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Voodoo Calculations? Stairs and Intensity Minutes

I know stairs are supposed to be based on 10' elevation changes but when my device shows accurate elevation gains of about 250 feet during my daily walks (with arms swinging) I normally get between 2 and 5 floors out of it.

The Intensity Minutes also confuses me. I *thought* it was based on heartrate and seemed to only use zone 4 and zone 5 but today I took a leisurely walk with only 1 minute in zone 4 and got 15 minutes (out of a 40 minute walk). Huh?

The manual says you can also calibrate your intensity minutes with an "!" icon in the intensity screen but I don't see that icon anywhere.

It is looking like both fllors and intensity minutes are widgets to remove from the watch and tiles to remove from the dashboard? Steps and HR seem accurate.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Well, the system is not registering that. I have alarms set to go off at low = zone 3 and high = zone 5 so the bulk of my exercise is between 70 and 90% max HR for periods exceeding 10 continuous minutes and I am not getting credit for much of that (I also verified the heart rates it alarms at are between 70% and 90%) by that logic, all those minutes should be doubled. Guess I will open an email ticket about intensity minutes. Low priority, but it is a feature that should work, so don't want to clog up chat or phone lines.

Makes sense on the elevation changes, though it is not so good on logging stairs (and ours are 10') .... If that is the case, that should be firmware related since it is logged in the device before uploading.

Bottom line is the Intensity Minutes feature is a great idea, but doesn't actually work that well. My FR235 and some other Garmin devices have a feature called Training Effect (TE). https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner935/EN-US/GUID-7275629E-743A-4658-A284-C84F42A66AE5.html I wish Garmin would add this to the VA3. Anyway, if you or anyone else is concerned with the intensity of your workouts, I suggest these two things. First, get a HR strap or arm strap for your activities and pass on the oHRM. Secondly, download this VA3 data field: TRIMP-Meter by Makkas. This is a data field that should come standard with any activity device. I don't know if people just aren't aware of it, or if they don't understand what it does. I personally think it's gold. It has three readings on the data field. Rate of Perceived Exertion using Borg's CR-10 scale, http://www.topendsports.com/testing/rpe-intensity.htm and your average TRIMP score per hour and total TRIMP score using Banisters TRIMP http://www.trainingimpulse.com/banisters-trimp-0

0 nancyjocoy over 7 years ago

For now it sounds like a tile I will hide along with my stairs tile....The device is doing the main thing I wanted in terms of the alarms I can set for dropping below or going above a specific heart rate zone which is allowing me to push myself...............I know I am typically in zone 3 about 40 minutes a day and zone 4 about 20 on average ...

0 kstate1980 over 7 years ago

Bottom line is the Intensity Minutes feature is a great idea, but doesn't actually work that well. My FR235 and some other Garmin devices have a feature called Training Effect (TE). https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner935/EN-US/GUID-7275629E-743A-4658-A284-C84F42A66AE5.html I wish Garmin would add this to the VA3. Anyway, if you or anyone else is concerned with the intensity of your workouts, I suggest these two things. First, get a HR strap or arm strap for your activities and pass on the oHRM. Secondly, download this VA3 data field: TRIMP-Meter by Makkas. This is a data field that should come standard with any activity device. I don't know if people just aren't aware of it, or if they don't understand what it does. I personally think it's gold. It has three readings on the data field. Rate of Perceived Exertion using Borg's CR-10 scale, http://www.topendsports.com/testing/rpe-intensity.htm and your average TRIMP score per hour and total TRIMP score using Banisters TRIMP http://www.trainingimpulse.com/banisters-trimp-0

I can honestly say that the OHRM works just fine for me. When I compare my rides I can see my HR go up as my intensity increases and I don't see huge spikes in the graph.

I've also compared the OHRM to that of HR strap and the results were not significantly different.

I think for some the OHRM works fine and for others it doesn't just the luck of the draw.

All that being said, I agree that the HR strap is probably better than OHRM