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Training effect broken does not match heart rate zones anymore with firmware 12.10

M L over 1 year ago

I've been running with the Garmin Forerunner 945 for a few years now. Love the suggested workouts feature because it brings a lot of variation to my runs. The last few months however all of my base runs in zone 2 have been rated as tempo runs as a training effect. This results in an "High Aerobic" training status with only workout suggestions for base runs and sprints. I already tried to reset my heart rate zones but that only resulted in lower heart rate zones with the effect that base runs are impossible to run. Determining the training effect based on heart rate zones should be pretty straight forward, zone 2 is base and zone 3 is tempo. Also once the training effect has been determined there is no way to correct it so I'm stuck in a "High Aerobic" training status. This way training with the Garmin 945 is pretty much useless so is this a known issue and how can this be resolved ?

Top Replies

Etupes25 over 1 year ago in reply to R R +1

R R said:
And after a strong interval training it put the max HR up to 188.

Turn the auto-detection for HR Max off and do a field test to determine your HR Max. You can also complete a maximal but steady…

All Replies

0 M L over 1 year ago in reply to NickMN

Happy to hear that you don't face the same challenges as we do and for sure there must be an explanation for this behaviour.

For me the real problem is the lack of support, the only option seems to be posting a message at the FR945 forum. For a device costing more than 500 euros it would be nice if it was possible to contact someone at Garmin support more directly.

If a hard reset of the FR945 doesn't solve the problem and using the latest Beta firmware then possibly the issue lies in the data it's receiving. However without proper support it's hard to rule anything out.

0 Etupes25 over 1 year ago in reply to R R

The Training Effect and Workout Label do not care about the settings you use for the zones. They only use your training data, your VO2 Max and your resting HR settings.

When the Workout Label or Training Effect is out of whack the main 3 reasons are:

- your HR Max value is off (or, less likely, your age or weight). This throws off every metrics on the watch

- your training patterns are lacking supra-thresholds efforts and/or maximal efforts. In this case, the watch has to predict what your performance (pace or power for biking) would be for these efforts. Since everybody's power/pace duration curve is different, a prediction will never be as good as the real thing.

- your HR/pace data pairs are off because you don't use a chest strap, or you run hills or trails. Use the trail run profile and disable VO2 Max for trail running when you run those courses.

It might take a few weeks for the training data, the VO2 Max to be updated.

Another thing that can help is to choose HR zones based on the lactate threshold, and do a lactate threshold test with the watch. At least, this will give you a chance to have HR zones better aligned with your fitness level moving forward, but that won't fix the misalignment of the VO2 Max "model" per se.

0 R R over 1 year ago

I've contacted Garmin support and got an reply to factory reset the watch ,delete all connections and delete the app and then re-install everything. So I did and when the watch asked to sync data settings I choose not to. I also deleted the running profile before reset.

So now it has to build up VO2 max and threshold again. I did give in my max HR and Threshold indication of a few months back. Now I state 2 things after 2 runs. My VO2Max is set on 50 like it was before. The runs are logged in the zone that I ran in so I can normally run basic runs again. Also I stated that the watch reacts faster again when I flip through the widgets.

A bit before I bought a nice watch face called EASY Round but it gave the watch a severe battery drain when using it. That seems fixed now too and battery depletion seems less steep.

So first experiences after reset are positive. When somethings changes.....I'll post it.

0 M L over 1 year ago in reply to R R

That's great, thank you for sharing this information, made my day !

Have tried everything you described before except skipping the data sync.

For tomorrow I've another run scheduled so I will take your advice and reset my watch and hope for the best.

0 R R over 1 year ago in reply to M L

Good luck. Oh I also emptied the cache and storage of the app on the phone before deinstalling the app......

0 R R over 1 year ago

Unfortunately my positive sentiment was too early. Today ran a 13k run in zone 2. Only 1 percent was in zone 3. The primary benefit was stated as threshold instead of base. Crazy thing is that if that was the case the recovery time should be through the roof but it indicated 37 hours which is normal for me. I'm thinking now that the threshold time is the problem here, this was set in a run to 05:06 by Garmin based on the threshold I gave in at 173 heart rate. Today my average pace was 05:13 in zone 2 (I had a really good run). So my estimate is that the watch based the primary benefit on the running speed and not on the zones I run in seeing the average speed is near the threshold speed especially in the later km in my run today. Speeds within zones can fluctuate a lot of course so that would be a crazy adjustment that Garmin would have made.

0 Etupes25 over 1 year ago in reply to R R

R R said:
the watch based the primary benefit on the running speed and not on the zones

The watch looks at the relationship between your output (pace) and your ventilation (ie VO2, estimated from your HR and HRV data). This relationship is mostly linear up to the second ventilatory threshold (lactate threshold), then it is a non-linear relationship. The model handles both cases. From this relationship, your training history, your VO2 Max and resting VO2, the watch is estimating the total peak EPOC and the anerobic and anaerobic contributions of your workouts or intervals. Combining these contributions with your training history gives you the training effect. Based on training effect thresholds, a workout label is assigned. The zones you set up are completely independent. They are just guide posts for you to design workouts.

R R said:
this was set in a run to 05:06 by Garmin based on the threshold I gave in at 173 heart rate.

I don't understand what you mean here. All I know is that the auto-detection of threshold is only good if your workout was essentially a threshold workout. For example, if you run a VO2 Max, Anaerobic or Sprints interval workout, you may get a new threshold auto-detection and it will be wrong. The best tool is the lactate threshold test, which uses a conventional ramp to detect the threshold.

Note that although the data from your threshold runs and test are fed in the VO2 Max-based models (therefore in the training suggestions, race predictions, performance condition, training load, status, etc.), setting a manual threshold set of values will not impact the VO2 Max-based models.

Resetting the watch will not impact the VO2 Max-based models either, since your training history is preserved.

Your best chance of getting your zones aligned with the VO2 Max-based models is to use the standard LTHR-based zones, after you run a threshold test run.

But for all this to work smoothly, you need your HR Max to be right.

Other tips here: https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/epix-2/339014/suggested-pace-far-too-high

0 R R over 1 year ago in reply to Etupes25

Thanks for the info.

I'll try the lactate threshold test Sunday to see what it does.

But what I still don't understand is that for the past 3 years this has been no problem at all and suddenly about 2/3 months ago the misallignment started. As a result my longer basic runs are logged faulty as tempo or threshold runs. And this is at the same VO2Max levels as I had before. For instance today my average heartrate in the basic run was 148 (zone 2 is 141-157). So Garmin putting the benefit on Threshold based on speed related to VO2Max (which went from 50 to 51 today) makes no sense at all also taking the speed vs VO2Max model into account.

0 NickMN over 1 year ago in reply to R R

Again with the speed and zones... recommend for people reading this you mention your % of maximum HR and/or list your max much more helpful. Because 148 doesn't mean anything , especially in reference to your custom training zones.

But it doesn't appear something is off , are you on the new firmware 13.0 and did a hard restart (30sec upper left button)?? Are you getting very high or low 'Performance Condition' for these workouts? Do you recall changing your maximum HR or any settings in your watch online in the user settings section way back when this started?

0 Etupes25 over 1 year ago in reply to R R

R R said:
all and suddenly about 2/3 months ago the misallignment started.

Typically the culprit for such a change is the HR Max value has changed without the user being aware.

Other culprits for smaller changes are new skewed data points from running hills or trails, or a lot of wrong HR data.

If the HR Max is correct, it will take several weeks for the bad data to wear off. In the mean time you will have to train using your threshold pace as a reference, not pace as a ÷ of VO2 Max pace.