Help me with choosing a watch
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Hello everyone! I am engaged in weightlifting primarily in the gym and plan to use a combination of a watch and a chest heart rate sensor. I am considering a choice between the Suunto Vertical (I am very attracted by the battery life) and the Polar Vantage V3. Help me decide, as there is not much information on the internet about which gym workouts the Suunto Vertical supports and how well it handles them. I know that Polar has its own ecosystem for creating workouts, filtering them, and so on. Prior to this, I have not dealt with all these watches. I use a Galaxy Watch, but I want more specialized watches. Thank you!
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Hi there, I’m not expert in the Suunto ways just yet but one thing I guess that will help people answer your question is how do you define ‘support’?
Personally I currently have a Race and I have used the Strength Training activity profile. It records an HR track from my HRM but that is about it. I have not tried creating a structured workout just yet. Do you want something where you plan your workout and it prompts on the exercise and sets/reps to carry out?
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@FunkyLarma You know, I haven’t ventured that far yet. For example, with the Galaxy watch, I’ve done power workouts without repetitions, and so on. Now, I want to approach this in a more structured and conscious way. I want to try creating my own exercises with repetitions, tracking recovery, rest, and so on. But there’s hardly anything on the internet or YouTube about working out in the gym. I think all watches, in one way or another, can handle things quite well with a well-structured plan. Anyway, thank you for your response. Earlier, when I served in the army, I used Suunto Traverse watches to get GPS coordinates, and I really liked the interface of the app on the phone.
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@johansson what I would suggest is determining what you want it to do. If counting reps is important, trending data for recovery and sleep, zones/hr it will steer the decision.
For lifting with my Vertical I mainly use time, and yearly calorie vs activity and recovery. I balance that against Cardo which I tend to focus more on heart rate zones and PTE, EPOC.
I tend to count my reps out and lift until failure so counting reps is never an issue (and something Suunto doesn’t natively do).
They do have timers and Tabata that you can add in. Suunto is heavy focused on running, biking, and outdoor activities but I use mine mixed for lifting and overall activities so keep that in mind.My purchase was based on the order of importance and I went from there. (About 95% there currently)
- battery
- build quality/long-term support
- outdoor activity (mapping)
- ease of use app/device
- fit my kind use
- data it gives me
Here is an example of the various apps the watch can run
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@Todd-Danielczyk Thank you very much for the extensive and detailed response. Today I received my new Suunto Vertical Titanium Solar watch (I was very surprised by how lightweight they are) and I’m exploring them. I’m very pleased with the Spartan menu with its minimalism and minimal set of tools, so nothing distracts from the sport. Also, on the road, I have the Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt. After exploring the settings and the tools offered by the watch, I am convinced that they are excellent for creating and tracking workouts, both for weightlifting and fitness. Suunto is a very worthy choice.
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@johansson you are most welcome and I have no doubt you will enjoy your Vertical Solar!
I applaud you for doing “your homework” before purchasing as well.
Just something I will add as I found out while doing sandbag training (cleans and overhead presses) the little button that holds the end of the strap would come undone or dig into my wrist. I ended up changing out my strap to an “Apple watch ocean” style which worked out better for me.
This one in particular:
