Anaerobic benefit query

Second question: I'm setting my treadmill to run at 7km/h (for the jogging part) and 4km/h (for the walking part) of the above sessions. However my watch records the running portions as 6'/km, which is 10km/h. In other words, Garmin seems to overestimate the length of my strides.

How do I go about this ?

- is there a way to reduce my strides length in the settings ? haven't seen but may be I'm not looking in the right place.

- I "thought" I had seen in the past, when I had attempted to jog a few years ago, that my watch was asking me to confirm how long was the run (in km) after a run. I presume it was so that it would match the treadmill's. However I no longer have this confirmation message at the end of the runs. I must have changed something in the settings but can't figure out what exactly.

You calibrate the treadmill run activity.  Page 10 roughly on the manual under indoor activities for the details.

As for the first question, hard to see from the graphs but anaerobic is more "bursty".  Its about a sudden surge in heart rate from a low level so the lower it drops between bursts the more benefit.

Outdoor running activities with GPS will also affect the stride lengths indoors. It calibrates itself.

RDW said:

You calibrate the treadmill run activity.  Page 10 roughly on the manual under indoor activities for the details.

Ok cool, had a look. I am not clear: to be recordable, must the run be continuous at the same speed ? Or can the run include some periods of run and other of walking like what I have posted above ? I'm asking because if my jogging sessions include both periods of run and walk, my arm is going to swing at 2 different rate throughout correct ? 2 variables input, but 1 output in the equation.

RDW said:

As for the first question, hard to see from the graphs but anaerobic is more "bursty".  Its about a sudden surge in heart rate from a low level so the lower it drops between bursts the more benefit.

Ok so yes you cannot see it clearly but the "dips" in Exercise 1 go to 130, while on Exercise 2 they go to 135 only. So may be I could try again, setting my recovery/walking speed lower, may be 2km/h instead of 4km/h, see if my HR drops a little faster and lower.

ovekvam said:

Outdoor running activities with GPS will also affect the stride lengths indoors. It calibrates itself.

Got it, thanks. That probably would be more accurate and allow the watch to calibrate different arm swing rates with their corresponding running speed ?

Yes, the outdoor sessions will affect how the watch differentiates between high and low speed. The treadmill calibration will just add a factor to all speeds. But it will never be completely accurate. In my case it works quite well at the speeds I use most, but fails to understand how fast my sprinting is. Probably because it never gets enough data at that speed outdoors.

Ok, understood. In this case, what I should do is go for a run outdoor, and do for example 2km @4km/h followed by 2km @7km/h if these are my usual speeds on the treadmill, yes ? or whatever my usual speeds are. I think I won't sprint on the treadmill so probably won't have the pecific  issue you mention.

Yes, that should work. And if you use the treadmill flat, also try to keep the outdoor run flat.

JRKingOfBeer said:

Can someone speculate as to why Exercise 1 gives me substanttially higher Anaerobic benefit than Exercise 2 ?

It is simple. Garmin counting Anaerobic TE higher if you do a short but bigger amplitude in your HR graph.  You don't need a long high HR run to get Anaerobic TE.

You need short - 15-60 sec full power intervals. And slow walk in between to get your HR under 120. 

One example - warm up -10 min (HR 120-130), (15 sec sprint all out, 3 min - walk&jogg) x 5-7 times repeat. cool down 10 min. On a 4th or 5th interval you can reach your HR max. It's a good sign.

global_local, thanks for the suggestion. I think there are several hurdles with your suggestion in my case:

- I run on the treadmill, not outdoor. So can't sprint "on demand" and even if I could program our gym's treadmill, I think sprinting would be a bit dangerous. Any workaround using the treadmill ?

- 15 seconds won't be enough for me to get from 120-130 to MaxHR even after a large number of intervals. I need a lot longer to get to MaxHR, and need to do it in scale. Can you actually go from 120-130 to MaxHR in 15 seconds ?...

- 3' won't be enough to get me back from MaxHR to 120-130. I need about 5'.

With that said, trying to do what I could using the information you gave, as in the "spirit" of them, I tried something this morning, see below. My Anaerobic TE is, again, disappointing, and I still don't understand why. My intervals are 5' long because I need that much time to reach closer to MaxHR, followed by whatever time it takes to go back to the mid-120 (which in my case is right in the middle of Garmin's zone 2) which is, coincidentally, also 5'. So these were 5'x5'.

In my mind, this particular run, and based on the info your provided, should give a much higher Anaerobic TE compared to the very first one I posted above, no ?... Yet it doesn't. Why ?...

(my MaxHR is set at 175 by the way in the watch)

You don't need to get close to maximum HR to get anaerobic benefit. Try to set the treadmill to a speed that is over your lactate threshold speed, and run for 30 seconds. Then rest standing still on the sides of the treadmill for 30 seconds. Reapeat this maybe 4 times, then 2 minutes rest. Repeate that sequence 4 times.