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Training Status is bèèèhh

triabas
over 4 years ago

After using it for more than 6 months my conclusion is that the 'training status' feature is useless. The main issue is that it doesn't get basic trainingprinciples right, such as periodisation/training cycles. I guess this is because it's far too heavily focused on VO2Max. As soon as you go into a relaxed training (or -week), it goes to unproductive. Which is obviously ***, as everybody should know that sometimes you need restSleeping and sufficient rest makes you stronger in the end. That Garmin/Firstbeat does not understand this (or are not able to properly implement this), is astonishing.

For training I can better rely on the level of my 'body battery': that's generally quite in line with my feeling and a good predictor of how my training goes.

  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I partially agree with you. i have tracked the training status since the purchase of my 945. It has guided my build up in fitness well. What I do not like is that if you build in some rest the system discourages you more than motivates you.
    Once you pick up your training intensity again, it will get better.    .
    Boddybattery is a nice feature as extra info for the recovery OR illness of to much alcohol use ;-)
  • 0 over 4 years ago

    MAybe for the recovery phase you could do this: www.youtube.com/watch

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Czechdude

    Sorry, that's not the point. In every trainingschedule of say 12 weeks, you have some 'quiet' weeks. To call that 'unproductive', is simply wrong. At least - and I think this is in line with the comment of MarinusD - they should change the wording into something positive/motivating.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I agree VO2max is only a part of the picture but I have to say that for me, more of the times I take some week (or weeks) easy my VO2max doesn´t really change and training status goes from productive - maintaining and eventually recovery. Also glad to see that sometimes I got peaking status just days before the race I was training for. Funny thing for me body battery is just utterly useless, so I guess every person is different and we shouldn´t take too seriously these devices.

    P.S. Some people recommend use trail run for easy/recovery run. It won't calculate VO2max but it will training load/recovery time, maybe it could help.

  • 0 over 4 years ago
    triabas said:
    That Garmin/Firstbeat does not understand this (or are not able to properly implement this), is astonishing.

    What is astonishing is that someone who goes on about basic training principles and periodisation doesn't understand that if their Training Status regularly goes Unproductive during easier runs, it probably means their aerobic base is underdeveloped.

    OK, I'm not usually that snarky - just couldn't resist picking up the tone of the original post.

    Seriously though, it is worth thinking through what the data is actually telling you.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to mcalista

    That regularly happens to me. I don't want to run too slowly so I hardly run in Low Aerobic zone... my fault!

    I cycled a lot in summer this year and used my 945 to record my rides. It was so much easier to work in all 3 zones and I've never been "Unproductive" according to Garmin.

    But I do like what the Unproductive status tells me. It's usually a lack of low intensity sessions and/or my body struggling to rest and absorb the training... so it's valuable data....

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to triabas

    That's weird - I don't get that on mine very often at all?  Once in a while I will if I haven't had any vo2max movement (or it went down) in a long time.    

    Usually progression for me (like now as part of my 2.5wk taper before a race)

    The progressions over the last couple weeks have been sections of this....

    Maintaining->Productive->Maintaining->Peaking

    Maintaining->Productive-->Peaking->Recovery

    but in general just many days of Maintaining...then Productive....then Maintaining...etc.  When I am having a lighter week in training, it will show 'Recovery' which seems appropriate.  However if my vo2max has recently dropped or hasn't went up in months.... then a prolonged period of Maintaining/Recovery training load... would be "unproductive"

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to mcalista

    Sorry, if my tone was off so that you felt the need to be snarky and make guesses about my understanding and aerobic base.  As a competitive Ironman I have a good enough understanding of knowing what data are telling me. And I really do a lot of easy stuff...

    But it may well be that it differs per person how accurate the status is. I hardly ever have 'maintaining' or 'recovery'. It's either productive or not-productive. Which is weird (or irritating or whatever you will call it)

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to triabas

    As far as I understand the feature it simply looks at load and VO2Max and 'unproductive' is the status if load goes up while VO2Max goes down. So that should not really happen all that often.

    I have unproductive at the moment though too. I had a few months of good training and then I stopped competely for about 4 weeks. It went from productive to recovery (for about a week) to detraining to no status at all. Then I started again with a few easy base sessions.
    The VO2Max had not moved over 4 weeks of doing nothing at all in my Garmin but probably went down in real life. Now I get unproductive since the VO2Max seems to drop a bit every chance it gets (every session) while my load slowly comes back up. I think maybe the VO2Max will only drop so far in one go and so has to go down a few times until it is at the level of my physical reality again?

    I don't see what I could do differently though, so maybe Germin needs a few more values to determin the status info. 'unproductive' is demotivating if you don't do anything wrong as in my case. Sitting around for 4 weeks was not good but the detraining I got for that is not what I complain about. Now that I started again, soft and easy as one should I would like something less bad sounding as 'unproductive' just because the VO2Max that I've lost is not yet real to my Garmin even though I'm probably not loosing any at the moment.

    Unproductive status could be a good warning sign if you are really training more and at the same time getting worse, as in overtraining or being ill or whatever else could actually be the problem.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Idefix

    It is one of those instances where it would be nice if you could reset your VO2 score to a hypothetical... so it hopefully would be flat lined for a week or three... then slowly come back up with fitness.  Instead it will likely continue to fall... until it hits your actual vo2max that is rising.  Giving poor feedback until it reaches reality (could take weeks?)  Garmin could easily I suppose slightly reduce it automatically based on training load... so 'detrain' effect to your stats slightly (maybe with a accept or deny value? would be sweet)  Obviously everyone is different, but could be pretty conservative.

    I have the reverse problem where I finally started biking indoors with a power meter, so every time I ride at gym (1xweek) my vo2max goes up one... skewing my report a bit, being that i'm in maintenance/taper ahead of a running race (50k).  

    After race I look forward to getting to that spinbike/watt-meter more often to get it to levelout and be real/actual result  Interested to see how close it is to my running level.  (currently off by 6 or 7 depending on week)