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Anaerobic Load Rowing and Anaerobic TE Over Time?

3544822
over 1 year ago

I recently got a fenix 7s pro as a first garmin watch. I'm using a Polar H10 HR strap with it.  I have 2 questions.

Question 1:

When I first got the watch I was getting some anaerobic training effect each time I did weight lifting. The entire weightlifting sessions would be categorized as anaerobic and would give anaerobic TE.  Within the last week or 2, weightlifting stopped resulting in any anaerobic TE. I now have a shortage.

Overtime is it typical that it's more difficult to get anaerobic training effect? Is that just a mistake because of the watch being in the initial learning period and now that it knows more, it no longer ranks any of that as anaerobic?

Question 2:

Because I have an anaerobic shortage, I have been trying to do some anaerobic rowing sessions. Today I did 90 seconds of rows then 3 minute rest 15 times. I was watching the anaerobic/aerobic widget the entire session. I noticed it was increasing the anaerobic ratio until about interval 10 after which point it just stayed at 2.5. Even the aerobic counter only ticked up maybe .2 for the last 5 intervals.

Looking at the heart rate graph I can't figure out why. From what I understand you do not need to reach zone 5 and it primarily watches how quickly your heart rate increases and decreases. The rates of change look the same to me so I'm not sure what the difference is and why it stopped increasing once it got to 2.5

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hi, 
    I have the same model but use the Garmin HRM-Dual strap. I had the exact same issue that you had regarding your 1st question. Yesterday I just reduced the time between sets and I got an anaerobic result doing strength endurance (4x20 reps with 30 sec recovery and 6 sets). But I was certainly getting an anaerobic workout from the previous ones as I could feel the lactate in my legs (7S said it was low aerobic). So I wouldn't trust all the results the watch is giving and try to listen to your body instead as a first marker of how things are affecting you. 

    Regarding your second question, I would suggest trying a somewhat shorter recovery time on the rower. Could even reduce the interval time and do them in the same ratio i.e. 60 sec hard and 60 sec recovery (45/45 or 30/30). You might even not need to do as many as 15 reps and 10 might do it. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    First of all, the anaerobic TE estimation will be underestimated for any activity outside of running with pace on flat surfaces and biking with power. The watch needs an output metric to correctly identify anaerobic level of efforts while the HR is still ramping up. Without these metrics, only the HR/kinetics are used and the watch will miss a portion of the efforts (typically the beginning of intervals).

    3544822 said:
    The entire weightlifting sessions would be categorized as anaerobic and would give anaerobic TE.  Within the last week or 2, weightlifting stopped resulting in any anaerobic TE. I now have a shortage.

    Strength training is the activity suffering the most from the lack of output metric built into the EPOC model. It is an activity that is essentially anaerobic and the HR at the end of a set will not reflect the RPE.

    The only times when I had an anerobic TE in strenght training is when I venture to used the watch without a strap. The HR wrist sensor poorly measures HR, gives you fake huge spikes because of wrist movement. It is king of serendipitous outcome when you think of it, but it is wrong. When you use an HR strap and don't have fake spikes, you won't get any noticeable anerobic TE with strength training, unless maybe if you do crazy HIIT AMRAP style with many reps. My crossfit workouts give me a little bit of anaerobic but overall load number is so off that I don't start an activity any longer and I just use the HRM Pro strap to get active calories :-)

    3544822 said:
    Today I did 90 seconds of rows then 3 minute rest 15 times

    This is a good way to help the watch recognize the intervals. Max effort for about 90s then true rest for at least 2mn. If you go shorter, the workout is still good, but then the HR might stay too high during rest and the watch will increase the aerobic EPOC estimate. You might still get a decent anaerobic EPOC estimate but the workout migh be labeled "tempo" or lower.

    3544822 said:
    The rates of change look the same to me so I'm not sure what the difference is and why it stopped increasing once it got to 2.5

    The watch estimates the EPOC during the workout and looks for peak EPOC which might occur earlier in the workout. When I run 400m speed repeats, 2mn rest on a track, the first few reps might increase the anaerobic EPOC by .5-.7 unevenly, then the last intervals might only increase by 0.1.

    Consider reading this thread if you want more explanations:

    forums.garmin.com/.../hrr-zones-incorrect

    The lesson in all of this: if you don't care too much about the watch metrics, your strengh training and rowing will increase your anaerobic capacity if you hard enough, regardless of what the watch says.

    If you care a lot about the training load, focus, recovery, readiness:

    - make sure your HR Max is as accurate as possible. If your doctor lets you, do a field or lab HR Max test and disable HR Max auto-detection

    - always use a chest strap and the best GPS settings or a calibrated pod for running, and a good power meter on your bike(s)

    - achieve your anaerobic goals by running on flat terrains or biking.