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Max HR and training zones

Matt4269
over 3 years ago

After updating to 8.37 Wednesday and running that evening, I noticed my zones looked a little off. I went into my personal setting from GC and the FW reset my heart rate. It was set to 172 but after the update jumped to 201. I put it back to where is was prior to the update. Yesterday I did some sprinting and it didn't give me any anerobic effort. It said I stayed in zone 3 as a peak, when actually it would have reached zone 5 with my original settings. Any idea how to adjust my zones based on HRR% after I reset my current max HR?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I wanted to open another topic about something that could be related to your issue.

    I have set my zones based on Lactate Threshold, first only on runs and now on everything but when i finish the activity, the zones shown are based on the original settings of the max heart rate(based on the age and not the real one that i still don't know which it is).

    Not sure if it's related to the newest firmware as i got my lactate threshold values 5-6 days ago and never changed the zones before.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mladen T

    Works fine for me. It seems like your zones aren't reflected (synced) on the watch, or you have custom zones for the activity you mention. Check that the zones in Garmin connect, following an activity.

    Check on the watch: User Profile -> Heart Rate-> Zones and User Profile-> Heart Rate -> Sport Heart Rate -> Running -> LTHR for Value and Zones for your LTHR based percentages

    See below for example from today, zones are dynamic based on LTHR of 164.

    As to establishing your Max HR; for me the watch tracks it, and if I happen to peak at a higher Max HR then it knows, it updates it (that for me typically means a HR reading error, and I reset it. This HR monitors aren't super reliable)

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Absurd

    Not sure if this is the normal behaviour but i found the issue.

    After changing from "% max HR" to "% LTHR" i had to click on "reset zones" to make it effective.

    I was thinking that "reset zones" was for resetting them to something default. Also because when i change the setting from the phone...the change is showing also on the watch(for example now i tried to do the reverse and i put back on "%max HR" and the same setting is shown also on the watch but if i start an activity, the zones are based on "%LTHR"). 

    About the max HR...yes, the watch is tracking it but i got the chest strap recently and didn't do anything to try to reach my max HR yet. Also the actual value, taken by the optical sensor, was taken from a random 5k probably and not with a proper workout to test the max HR. If it's the real one or not i don't know but it's only 1 bpm different from the "220-age" calculation and that's why i wrote what i wrote in the previous post Smiley

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I recommend to set specific heart rate zones for running and to use well established running zones (like Joe Friels if you use LTHR, or Karvonen if you use HRR%) instead of the Garmin default ones. This will force you to enter the zones individually and avoid ambiguity about whether the zones were properly reset or overwritten. If you use Training Peaks, you can find a plethora of options in the settings...

    Make sure that your Max HR is correct. You can use a formula to set it. I recommend to turn off the max HR detection because it is quite common to have an absurdly high number if the HR sensor went wild for a few seconds (loose strap/band, dryness, etc.)

    It is worth checking from time to time your settings. I have multiple devices, I do LTHR tests regularly and sometimes my Max HR is changed for some reason.