Help understanding aerobic/anarobic chart

Guys I have received my HRM-Dual. It is detected by my watch, no problem.

However, it seems that it feeds my HR data to the watch only when I am in an activity (rowing, treadmill, hiking), is this correct ?

For example, when I wear the HRM-Dual but I am not in an activity and I leave my watch on the table for example, the watch doesn't show any HR data.

Is this the way it is supposed to work ?

* edit: ok as a coincidence I now see this thread here which seems to answer my question but if someone could confirm anyway.

Yes, that sounds right. I think the external sensor is used if you select to do a health snapshot, but otherwise the watch is using wrist heart rate.

ovekvam said:

Yes, that sounds right. I think the external sensor is used if you select to do a health snapshot, but otherwise the watch is using wrist heart rate.

Ok got it, that's fine. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't me doing something wrong.

As always, thank you for super fast response.

However, it seems that it feeds my HR data to the watch only when I am in an activity (rowing, treadmill, hiking), is this correct ?

Yes, that is how it is supposed to work. Make your chest wet, put on the strap, start the activity. HR of the strap will be used from start till end of activity, because it is more precise.
For 24/7 the watch will always use the optical sensor.

For example, when I wear the HRM-Dual but I am not in an activity and I leave my watch on the table for example, the watch doesn't show any HR data.

Yes, all sensors (except the HRM Pro) cannot record for themselves, but just broadcast to the watch (and/or other receivers - you can send the HR from your strap to the Concept2 PM5 simultaneously, for example!).

And the watch will only record the broadcast, when an activity has been started.

You can technically really leave your watch on the table, after you started an activity, as long as you stay in range of Bluetooth (maybe 5 meters). Of course, then the watch cannot get information about your movement, just the HR.

Grumpy from dawn till dusk Thanks a lot for the response, very clear.

JRKingOfBeer said:

Do you understand what happens here ?... 25' in zone 5 and no anaerobic benefit ?...

You were too long in zone 5 in one block AND if you look closely, most of the time your pulse was high, but not super-high.

That is not anaerobic, it is lactate threshold - that is, why you get very high value for aerobic effect. If you open that further, your watch will probably tell you you bettered your VO2Max and Lactate threshold with that session.

I am trying it with this metaphor:

Anaerobic = Sprint. Give ALL you have for a short time

Aerobic High/ Lactate Threshold = Fast run for a medium time. Give a lot, so that it hurts, but still you can keep it up for maybe 20 minutes (this is, what you did)

Aerobic Low = Slow Jogging. It is a base training, that you could keep up for hours, if only your muscles wouldn’t get tired.

So, for Anaerobic, do more short sprints and stay the rest of the training in low pulse - like you already did (watch your earlier session with the high anaerobic result)

Thanks for the comments as always.

Grumpy from dawn till dusk said:

That is not anaerobic, it is lactate threshold

Ok I think this is the center of my misunderstanding. I thought so long as I stay in zone 5 (and by this I mean just above the zone 5 threshold because I can't row for too long at very high HR), I'll get some Anaerobic benefit. But you're saying no it's not good enough. Looks like I need to be closer to my max HR (yes, as you point out, like my earlier sessions where I stayed above 170 in batches of 2 minutes each).

Perhaps I should have suspected that staying so long (25') at a particular HR couldn't, by the very definition of what Anaerobic is, lead to some benefit.

And yes you are absolutely right, my watch did tell me that my Primary Benefit today was VO2Max. It didn't say anything about Lactate Threshold but perhaps I just didn't see it in the report. I still haven't done a proper VO2Max and Lactate Threshold test, but now that I got my HR-Dual, I should go do this before it gets too hot outside here.

Thanks again, I think I begin to understand.

Also I don't know if you noticed but I tried to spend as little time in zone 4 as per what you said the other day. It's essentially just the time for me to transit between zone 3 and 5. I paid super attention to this.

JRKingOfBeer said:

because I can't row for too long at very high HR

Nobody can - that is exactly the point!

To get Anaerobic effect you will have to have some short intervals with effort and pulse, that you can only keep up for a really short time And you will have used up all of your reserves, used more oxygen that you could breathe during that time and thus be completely out of breath. Your body wants to fill up the reserves.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic

„Anaerobic means "living, active, occurring, or existing in the absence of free oxygen", as opposed to aerobic which means "living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen."“

JRKingOfBeer said:

I tried to spend as little time in zone 4 as per what you said the other day. It's essentially just the time for me to transit between zone 3 and 5. I paid super attention to this.

Yes, looks very good.

Also if you do that with very intensive intervals for anaerobic effect, it should be: Low - Very High - Low again to regain breath and power - Very High - and so on…