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Hiking and Training Effect - Very Poor Garmin Metrics

Shaner41
over 1 year ago

I know this has been discussed before, but I wanted to see if anyone has any input.  I do quite a few serious hikes in the mountains. When I do the hikes, I record them on my Fenix 7XSS as a hiking activity.  At the end of the hike my Fenix says the training effect was very minimal. It's pretty annoying! 

For example, last week I hiked 13.39 miles between elevations of 9,000 and 11,000 feet. My ascent was 2,874 feet and the descent was 2,078 feet.  My average time was a 28 minute mile.  It was a lovely but very difficult hike over some tough mountain terrain with a backpack on.  However, Garmin said the training effect was "Base." There was 1.6 benefit for aerobic and no anaerobic benefit. The exercise load was 19.  Those numbers are way off!  Yesterday I jogged 3 miles at 10 minutes per mile and the training effect was 3.1 and the exercise load was 77.  So Garmin says that a 3 run is more beneficial than a difficult 1 mountain hike!!!

I tried using the "walking" activity for hikes, and the outcome is about the same.  Any comments or helpful tips?

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I have exactly the same. The first hill approach on the trail sets the load. Each subsequent approach, if it is not long and does not cause a significant increase in heart rate, does not increase the load. What's more, I noticed that I have to keep the heart rate in Z3 or Z4 for several to several dozen minutes to increase the load by at least one point.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hi

    Same thing here : i did a hike (4000 feet ascent/ 4000 descent) for 13km (8 miles). Load was 22!

    seriously… and 10km run for 55 min 125 load.

    same thing with swimming for 1km (25 min)- load 56!

    i hope the endurance score will improve that!

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to nicoti200

    I have firmware 14.24 with endurance score and the load is still as low as it was, I don't see any difference after upgrading

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 1630347

    thanks for the feedback // i was thinking  endurance score will be more impacted by the hike than for the load?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to nicoti200

    The endurance score is influenced by the intensity of the effort, its time, the ability to maintain the load for a long time and, of course, the VO2 max. The exact algorithm is not known to me, I write from observation.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 1630347

    Yesterday I walked through town, trying to find sunglasses I lost just before. I tracked it as a walk, and Garmin gave me a load of 55, for walking 4.6km on basically flat terrain. I usually don't get this much when running a similar distance. That's just crazy. To add to that I did easy strength exercises at my physio yesterday, and I got points for anaerobic capacity, and ridiculous 99 points for a workout duration of 35 minutes, and 25 actual active minutes.

    Garmin, what are you smoking?!? I'd like the same please.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I've found the "walking" activity to be even worse, at least for me it seems to assume flat, even, terrain.  My hiking loads are all over the place.  From my observations, load seems to be tied only to heart rate, and the heart rate is thrown way off by a lot of things.  If you're using poles or have a lot of rock scrambling where you're using your hands you can pretty much expect heart rate and therefore load to be way off.  I've had it show a heart rate in the 50s right after climbing a very steep hill at a fairly rapid pace, which is obviously wrong, but then makes sense why the watch says low load.