjäkangas realised that this was a major problem when he was talking to a cross-country skiing coach in 1975. A measuring device was needed that could be worn on the body and not just used for stationary training.
No sooner said than done - well, not quite. It was not until 1977 that the professor founded the company "Polar Electro Oy" and spent another five years up to his neck in development work. Patent rights had to be clarified and the wireless transmission of the heart rate kept stuttering. But in 1982, the time had finally come. The first mobile heart rate monitor called the "Sport Tester PE2000" revolutionised everyday training. Anyone who strapped the clunky, watch-like monitor to their wrist had to put up with the question of whether they could also receive a fax with it, but that was pure envy. The wearers of the sports tester now had their heart and its beating ability under control: ECG-accurate heart rate measurement with adjustable upper and lower limits, intermediate times and the option of recording the heart rate every 5, 10 or 60 seconds. There was also software for analysing the training on the PC. However, the data had to be read off the monitor individually and typed into the PC yourself. So if you had been out on the bike for four hours and had entered the 5-second measurement cycle, you would be tinkering with a usable heart rate curve late into the night. But of course they were happy to do so. After all, they had paid 499 marks for the device to finally set themselves apart from their training mates. But they didn't let up and soon tried to spoil the expensive training partner with the rumour of "leakage current". In fact, it turned out that the power line on the individual body electrodes was somehow leaking. But the problem could be concealed under the jersey with adhesive tape - until the chest strap was developed.
Two years later, the successor: the "Sport Tester PE3000" was handier, more waterproof and had an interface station. This automatically pulled the stored data from the watch into the computer. The procedure took hours and sounded a bit like someone trying to suck up a roughly mashed strawberry puree with a straw, but at least the dark circles under my eyes from typing all night were finally gone.
In 1990, the "Cyclovantage" was the first bike computer to clamp onto the handlebars: heart rate, distance and speed at a glance. An innovation at the time - today, every Aldi device for 20 euros shakes these values out of the plastic housing. That's why the search continues at Polar: Which measured values can still be squeezed into the display? The trend is towards an impact-resistant, submersible, 80 gram multi-sport computer with a GPS sensor. A super-precise SIRF-Star III chipset still scans the heart rate, but at the same time also scans terrain according to altitude metres and air pressure according to rain clouds. And thanks to the satellite connection, even the arrival time at the summit is no longer written in the stars.
Oh, you just want to get back on your bike. Without a watch. Just you, nature and your pulse. Then you can simply hear it beating again.
Text: Gitta Beimfohr
