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Training status

Former Member over 8 years ago

Yesterday I received an "Unproductive" status on the Training status page on my 935. Feedback to Garmin:

1) Pretty darn impressive considering I'm fighting a cold and had slept like complete crap the previous 2 nights which the Sleep screen in Connect confirmed.

2) How can my Lactate Threshold and my Aerobic training effect both been positive/improving during yesterday's activity while the overall status went into Unproductive?

3) OHR and pace and the run overall felt nothing out of the ordinary which means the data I was provided went against the old school rule of listening to your body and instead used the behind the scenes data. Again, pretty awesome, but also perplexing as one could question if you should listen to your body or listen to your Garmin.

4) I'm going to use my HRM-TRI for my next few runs to see what type of variance I get in my data, but to date I have found the OHR to behave just like my old chest strap, with the exception that it takes 5-10 seconds longer for it to come down from peak values at times, for example when transitioning from an uphill to a downhill.

I very much want to be able to utilize these tools as much as Polar users swear by the data Polar provides, however I'm somewhat confused on how to do so with unintended mixed messages being received. I gladly welcome anyone who can chime in on a more scientific level.

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

I would suggest you use it like you would use most other physiological metrics; as a guideline. See how the numbers trend for you. Of course, that's going to take a bunch of data points and some time. Then you'll be better able to see how the numbers correlate with your training and your fitness.

Yes good advice. We think the watch takes a while to learn about you and I am still learning how the metrics react to my day to day training.

For instance the other day I did a 2 hour hard hilly ride and got 4 days recovery time. I thought that was a bit "overkill" and just continued as I would normally with steady state runs and bikes and sure enough it is now down to just 6 hours. I certainly am in no "condition" to race today however - I would not have done a hour on the TT bike last night if so. I say that as "common sense" is still the most important factor...

0 chimpware over 8 years ago

Tim, one thing I noticed that I am not sure was on my 735XT, is that the Recovery Time prescribes Train Light (or something like that) in the Recovery Time area. When I have trained lighter (i.e. SS Run at easy pace), it seems that this is OK within the prescribed window as I do not move in to Overload when I do this. Much more pragmatic approach to recovery metrics I think. It may be that in some cases it says "Rest" but I have never seen that so far.

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

Yes it means has always meant advising you not to do hard sessions until "recovered" and not necessarily complete rest.

I have found that doing easy runs can "help" to reduce the recovery time - presume as it "sees" you being "better" than at the end of the last activity.

0 kitenski over 8 years ago

I've had a steady two hour Z2 bike yesterday and a steady 14km run today and I've gone back to unproductive!!

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I just finished a 5k run with my oldest son biking alongside me. A nice easy 07:55 pace, something to get my HR into the upper 140s low/mid 150s. This is after back to back to back run days of 7,4,6 miles respectively at moderate/easy paces. 4 and 6 were on the treadmill, during which time my watch never changed from unproductive. Today post run my VO2 is back up 1 digit and I'm considered productive again.
1) I wonder if training status is dependent upon outdoor running with GPS
2) I'm still struggling to see the value in all of this productive/unproductive stuff, at least for me, especially if #1 holds true. half of my miles are on the treadmill due to weather and also because I have 3 small children which means I'm at home running a lot when the time is suitable.

0 tenohfive over 8 years ago

Hopefully I'm not derailing the thread with these questions, but I've a couple of cycling queries:

1. I use a non-Garmin bike GPS and I'd like to carry on doing so. If I import the .fit files in GC will it incorporate those efforts in training load?
2. Same question as above but with Zwift .fit files downloaded from their website. If not, is there a way around this somehow?

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

Hopefully I'm not derailing the thread with these questions, but I've a couple of cycling queries:

1. I use a non-Garmin bike GPS and I'd like to carry on doing so. If I import the .fit files in GC will it incorporate those efforts in training load?
2. Same question as above but with Zwift .fit files downloaded from their website. If not, is there a way around this somehow?

1. No
2. No but on Zwift you should be able to record the activity on your 935. Power & HR are important for the bike so the fact you won't get Zwift's "made up" speed should not matter as long as you record power & HR.

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

I just finished a 5k run with my oldest son biking alongside me. A nice easy 07:55 pace, something to get my HR into the upper 140s low/mid 150s. This is after back to back to back run days of 7,4,6 miles respectively at moderate/easy paces. 4 and 6 were on the treadmill, during which time my watch never changed from unproductive. Today post run my VO2 is back up 1 digit and I'm considered productive again.
1) I wonder if training status is dependent upon outdoor running with GPS
2) I'm still struggling to see the value in all of this productive/unproductive stuff, at least for me, especially if #1 holds true. half of my miles are on the treadmill due to weather and also because I have 3 small children which means I'm at home running a lot when the time is suitable.

1. Certainly that is a factor as VO2 Max is not computed for indoor runs. However training load is computed as far as I can see. It is kind of similar on a bike - you need a power meter indoors or out as well as HR to get VO2 Max changes. I don't have a PM on my road bike and I used that today. My training load did change though.

2. Possibly but in reality VO2 Max should not change much anyway in a short space of time so I think as long as you do some runs outdoors (so VO2 Max is computed) then it could have some value.

It does seem for best effect though that rides should be with a PM and runs should be outdoors.

0 tenohfive over 8 years ago

Oyster gang

1. No
2. No but on Zwift you should be able to record the activity on your 935. Power & HR are important for the bike so the fact you won't get Zwift's "made up" speed should not matter as long as you record power & HR.

I don't have a power meter and normally use a chest HRM for any cycling activity given the unreliability of optical HRM's when cycling. So I don't understand how I'd get things to work sensors wise - use two chest straps, one paired to Zwift and the other to the 935? I can live with ignoring speed and cadence on the 935 workout (if I'm only going to be doing it for training status I don't imagine it needs them) but is there a more elegant solution - can I use a chest strap paired to the 935 and have that pass the chest strap data onward to Zwift, in the same way it can project an optical HRM reading?

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

How are you getting power into Zwift? Maybe you have got a "dumb" trainer and so are using "zPower"? If so think you would be out of luck.

With my "Smart" trainer (Tacx Genius) the trainer emits power/cadence and also speed/distance as two pseudo ANT sensors so I can pair those to my Garmin devices as well as to Zwift.