Training load - Optimal Range never changes

Great training numbers there mate. And hopefully not far away from the reality if, indeed, there is an issue in the correct settings. 

Keep it going and many kudos

Now, I am no athlete

Understatement of the year

Here I am, trying to get my 7-day load above 500.....

So I'm almost dead if 5139556 is not athlete :-). My TL is about 350..  

HermanB

Thanks a lot for your reply.

1. I am just a mere mortal and 47, so if this is really the roof, it surprises me. I would assume that TL for professional athletes is higher than that. Would that roof be age/gender or anything else dependent or it is the same for everybody?

2. HRmax (as well as LT) is set to Auto Detection on the watch and comes from external sensors (mostly cheststrap) as I mentioned before (not from WHR). According to the standard formula my HRmax should be 220-47=173. The highest recorded numbers on the watch that I've seen are 176 bpm (during a high intensity ice hockey game and a basketball game, both ~ 3 months ago, when those were still allowed). With intense running effort (f.ex., 40 s max speed uphill intervals) I can only achieve 168 bpm. So, currently the HRmax on the watch is set to 176. I believe that to be correct, and in any case not too low? I have no idea if this number might go down automatically if the watch sees that my current max values are no longer anywhere close to the max value recorded those 3 months ago, but I can keep an eye on that.

3. I am reluctant to do that at the moment. That would mean losing the settings, fiddling around to restore everything etc. Besides it is not so that I can idle around at, f.ex., 90 bpm and get those high TL numbers. I really have to work for it.

On a slightly different, but probably related subject I have noticed some strangeness in how the Primary Benefit is derived from the Training Effect numbers. For example, if I have a workout with the Aerobic TE of 3.3 and Anaerobic TE of 2.1, the primary benefit I get for it is Anaerobic Capacity, which seems strange based on the numbers, and shows up in a "wrong" colour in the Exercise Load graph. If I look at the Load Focus numbers pre- and post-workout, I can see that both Anaerobic and (in this case) Low Aerobic score increases proportionally to the respective TEs, i.e., Low Aerobic gets more points than Anaerobic. Based on the numbers, the Primary Benefit should be Aerobic, shouldn't it?

Or, another example. Slow zone 2 run (66% of the whole run), with some zone 3 (28%) effort at the end (because coming back to the starting point is uphill). The average HR for the whole run is 140 bpm which is still in zone 2 (low aerobic). However, the Primary Benefit is shown as Tempo and all the points (unlike the previous example where they are divided proportionally) go to High Aerobic. Why would that be so?

Based on what you've said there, it sounds like your HRmax is set where it should be. Automatic detection is basically just catcher for values deemed reliable above your currently input HRmax. It can revise your HRmax upwards, but never downwards. Flipping through the forums, though it does sound like people occasionally get a default HRmax set after some (but not all) software updates. Anyways, yeah, sounds like you are ok there.

I hate suggesting device resets, because getting things set up how you like them is pretty painful and time consuming at times. At the same time, sometimes when data gets whacky, it is the right move and helps - although I don't really know why. ;-) There is a chance that your data is correct, but I don't know. 

-----

That TE+Benefit Label feedback reads as somewhat counterintuitive to me as well at first glance. 

The argument for it being correct is that you had some good, effective interval work in your activity that was determined to be slightly more relevant from a load accumulation perspective than the purely aerobic impact on your development. Anaerobic efforts always have an aerobic component, although aerobic efforts don't always necessarily have a significant anaerobic contribution.

Looking at your Exercise Load graph, there is a LOT of purple (anaerobic) in there, which is consistent with your extremely high 7 day Load. If correct, this is not good training plan design, and should be a level of effort that represents overtraining and should be totally beating you down physically. However, as this is not what your body is feeling or what the stress and BB readings say, I'm going to assume this is not correct, and that instead there is something wrong with your HR data or settings.

First, data. Each of WHR, non-wrist OHR, and chest straps are capable of erroneous readings. But each tends to #$%^ up in a different way. If the data from the different sensors is broadly consistent for similar workouts, it's probably not the raw data that's wrong. (Unless you have some other specific reason to believe the data to be wrong?)

