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Huge difference in workout load - please help me understand

Dmitry Lockshtanov
over 5 years ago
Good afternoon.
I'm asking for help to understand huge difference between workout loads because i have no idea what's going on and it irritates the *** out of me.
Walk yesterday - outside without footpod. 6 kilometers in an hour. Exercise load 38. Suggested recovery time 15 hours.
Walk today - treadmill with footpod connected for the first time after manual calibration. 6 kilometers in an hour. Exercise load 8. Suggested recovery time 0 hours.
How is this possible? As you can see from those links heart rate is more or less the same... speed is more or less the same etc. My 945 also shows no VO2 for today. This is how my load screen looks on the watch right now. Can this all be just because i connected footpod? This doesn't seem logical, but what other possible explanation can there be... there are no other major differences i can think of.
Thank you in advance everybody. This is driving my nuts.
P.S. It can't be that outdoor training varies so much from indoor regarding output calculation... can it? I mean it's the same workout... same effort... i feel the same. It would be illogical for the watch to think that i'm exercising 8 time harder just because i walk outside instead of on treadmill...
P.P.S. I have done another outdoor walk today to test my theory. I see VO2 on the phone, load 25, 14 hours recovery.
So either watch counts outdoor workout as 8 times more effort than treadmill or this is because one is labelled as "running" and another "treadmill running". Something fishy is going on here :(
  • +1 over 5 years ago

    I can’t speak to the difference in training load but the Vo2Max is easy. You will never get a Vo2Max calculation for indoor workouts because pace/distance is a key input to the formula and Garmin/Firstbeat only consider GPS distance as accurate enough for that purpose. Most likely because pace/distance for running/walking indoors is dependent on calibration of some device, whether the watch or a foot pod of some sort, and is more susceptible to error than an outdoor GPS signal.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to R_Tellis

    Thank you very much. Now if only someone could help me solve the load conundrum i'd be on my merry way :)

  • +1 over 5 years ago

    But you have worked harder outdoors. You got your heart rate into zone 3 for a third of the walk outdoors but all zone 2 for the second. This is where the difference comes from. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to MDPennock

    Thank you very much. I'm noob at reading those graphs, so missed this difference. This very well might be an answer, but now i have follow-up question.

    Isn't it logical to assume that body moving with the same speed for the same time duration would generate more or less the same effort? I guess i have to research a lot about heart rate zones, but just sounds strange to me that while on treadmill my heart is working significantly less than when i'm doing the same walk outdoors.

  • +1 over 5 years ago in reply to Dmitry Lockshtanov

    It's not the same effort. The treadmill helps you and therefore it requires less effort compared to an outdoor exercise. That's why most people raise the incline to 0,5 or 1% to compensate for that.

    www.runnersworld.com/.../

  • +1 over 5 years ago in reply to Dmitry Lockshtanov


    Not always, i will give you two examples that come to mind. If not applicable to these activities they maybe for you in the future:

    1> Elevation. On the treadmill there is none. Outside even small hills will make you work harder to maintain the same pace. As an extreme example you could have two activities. One goes up the side of a mountain, the other comes back down. If you wanted to complete the activities in the same time you would need to work way harder going up than coming back down.

    2> Heat. You could have 20°C indoors on the treadmill (eg: air conditioning) but 40°C outside. Your heart will be working harder at 40°C so you would get a higher training effect/recovery time even if the effort felt the same.

    Ultimately, your heart rate tells your Garmin how hard you are working. If you can match the heart rate on the treadmill to outside you will get the same exercise load reported. Heart rate can be affected by lots of things (caffeine, sleep, illness) but this is what your Garmin is using to determine how hard you are working.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to olni65

    Thank you very much for that link