Firstbeat powered insights on the Garmin Edge 530 and Garmin Edge 830 - Q&A

Hello Herman,

Hope you can give us answers, will all these features of the new Edge devices 530 and 830 also be available for the Edge 1030?
cause DC Rainmaker is telling something about it in his review of the new Edge devices?

cheers

fl33tStA

Hi guys, 

Sorry for the delay, I was somehow unable to post for a few days before the forum renewal project, but everything seems groovy now, and I'm loving not needing to sign back in and punch out captchas every few minutes. ;-) 

I, too, have seen the rumors about a possible Edge 1030 update from generally reliable sources, but as a rule I can't comment on future devices and updates.

Former Member I feel your pain regarding the number of features and how to best make sense of them and take full advantage of what your device has to offer. The easiest way, I think, is to get a feel for what sort of feedback you have available and the situations where it comes from - for example.

General Physiological Performance Metrics - dimensions of your performance capabilities/capacities.

VO2max Fitness Level
Functional Threshold Power (FTP)

Real-time Feedback you get along the way that you can use to understand and guide your current performance. 

Training Effect: Aerobic
Training Effect: Anaerobic
Real-Time Performance Condition
Calories Burned

Respiration Rate 

Big Picture Training Quantification and Interpretation 

Training Load
Training Status
Training Load Balance

Recovery Time Advisor - 

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Workout Labels - these don't fit into a neat category in the above list, but they just show up on your activity summary screen to tell you the primary benefit of your workout. Pretty straight forward. Worth noting the color coding of the labels matches up with the Training Load Focus screen. 

Quick Stress Level Test - This you can probably ignore, unless you are willing to invest the time in learning how to interpret and are able to perform the test regularly with a fixed testing protocol. Some people like it, but it can also be difficult to interpret - so if you're looking to narrow your focus, prioritize this. 

Heat and Altitude Acclimatization - This is something cool (pun intended) because it just gives you information when you need it, so no need for it to take up conceptual space - and the feedback looks to be quite clear, to me.

Regarding the new Training Load Focus screen, no, it doesn't do anything directly with Training Peaks, BUT it will give you some good insight into how the Training Load resulting from your plan was produced, and you will be able to see and figure out the degree to which different kinds of efforts over the course of your training plan contributed to your total... and if it's a good plan, you'll probably end up with either a very nicely balanced training load distribution or with a load focus that aligns with what you were trying to achieve with the program. 

Herman thank you for the reply. You have summed it up very nicely and I am starting to feel more comfortable with all the metrics available.

I have read about these metrics on the Firstbeat website and what I don't understand is how something like EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) is used to calculate Training Effect: Aerobic when you would obviously only be able to calculate this metric with a wearable after your workout??  Here is an extract from The FirstBeat website for Training Effect: Aerobic

"This impact can be quantified and measured in terms of the amount of oxygen required to complete the adaptive responses to activity and the restorative work your body performs to return to a balanced resting condition. "

Which tells me it needs to be monitored post workout.

I am hoping you can present the solution in a simple and well presented way as you did with your previous reply and then have me convinced on purchasing the 530.  Even after reading all the bugs that are popping up with the unit on this forum. (yikes! maybe I should stop coming here..)

Note: I do believe FirstBeat are doing some great work - especially with HRV - I am currently using HRV4Training as a baseline.  I just need to understand how my metrics are sourced if I am going to put my faith into them.

Am I right in assuming that any training not directly recorded on the Garmin Edge will not contribute towards Firstbeat’s Training load stats?

E.g., Do workouts that I complete via TrainerRoad, and that are synced back to Garmin Connect, contribute to Firstbeat’s Training load stats.

It looks to me like the vast majority of my training (done through TrainerRoad) is completely ignored thus rendering all the Firstbeat stuff useless to me.

Also, it looks like training stats are all driven exclusively from HR data. So I don’t get any stats if i don’t wear an HRM despite riding with a power meter?

OKAY I have waited a week but no response. I think I found an answer which does not fill me with confidence.  I have downloaded the whitepaper and the first line says:

Indirect EPOC Prediction Method Based on Heart Rate Measurement

"Indirect" says it all

"Prediction" is not what I wanted to hear!

Like I said before it is just amazing that so many metrics can be derived from heart rate alone!  I can see in the next few years that marketing will take hold once again and add a ton more "amazing" and "new" metrics to firstbeat to help sales along and wow the consumer.  

I see how something simple to understand like heart rate zones is old news and consumers want to consume, so I guess we are to blame!  

Yes, can we have clarity on this point please?  Also for Garmin devices that don't record these metrics like training effect and recovery time.  Garmin seem to have made Physio True up complicated to understand.

Can you comment on why these metrics are also not visible on Garmin Connect?  Why do i have to look at my watch to find out my training load and recovery time?  Yes i know some of these are in GCM (but not all).

sure you couldn't find it on Connect?

in german they can be found under "Berichte" could be "reports" or something similar?

I run with a 645 and bike with a 530. I thought the Physio TrueUp would mean that my performance metrics where added together, but in the app under Performance -> Training Status I get different status depending on which unit I select at the top. 

That seem pretty useless... is it supposed to work that way?