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Polar adds personalized fitness subscription to its smartwatch app, like Garmin's
Your smartwatch is slowly becoming your personal trainer, thanks to subscription plans that use the biometric data gathered by the watch to create customized training plans.
Smartwatch and fitness brand Polar introduced its paid, subscription-based Fitness Program on Thursday. The program brings "science-backed" cardio training plans to the Polar ecosystem, tailored to the user's fitness goals, routine, and recovery.
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The plan seems built for people who may be new to their fitness routine and want an outlined plan that uses their biometric data, gathered in the app, to create a training plan without the fuss or time of doing that themselves. The program will schedule cardio workouts and optional strength and mobility sessions into a user's weekly fitness plan, and users can integrate their preferred activities into the plan as well as choose the days they'd like to train and rest.
Polar says Fitness Program is "designed for long-term commitment" -- created for users looking to optimize their fitness routine for time and complexity.
Think of the smartwatch's service as a personal trainer. Fitness Program creates a four-week plan, generated using the Polar watch's heart rate, recovery, and sleep insights. It automatically adapts to a person's training load and recovery status, creating a plan that is personalized and tailored to the individual. Fitness Program costs €10 and is available now for Android users in all EU countries, Norway, and the UK. iOS users must wait until this summer to see the feature arrive on their Polar app. No word on when the program will be available in the US.
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The Fitness Program announcement follows fitness watch maker Garmin's Active Intelligence training guidance launch. Garmin announced the rollout of its paid training plan, which costs $70 a year or $7 a month, to the general dismay of the Garmin community. Take a look on the r/Garmin Reddit to find thousands of users complaining about paying more to access data and guidance that the smartwatch already collects.
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