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Training - unproductive

6582824
2 months ago

Hi folks, I hope all is well.

I have recently purchased a Garmin Fenix 7 Pro 47 mm Sapphire Solar having been a very long term Polar user.

I am 43, 6 foot 3 and circa 100kg, resting heart rate of 40 my main activities are cycling, resistance training (weights / bands / body weight) and martial arts.  I used to run a lot but an ankle injury pretty much put a stop to daily runs, however I have completed various 10k runs and half marathons.  I would like to think I am relatively fit for my age.  

I train daily and record my gym sessions / bike sessions / treadmill sessions, I just do not record the 4 martial arts classes I attend as we cannot wear watches and such.  I link the watch to my H10 heart rate monitor all the time.  Sometimes I do slow steady state training, I do intervals on the bike and treadmill and some HIIT sessions...Even 1 minutue interval sprints on the treadmill the highest heart rate over the last few weeks was 151 bpm, having just done an hour on the bike with some intervals the highest recorded was 144 bpm.

Polar states I am either productive or overreaching but Garmin constantly tells me I am unproductive...it is driving me crazy.

Even if I follow the watches recommendations it tells me I am unproductive.

Should I just ignore this altogether?  It is very annoying.

Thanks for any help.

Adam

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  • +1 2 months ago

    This is what the documentation tells about the "unproductive" status:

    Unproductive: your training load is at a good level, but your fitness is decreasing. Your body may be struggling to recover, so you should pay attention to your overall health including stress, nutrition, and rest.

    The main factors used by Garmin for evaluating your fitness level is the VO₂max and HRV Status. The VO₂max may be a problem in your case, since you do not run, and if you have no power meter on your bike, you probably either do not get any VO₂max values at all, or just from Walking, which is very inaccurate. And HRV / Stress may be influenced by many other factors than just the fitness. So either you can just ignore it, or do occasionally some outdoor runs triggering a VO₂max value, or buy a power meter for your bike. Taking more care about your sleep, rest, nutrition, stress may help with the HRV Status, and get you into the productive range too.

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to trux

    Thanks for that. 

    My turbo trainer show me my power wts/kg. But that isn't transferred to Garmin (not sure if I can add that in myself). 

    I did a treadmill session with intervals this week also.

    I think I'll just ignore it as all my parameters are the same and polar has me at the usual levels on Polar Flow. I'll just ignore these odd computations from Garmin.

    Can I set the watch up so that it uses cycling as my main activity and not running. I find the daily suggested activities are all running related. 

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to 6582824
    6582824 said:
    I did a treadmill session with intervals this week also.

    Treadmill runs are not used for VO2Max calculations, only runs done outside with GPS.

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to 6582824
    6582824 said:
    I find the daily suggested activities are all running related. 

    You can disable running DSW in the settings of one of the running activity profiles. Some more details also here:

    6582824 said:
    My turbo trainer show me my power wts/kg. But that isn't transferred to Garmin (not sure if I can add that in myself). 

    You have to pair all the sensors of your indoor bike, including the powermeter, to your Garmin device, and record the activity with it. Alternatively, your can pair your bike with Tacx, Zwift, Rouvy, or TrainerRoad apps, which will then transfer the full activity data to Garmin Connect.