Change of Heart rate zone type: Influence on Training Load / Training Effect (cont'd)

During exercise, It is generally considered there are 4 systems at play, grouped in 3 buckets (ATP-CP, Anaerobic, Aerobic). The 3 systems work collaboratively. In particular the aerobic and anaerobic systems collaborate through the majority of the intensity and duration ranges. It is a bit like a hybrid car engine (being careful of simplistic comparisons here). They are king of misnomers, though: the anaerobic system is still happening in the presence of oxygen, but doesn't use oxygen. Physiologiest prefer using the notion of "pathways" rather than "energy systems"

"It is important to note that the ‘anaerobic’ metabolism is not a pathway that functions in the absence of oxygen but rather it ‘does not use oxygen’. The ‘anaerobic’ metabolism that transforms adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and phosphocreatine (CrP) should therefore not be termed ‘anaerobic’ but rather ‘independent of oxygen’ or ‘non-mitochondrial’ [16]."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5016084/

There are 2 different concepts at play:

- the training effect relates to the impact on the capacity of the energy systems.  There is no low aerobic capacity vs high aerobic capacity.

- the training programs have a training load and training focus design seeking an optimized mix of activities to target these energy systems in different ways. ie targeting different pathways.

For example, targeting longer lower intensity aerobic are proven to provide plenty of cardiovascular benefits and "aerobic fitness" without the strain of high aerobic exercises.

Etupes25 said:

There is no low aerobic capacity vs high aerobic capacity.

Indeed. And I shame myself that having read so many books on exercise physiology I used these sloppy terms.

But one thing is sure: even if there are no sub-aerobic  systems/pathways there are more than 1 type of benefits using primarily the aerobic system/pathway. This is the reason of the breakdown of aerobic load to low and high. So I still wonder why this breakdown is not shown realtime. And I wonder more stronlgly why the breakdown between anarobic and aerobic load is not shown realtime.

Nevertheless I understood why aerobic TE is not broken down to low and high aerobic TE. But you probably agree that it is puzzling that in GC if you check the TE page you see labels like Tempo, Base etc, which should be linked to training load and not to TE.

Primary benefit, Aerobic and Anaerobic section of TE page are 3 about the type of TL.

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

This is the reason of the breakdown of aerobic load to low and high

No, the reason for this breakdown is to optimize your training and the type of workouts that drive aerobic capacity. Using other words, one thing tracjs how your impact/develop capacity, the other thing is to help you choose workouts to develop that capacity in a balanced (ie optimized from a cost/benefit perspective) way

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

And I wonder more stronlgly why the breakdown between anarobic and aerobic load is not shown realtime.

On the Epix 2/ Fenix 7, you can set up the data fields for these TE. However, it is not quite real time because the watch needs to detect an end of interval event to finalize the anaerobic calculations, so the anaerobic TE is a bit jumpy at the beginning of a workout. It is a bit better towards the end as there are more chances to have passed the peak EPOC fo the entire workout. Your mileage may vary.

Etupes25 said:

On the Epix 2/ Fenix 7, you can set up the data fields for these TE.

As on F6, too.

I guess you misread it. I wondered not about anaerobic and aerobic TE, but anaerobic and aerobic training LOAD, which are shown in GC, but not on the watch during the activities. The watch shows only the aggregated load including  both aerobic (high+low) and anaerobic load, too.

Etupes25 said:

However, it is not quite real time because the watch needs to detect an end of interval event to finalize the anaerobic calculations, so the anaerobic TE is a bit jumpy at the beginning of a workout. It is a bit better towards the end as there are more chances to have passed the peak EPOC fo the entire workout. Your mileage may vary.

Btw using parallelly F6X and Enduro gave me a chance to gather some observation about this sensitivity of TE values. Not just the anaerobic TE, but also aerobic TE.

Normally the difference is not more than 0.1 between these 2 watches running on the same sw version. The exception was the first 2 weeks of this “multiple watches” mode, when my Enduro seemed to learn some data which were not part of the syncing game.

As a background let me remark that since they had finished their convergence in terms of TE (and VO2max+PC indicator)  I have been wearing only Enduro for 24/7, so I always switch on my F6X enough time to sync thru GCM and/or my wifi network.

But today I observed something new (or the same as it was in the learning phase) and I saw that already after the first km of my run there was a much more substantial difference between the aerobic TE numbers, namely 0.4. (Note: difference in PC was just 0.1 or zero through the whole run).

It needed a couple of kms to agree (I call it an agreement if the difference is 0.1), but then again the difference jumped up to 0.3. 

Besides, I did not have any sprints, nor I spent substantial time in Z3, and even in those cases, just in low Z3, nothing in Z4 and Z5, but somehow F6X gave me 0.1 as anaerobic TE. Enduro was 0.0.

Because of these differences, my Loads differed around 10 points.

As a general observation, using these 2 watches even for 24/7 for a week and having the same recorded activities always with a HRM-3 does not guarantee identical TE numbers. What is funny is that even in those rare occasions when both aerobic and anaerobic TE numbers are identical, load numbers show a difference of 5-10%.

My only explanation for this is that maybe the different CPU speed of these 2 watches generate different inputs to the very same algorithms even if you use a 3rd hardware, a HR strap, and even if you wear them for 24/7 and sync them to eliminate the effects of the forner differences coming from the learning curve and from the evidently different OHR values.

So it is my mileage and trust me my whole trip was without collecting any highway related penal codes. :-)

Do you have activities that are recorded on 2 different watches at the same time (even if you do not save the activity on both watches at the end)?

Yes, I restarted this practice, because i observed that a combination of an F6X + an Enduro behaves differently than that of a Fenix (3, 5+ or 6X) y+ ab Edge 530 in terms of correct physio syncing.  forums.garmin.com/.../1660434

Did you ask it just because of this potential turmoil?

Yes, Garmin says you shouldn't do that if you want accurate VO2 Max estimates. Since VO2 Max is used for EPOC and therefore tor training load, it is very likely you make it harder to get aligned metrics, despite all the goodness of physio syncing. Getting the activity files synced across the watches is not relevant to the data each watch uses to estimate your metrics, for example. Although the metrics end up being synced at the user level, for convenience, it doesn't mean that each device will evaluate them using the same data base next time. Aside from model versions, this is why I often do not see the same training status on my watch as on my Edge after a ride, before I delete it from the edge.

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