Question on load calculations

Hi everyone. I have a long-time war in my head between wearing my Garmin 24/7 vs. only wearing during strength training and running (the two main things I seem to be doing). Also, wearing to sleep is fine as well. The issue is that I love watches and have a bit of a collection and seeing them sit gets in my head. On the other hand I love the body battery, training ready etc.. and I know for that, I really need to be wearing 24/7. So, I am always torn to choose.

Anyway, my question... let's say I just wear during work out and run and sleep. The loading score, is this strictly a metric based on the activity alone, OR.. is this score also looking at overall condition that the watch thinks I am in? For example, if I have a low HRV, or high stress, or lack of sleep, or low body battery vs. a fresh start etc.. will that impact the load score? In other words, and to the point, if I only wear it during workouts and the watch has no idea what else I may have done in the middle of the day, will that give me an accurate load score in which I can track, or will that be pretty pointless as it also looks at other factors?

Thanks,

Top Replies

trux over 1 year ago +1

ericgottlieb said:
According to this, load is strictly calculated from your workouts:

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=SEkNpdGyhR917js0qQL3Q6

Although not mentioned directly in the document, it is…
7828711 over 1 year ago in reply to trux +1

Yes, that makes more sense. I think I am coming to the conclusion that with Garmin, you really need to be all in or not at all (unless just to see stats for a run) in order to get anything meaningful from…

All Replies

0 ericgottlieb over 1 year ago

According to this, load is strictly calculated from your workouts:

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=SEkNpdGyhR917js0qQL3Q6

0 jaamgans over 1 year ago

While load is load is scriticly activity based, and so is load focus and acute load - most of the other metrics and features do include other metrics generally the health metrics that do benefit from 24/7.

Personally since starting with Garmin all my mechanicals are sitting in a draw and now just change out straps and watch faces on my epix depending on what I am doing.

0 trux over 1 year ago

ericgottlieb said:
According to this, load is strictly calculated from your workouts:

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=SEkNpdGyhR917js0qQL3Q6

Although not mentioned directly in the document, it is very likely that the algorithm for calculating the training effect needs to know your correct 7days average Resting Heart Rate (besides the correct Max HR) - simplified told you only start getting some TE when your HR goes over the Resting HR value. That's the case for the Active Calories too.

So if you start wearing the watch during workouts only, your Resting HR will be detected only during the workouts, hence it will be way much higher than it would be if you worn the watch during the sleep, and during other periods of deep rest. In consequence the measuring of the Active Calories, Training Effect will be strongly influenced, and you will get lower values than you would have normally. There may be similar effect on other values like the Respiratory Rate, LTHR, and VO₂max as well.

0 7828711 over 1 year ago in reply to trux

Yes, that makes more sense. I think I am coming to the conclusion that with Garmin, you really need to be all in or not at all (unless just to see stats for a run) in order to get anything meaningful from it.