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[Suggested workout] why suggest 10s Sprint workout if you can't track it

Piotr
over 3 years ago

Hi, 

I've been doing a suggested workouts for almost 2 months now. I have NEVER been able to get anaerobic training effect at the end of a SPRINT suggestion it always ends as BASE or sometime Tempo. I've tried different levels of straping of my watch in order to find a good level for too tight not to loosen etc. really everything there is.

From what I observe is just that the Heart Rate Monitor can't keep up with the sprints. very often after i do a 10 sprint @19-20km/h it shows a BPM of 130 .... :( i mean how? why ? especially it happens rather at spring 7th or 8th where i'm already at 2.0 anaerobic efficiency according to data screen.  

I tried walking between sprint, slow running between sprints(seem to have better readings but my HR won't go down to 115BPM) There are surely another suggestions / workouts to do. The only way i see to properly track it is with Chest strap but I don't have one i just spent 700€ on sapphire version just to learn a month after that actually chest strap would be sufficient for me / more effective for me.

It is really frustrating. Why not suggest longer sprints with shorter rest like 10x30s@16km/h with 30-60s rest for example I've been doing that in the past with a coach. Since the speed is slower there less sharp movements of arm and therefore maybe the watch will be able to record the Heart rate more precisely.

Please Garmin when you suggest a workout take into the account whether we have a chest strap or not. Because basically I'm having Sprint suggestions 2 days in a row. because they all finish as BASE and sometimes as Tempo. I will end up having an injury first before just for once I am able to have a "anaerobic/sprint" workout label. 

So frustrating.... ;'( 

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Garmin hasn't done as you suggest because that wouldn't fix the problem.  There is no technology in existence that can accurately track heart rate on the wrist during sprints, even if they're longer. You must either use a strap or simply accept that it won't accurately record. Even if you've not got a strap, it's still good for you to do occasional sprints. It's better to focus on being actually fit rather than trying to meet some arbitrary Garmin threshold. Remember that exercise still exists even if Garmin hasn't measured it!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to George

    There is a difference between inaccuracy and being totally off the track ;) showing 130BPM instead of something between 160-180 is a way off. I can understand being +/- 10 or even +/- 20 BPM but here it is today wrong(not on every sprint). Just for example when a do a soft Zone2 run i'm at 140BPM after 2-3 minutes and never go below 138. So it is impossible my HR drops below 130 after a sprint :D 

    I know exercise it there And I totally agree with you on that point. But suggesting sprints 2 days in a row will end up in injury.

    The other problem is that if watch can't track it properly then all other calculations/sugestions will be wrong because they have invalid/incorrect data so it has undesired consequences for future suggestions. The algorithm might as well be considering that i'm struggling and next time till suggest even easier workout which won't provide sufficient benefits. I only how that FA engine can detect such anomalies since there are supposed to use only "good" quality samples.

    That's why this suggestion without a chest strap feels pointless. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Piotr

    The sprint suggestion is completely useless. Personally I do sprint in HR zone not time zone based. Sprint until each zone 5 alarm and walk until reaching zone 3.  

    The best results are sprint uphill and walk downhill 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Piotr
    Piotr said:
    That's why this suggestion without a chest strap feels pointless. 

    You won't gain anything even with a strap for a sprint that short. Physiologically your heart cannot react that quickly. If the suggested workout includes short sprints then the only thing you can do is go as hard as you can from go to whoa and forget about following heart rate or pace. There are many measures of fitness. And for sprints how quickly you can accelerate to pace is one of them and with that how quickly your heart can react to changes in effort.

    jose.cboliveira said:
    Personally I do sprint in HR zone not time zone based.

    And then the whole idea of a short sprint is wasted. Pretty much guaranteed that even with the best physique in the world heart rate will not climb from Zone 2 or 3 to Zone 5 in 10 seconds.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    I was considering buying a chest strap ... :(

    Well to be clear I was not speaking about the reaction delay. More about the fact that with the watch some sprints HR isn't detected or it is detected totaly wrong. I would expect that during a walking between sprint HR goes to "real" value because there are less impacts that during sprint. etc. Also it is impossible from me to have 130BPM after 6th all out burst sprint. I'm not a robot :) 

    So you are saying with chest strap i can/will have similar inconsistent results ( like here between 11th and 13th sprint) ? BPM going all down even though i did a sprint in between? 

    As i said i don't need to have super precision. But the minimum i would expect is to at least have the correlation between speed/hr even if it is delayed. but going all way strait down from 170 BPM to 115BPM even though i did a sprint isn't very good IMHO.  

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Piotr

    One thing you can try is to start and end your intervals about 5 seconds early (when the watch makes its first beep in the timer countdowns). In that way you go around some of the internal delays in the watch. That partially solved this issue for me on these short intervals.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Piotr

    Would be interesting to see a graph with target pace vs watch pace. Probably you see delays there.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to AndersB

    Yes i was doing that before now i'm only slowly ramping up on t-5 so that at the start i can instantly go to full speed.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to AndersB

    I did setup a custom Interval workout on the watch in the run app for this graph because watch suggested 7 sprints and I wanted to do 10 because at midnight before going to bed the suggestion was 10. And it reduced it to 7 probably because of "bad sleep".  So i don't have a workout target graphs for pace because target was 10s time. 

    But you can see a full here ( I use you datafield since few days as well)  : 

    connect.garmin.com/.../8015328779

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I normally train with a strap but if I forget it on travel I get OK results if I have the watch quite tight so, there is no wiggling around and put above the wrist. To prevent the watch from sliding down to the wrist, I put a buff or something else on the wrist to prevent sliding down. It has the added benefit of preventing sunlight to get into the sensor, which makes it easier for the watch.

    No matter if strap or not, I always start 5s early (with the first beep) and end on the normal ending of the sprint.