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stamina (better) explained for me

ltquovadis
over 3 years ago

I somehow cannot understand the Stamina data (actual, versus potential after my ride/train run online in GC), i.e. I have searched sites, watched youtube, and it is just one of these things that is difficult for me to understand what it means. Maybe someone here can explain it in easier words (in Dutch; jipenjanneke taal ;-))

Besides that maybe explain what happened during my mtb trip yesterday, it seems i depleted completely very quickly (I had indeed cramps in both legs and was tired, bit headache after te trip, normally never happens....)

So now I more eager to understand the term stamina and what it means for me, maybe I can translate/project the explanation for trips in the future... 

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Do you have the right max heart rate set? (MHR) Looks very strange. Also how long has your watch collected data? it takes a while for it to get to know you.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Potential is like your full gas tank in a car, long term. Actual is right now, so if you run like a 100% right now, your actual stamina got depleted quick, but if you switch to walking, you recover your actual stamina. And since you do that short 100% run, you burn more fuel from long term gas tank - potential. So your potential also got lower, than if you run on 50% all the time.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to JosefK

    Ah.so in my case above I cycled or throttled (according to the watch/metrics) so 'strong' that my tank was empty after minutes....  And I cycled 3 hours or more longer on an empty tank. So somehow I was stressed or started to quick according to the watch. Obviously not a good sign and never saw it before. Any other explanation possible? Thanks! 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ltquovadis

    You should report that to Garmin. I think nobody here can help You, if this is software problem.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    What I understand from using it on running:

    Actual stamina is like my breath. When I run hard it goes down quickly. But when I decrease my speed to an easier pace (or walk) I can recover some stamina to be able to do another fast lap. 

    The "potential" means how much stamina I can achieve when recovering / resting / running slower. So when I see I already reached my potential stamina it means there is no more benefit in keeping the slow pace. I can now increase my pace to find a balanced speed where my stamina will decrease alongside my potential stamina. Or I can do another sprint lap and repeat the cycle of spending and recharging stamina. 

    Its a tool to help planning and adjusting speed/effort accordingly to your objectives. E.g. when you get to the middle of the race course you should have around 50% stamina left. If its too low it means I exaggerated on the first half. If it's too high it means you can go faster for the rest of the course. If I remember correctly, in Garmin's advertise for this feature it says our aim is to plan to distribute wisely our stamina along the course, for it to reach 1% right on the end of the race.

    Yes, reaching 1% stamina long before the end means the tank is empty and next time you should go easier to be able to go further. 

    But in this case it seems that you could go for much longer (as you did), so it's probably the algorithm that must adjust better to your fitness level. Make sure to feed the watch with all your health metrics like age, weight, Max HR, LTHR and keep using it for it to better calculate your VO2, sleep recover, body battery and all that.