That leaves settings.

A lot of the Firstbeat metrics use % of maxHR as a key input, rather than LTHR. So it is worth looking carefully at your maxHR. Unfortunately the default 220 minus your age is a pretty poor predictor for many people - my hunch is that the maxHR recorded in Garmin Connect is too low for you . But finding your true maxHR is not easy - working that hard is uncomfortable, even painful, and not particularly effective training or racing. To get to your max, you need to be VERY motivated - even on hard efforts, most people only get to 96-98% efforts. Turning on maxHR Autodetect is probably the first step. If it hasn't been on over the past few months, look back over your hardest workouts (especially at hard 2-5 minute efforts) to see what the highest HR has been.  If you have seen a high of 176, I am guessing that your max would be low 180s. Also, HR is lagging indicator of effort - 40s is just not long enough for your heart rate to get high enough. Speaking of lagging, which sensor you use also matters - OHR sensors are less responsive than chest straps, straps are more likely to pick up momentary peaks.

As another reality check, for most people LTHR is around 89-92% of maxHR (although there are outliers).

Also, you mention running and workouts, so you may want to check your maxHR for both the general and running specific heart rate zones. Also, if you change your HR datapoints, make sure to change this in Garmin Connect and let it sync to the watch, rather than setting it on the watch directly (otherwise the old and incorrect HR figures can be re-imported from GC).

Speaking of re-importing, this is another possibility (especially as you said this started 2 months ago). Specifically, there seems to be a common and recurring issue with Garmin that after any update to the watch firmware, incorrect LTHR can get imported onto the watch, which can  screw with zones, Training Effect, etc metrics.

HTH.

Thanks for your input.

First of all, it appears that the wording in my initial post has not been clear enough. When I wrote: 

However, for the past 2 months my TL has increased.

I did not mean that it suddenly increased all by itself. What I actually meant was that 2 months ago I started training more, more intensely, more varied, new exercises, spending more time exercising etc., and TL increased because of all that. Sorry, I think that wording has created some confusion. Also, no new FW has been installed during this time (I am on 6.10.), so I guess that would eliminate syncing/reimporting theory.

mcalista said:

Looking at your Exercise Load graph, there is a LOT of purple (anaerobic) in there, which is consistent with your extremely high 7 day Load. If correct, this is not good training plan design, and should be a level of effort that represents overtraining and should be totally beating you down physically.

This was discussed in the two previous posts (me and HermanB) where I explained that I get "wrong" colours in the Exercise Load graph and why. In most cases it does not mean the whole effort was anaerobic (see the pic in my previous post), most probably only half or less. I mostly notice this during strength/cardio sessions when there is HR cycling with sets and pauses between sets. If you look at the Load pic my first post you'll see that overall the anaerobic effort is only half of the low aerobic and a bit above half compared to high aerobic, so I am not only doing anaerobic exercises.

mcalista said:

If you have seen a high of 176, I am guessing that your max would be low 180s.

I am not sure about this. Those two efforts where I got 176 bpm was competing against younger guys, so I was really at my max and close to passing out . Those were measured by a cheststrap, and at the moment I use the cheststrap for ~ 90% of all workouts.

mcalista said:

As another reality check, for most people LTHR is around 89-92% of maxHR (although there are outliers).

My current LTHR as automatically detected and set by the watch is 158 bpm, my max HR is set at 176 bpm, which means LTHR is 89.8% of the max, which is within the range you mentioned.

mcalista said:

Also, you mention running and workouts, so you may want to check your maxHR for both the general and running specific heart rate zones.

176 bpm is set as max for everything, not only running, even though I have not seen higher than ~166 bpm in non-running workouts.

Try to compare the TL between GC web and GC mobile to exclude that there is a SW incompatibilty between different SW versions.

I edited the initial post to make it clearer that TL did not increase all by itself. It now reads:

"Approximately 2 months ago I started exercising more than before. I increased the duration of some runs/workouts, intensity/variety of some others, started doing new exercises, started doing more interval trainings etc. As a result my TL has increased."