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Training Status "Flip Flop"?

Former Member
Former Member over 5 years ago

I get the Training Status feature is suggested guidelines to follow and to be taken with a grain of salt, but the following has me shaking my head.  About a week and a half ago my status read "Maintaining".  That was fine and based on my workouts, what I believe it should be.  In a few days span I did a threshold run and two HIIT cardio workouts.  My status dropped to "Unproductive", Low Aerobic Shortage.  GCM was showing, "It looks like your training load is too focused on high intensity activities.  Consider mixing in more low aerobic activities to be more productive."  OK.  This too made sense based on my recent workouts.  So, yesterday I went on a very slow 3 mile run staying in my HR zone 2 and barely going in to zone 3.  I still had the same message.  I just went on a casual 8 mile bike ride never going higher than my zone 2 and now I'm getting "Unproductive", High Aerobic Shortage.  "It looks like your training load is too focused on low intensity activities......  I feel like I'm trapped in a revolving door.  Relaxed

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    Sounds normal!!!

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    Sounds like my experience too. I did a couple of runs where I could not go slower without walking to see if it made any difference but nope. Same training status. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Training Load Focus is looking at your load balance over the past 4 weeks, so there's quite a bit missing from the scenario you are sketching. I mean, it's a bit difficult to understand why the impact of a 2-day change in training routine (the addition of low-intensity aerobic activity) would have such a big difference. 

    Also, Training Load Balance doesn't have any special effect on your Training Status - which remains an interpretation of your total TL and VO2max (and recent trends in both). 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    This is my experience as well, completely unintuitive. On my previous watch 735XT there was one metric and it was about right about the effort I felt.

    On 945 this just does not make sense. The only explanation for me is that it is based largely on heart rate and the oHR readings are not super accurate so basically we get "garbage in - garbage out"

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to HermanB

    Former Member - over the weekend, I encountered something that I wanted to add here. 

    The Training Load Balance / Focus data screen is designed with a 4-week window in mind, but that isn't exactly clear when you start using it. When a device doesn't have 4 weeks worth of training data to show, it starts showing 1-week window in the early going (something is better than nothing), which extends until you have a full 4 weeks. 

    Lots of people, especially those who do a lot of training and are preparing for an event, won't have and shouldn't have a perfectly balanced training load every week. Think of folks doing a 3+1 type program base. It's really more about the big picture over time. There will be weeks where you fill up on more low-intensity work, and there will be phases where you are doing more intervals and high-intensity work. So, that might shed some light on why it might be more finicky when looking at a smaller window. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Don't think of TLB as your training plan. Your goal is not to hit bullseye in all 3 bars all the time. Follow your training plan and use TLB as a feedback. Does your training cycle matches TLB status? For me it does.

    Training status - It will reflect your adaptation to training stimulus correctly only if you can provide it with valid input data. That means reliable HR feed (HR strap, don't even look at oHR) and power meter for cycling or pace data for running (flat terrain, hills will skew the metrics as well).

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to HermanB

    Hope someday swimming activities affect to my training status, not just running or biking.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    You have to do walks.  Just record a couple 2 miles walks and that will go into you low aerobic activity.  I tried doing slow runs and bike rides.. doesn't do it.  Basically you have to do walks.  So record those dog walks and such 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to HermanB

    HermanB - you sound like you understand this Garmin system. I'm just a lady who's body got fat and old and I run every morning so that I can live a little bit longer. Now this new Garmin thing tells me my runs are unproductive and I don't know what it wants from me and it's really hurting my feelings and making me want to give up. Is there a way to turn off these daily insults while still maintaining the information about my VO2 may and Load? 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 1738320

    You can hit those widgets in the App and Website easily enough.  You can always go into Performance data to view Vo2 trends.  

    Verify weight and heart rate information is accurate to you specifically not a generic maximum HR, if you regularly runs and have no heart conditions, do a self guided HR max test when well rested and warmed up (hill sprints, will at least give you an idea) or contact doctor about one possibly.  Ensure watch is snug when running.  This will ensure good vo2max calculation each run and load feedback based on your HR zones.  If watch is setup for a generic human... no way it can reflect YOUR training.