Polar Running Program

Polar Running program is a personalized program based on your fitness level, designed to make sure that you train right and avoid overreaching. It’s intelligent and adapts based on your development, and lets you know when it might be a good idea to cut back a little and when to step it up a notch. Each program is tailored for your event, taking your personal attributes, training background and preparation time into account. The program is free, and available in the Polar Flow web service at flow.polar.com.

Programs are available for 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon events. Each program has three phases: Base building, Build-up and Tapering. These phases are designed to gradually develop your performance, and make sure you’re ready on race day. Running training sessions are divided into five types: easy jog, medium run, long run, tempo run and interval. All sessions include warm-up, work, and cool-down phases for optimal results. In addition, you can choose to do strength, core, and mobility exercises to support your development. Each training week consists of two to five running sessions, and the total running training session duration per week varies from one to seven hours depending on your fitness level. The minimum duration for a program is 9 weeks, and the maximum is 20 months.

Learn more about the Polar Running Program in this in-depth guide. Or read more about how to get started with the Running Program.

Create a Polar Running Program

1. Log into the Flow web service at flow.polar.com.
2. Choose Programs from the Tab.
3. Choose your event, name it, set the event date, and when you wish to start the program.
4. Fill in the physical activity level questions.*
5. Choose if you want to include supporting exercises in the program.
6. Read and fill in the physical activity readiness questionnaire.
7. Review your program, and adjust any settings if necessary.
8. When you’re done, choose Start program.

*If four weeks of training history is available, these will be pre-filled.

Start a running target

After you've synced your A370 with Flow, your running target for the current day is automatically suggested to you when you tap Training on your A370. Accept them to start your target.

Follow your progress

Sync your training results from your device to the Flow web service via the USB cable or Flow app. Follow your progress from the Programs tab. You’ll see an overview of your current program, and how you’ve progressed.

Weekly award

If you're training for a running event using the Polar Running program, your A370 will award you for sticking to your training plan.

You’ll receive award stars to your A370 as feedback based on how well you’ve followed the program each week. You'll get the award as the week changes, that is either on Monday, Saturday or Sunday, depending on the First day of week setting you've chosen in your Polar account's General settings.

The number of stars you get depends on how well you've met your targets. Your actual time spent on the different heart rate zones during training is compared to the training target's planned time for each heart rate zone. Check the info below to see what is needed for each number of stars, or why you didn’t get any stars some week.

• 1 Star: On average, you’ve met 75% of your target on each heart rate zone.
• 2 Stars: On average, you’ve met 90 % of your target on each heart rate zone.
• 3 Stars: On average, you’ve met 100 % of your target on each heart rate zone.
• No stars: You’ve trained too much (more than 200%) on moderate zones (1 -3).
• No stars: You’ve trained too much (more than 150%) on high intensity training zones (4 and 5).

Remember to start your training sessions using the training targets, so your training session results will be compared to the targets.