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Training status

Former Member
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 over 8 years ago
    Why ? That sounds like you went for a fairly easy aerobic run with no periods of raised effort.

    Did you?
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I did a half iron man yesterday (first one! Finished in 4hrs 47 min, yay!) and my watch shows me still in recovery ahah.. (was in recovery before competing and after still).

    I think we need to realize the Training Status is just a rough estimate ;)
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Presume if you rested up for the race then the watch thought you were taking it easy generally.

    And I hope you are enjoying the "recovery" now!
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Does cycling affect training status?

    May be it has already been said, but it is not completely clear to me if the training load (and thus the training status) values/scores are affected by bike (MTB) activities, or generally speaking by anything that's not running. It seems to me very unresponsive in value when I do anything else but running, even in case of tough activit.
    I do not have any HRM strap nor power meter (thus no VO2 MAX for cycling): does cycling with just wrist HR affect the training load/status?
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Training Load certainly changes for bike rides without a PM and a HR strap as I see that a lot myself when I use one of my bikes without a PM. I assume it works for OHR as would be very limited otherwise.

    However fitness can't be computed which seems to result in Training Status not changing.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I want to ask if denivelation is taken into account in VO2 max or any phisiological metrics, because I compete mostly on trails.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I want to ask if denivelation is taken into account in VO2 max or any phisiological metrics, because I compete mostly on trails.


    As far as we know, no.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    If you use the Trail Run app (and not the standard Run one) then VO2 Max updates are disabled.

    Training Load I think is just about HR intensity/variability (or so called EPOC). See https://www.firstbeat.com/en/consumer-feature/training-load/
    As such it should not matter how fast you are going and indeed whether the terrain is limiting that.

    Or see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsWlvWbKU3A

    and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAqJJ9vx2CI
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Well, I also came to the conclusion that I should use "Trail Run" instead of normal running because my VO2max and thus training status gets confused when I run more hilly courses (esp. when they contain climbs within the first 20mins.).

    As I'm mostly interested in the training load I thought "that will do the job". Well it doesn't update VO2max. Good. But it also doesn't update training load.
    As a result: it converted me from "unproductive" to "peak performance" (I have it in German, not sure if that translation is correct) in one flat run afterwards because the VO2max jumped up from the last measurement coming from a hilly run.
    At the same time the training load of the "trail run" was not considered -> within such a short time I converted from an unproductive junk miles runner (as noted before by someone else in this thread who didn't understand what people wrote about in former postings) to someone ready to rumble. SCNR :cool:

    As a conclusion I will just ignore the status and use the training load and continue to use the "running" app.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Ah that's interesting and somewhat disappointing. Better check with Garmin on this point as logically there is no reason to also shut off Training Load given this appears to be entirely HR dependent. After all you might go "slower" on a trail and so not want that pace to influence VO2 Max (as indeed is the case) but for sure you will still be putting in a "load" running in such terrain.