Is Garmin's training load (anaerobic etc) and recovery metrics useful for a weightlifter?

I do mostly cycling with some weightlifting mixed in for balance. I've found the training load to be well calibrated between the two. It's very good at matching my perceived effort regardless of the activity, and it's very helpful for staying between over and under training.

But, the training load is specific to the aerobic/anaerobic aspects of the workouts. It doesn't differentiate between upper or lower body workouts so if you have a weightlifting day where you blast your legs, it won't be able to tell you to avoid running the next day. I haven't found that to be a problem since it's usually pretty obvious when I've overdone it in one area.

This sounds ideal, do you use a chest strap when lifting weights? 

I use a chest strap for all my activities. For me optical sensors seem to have a lag time where they smooth out the quick ups and downs I see in cycling and weightlifting, and once I get to 70% of max heart rate, they're kind of all over the place. I guess it can depend on the person so it's probably worth testing both ways, but I'm sold on chest straps.

Almost forgot another big benefit to using a chest strap for running. If you get one of the Garmin running straps, they give you all kinds of running dynamics that can really help improve your running form. After my first run with the HRM-Tri, I found a few problems that could have caused injury if I'd ignored them for too long. I'm not a great runner, but I've improved noticeably since wearing the strap.

Thanks for the replies! I have two more questions if that's alright :) 

1. Does HRM-Run provide more running metrics than HRM-Tri? I won't be cycling or swimming

2. When you say weightlifting are you doing Circuits or classical weight training (squats, deadlifts, bench, etc)?

The only thing Tri gives you over Run is the ability to store swimming sessions if you're away from your watch. I went with the Tri just in case, but as it turns out, I've never used that feature. Other than that, they give identical statistics and I see no benefit to going with the Tri.

For weightlifting I do classical, usually free weights with some exercise equipment mixed in for the hard to hit areas.

Nice one, cheers for the info! You've been very helpful!

dpmerrill said:

The only thing Tri gives you over Run is the ability to store swimming sessions if you're away from your watch.

Not just swimming, but any sport where wearing your watch might not be practical, such as basketball, soccer, etc where you're watch may come into contact with another person. 

Most of the time, i'm practicing Weightlifting, and a few cardio training, i.e anything else than weightlifting (lol).

From my hown experience, at this time, Garmin better takes in account Weightlifting and Hiit, than before, and gives more accurates results, even if Garmin's main core is cardiotraining.

You may consider in your training, to have some walking, running, cycling, to enhance your cardio whish as a good side effect, enhance your dayly training, and give the watch more different datas for more accuracy.

Dont forget to do good resting eart rate, just after training. This may help good outputs. With latest firmware, it's easier with countdown.

Best way, is to use chesstrap. The more accurate the input, the more accurate the output.

Another wearable manufacturer has a metric called Muscle load, it works out the strain placed on your muscles based on calculated power during running and cycling (it doesn’t list weights). It would be great if Garmin could add something like this but I expect it would be very difficult to make accurate.

In my experience I’ve found that a kettle bell workout produces quite a large training effect while a moderate dumbbell workout doesn’t (as my heart rate does not go up so much with it) so end up with 0.5 training effect .

I wear a chest strap as the optical sensor is not good at picking up the quick heart rate changes of a weights workout.