How can I set my HR zones based on BPM on my Epix Gen 2 Pro?

Garmin decided for some unknown reason to remove this feature. No one seems to know why...

WTF? It made life so easy. It’s still available on the Garmin Fenix 6X. How did I pay 1099 for a less capable watch? 

OMG!!! Not this again!

In what world would tracking HR by BPM be easy?

Every time your MHR/LT/RHR changes, you would have to set all your BPM's for each zone again.

HR training was designed with percentages, not BPM.

That way... when your MHR/LT/RHR change, the zones will automatically change, because they are based on percentage.

not sure why Garmin removed it, but I don't think it's coming back. Maybe they realized it is kind of useless using BPM.

deleted

OMG!!! not you again

LOL

Garmin - Chris maybe it is time to update the user manual since no longer possible to set the HR zones using specific bpm 

Or, just fix it

johan6504 said:

Or, just fix it

But what is there to be fixed. It is agreed by the running science that Z1=50-60%, Z2=60-70%, …, Z5=90-100% so why do you want to calculate them yourself and as soon as a new MAX HR or LTHR is detected you have to recalculate them yourself if not use percentage.

Also see greatist.com/.../heart-rate-zones

Furthermore training programs use the zones when create training for you and that will not work well if you do not use the agreed percentages

Why do you want to set the zones using actual bmp and what is the benefit to do that according to you?

SETM said:

But what is there to be fixed

I am not sure why there is so much resistance to the request to Garmin to fix this?  First of all, the zone percentages are based on studies, averages, etc.  Just like the formula for HRmax doesn’t work for everyone, the zone percentages are not really exact for everyone.  Some people get tested to determine exact zones either based on blood lactate or ventilatory thresholds which give zones based on HR and not percentages of each other.  Why shouldn’t they be able to just enter the HR values for the zones instead of having to calculate what the percentages work out to be for them specifically, especially when this is a feature that the Epix and Fenix originally had and was only removed because of a bug that Garmin couldn’t fix in time for the release?

The funny thing for me is that I have no skin in the game - I have only ever done my own testing to verify that the zones I have setup are right, but I still support those who want it that and believe that it should be fixed.

SETM said:

Furthermore training programs use the zones when create training for you and that will not work well if you do not use the agreed percentages

This is wrong.  You can set the percentages however you want and zone 3 (for example) will be zone 3 as you define it.  I use the 80/20 Endurance training plans and they have 7 HR zones.  I have just modified my 5 HR zones in the Garmin watch to fit in a way that works for me with those 7 zones and everything works great.

Edited to add: Maybe the Garmin training plans wouldn’t work if you, for example, setup the zones so that the top of zone 2 was your LTHR.  I don’t use Garmin plans (I synchronize from TrainingPeaks which couldn’t care less about what your Garmin zones are set to), so I am not sure how those might be affected if you did something unique.