Garmin Forerunner 955 questions

Seeing the new fr955, i have a few questions for my specific use case.
I’ve been using TR for the last 6 (!) years, with the only goal being to stay reasonably fit or maybe even improve a bit. Nothing else, no races, no real season planned. Other than the trainer and a mtb with TR, i used to go to the pool sporadically pre pandemic and i also do some yoga and body weight.
Close to turning 50, it has worked in that i hit my highest ftp just recently, yet more or less in the same ballpark as in the last few years.
I’ve never had a wearable and only last year added a pm to the mtb and got a Garmin 530.
It works nicely and now I wonder: would a fr955 actually work well for me? Specifically, would the suggested daily workouts be better than just decide myself what phase to pick in TR and follow that as good as i can? That’s what I’m doing and i find it a bit repetitive and pointless tbh.
Any opinions and suggestions appreciated, thanks!

I have a 945, but my comments below should be applicable even though I’ve never used the daily suggested bike workouts.

The Garmin daily suggested workouts are not as refined, varied or interesting as TR workouts. For example, rght now my 945 suggests doing a short warmup then 3x8 minutes at threshold (actually about 5W below FTP). TR Train Now suggests Jepson -3 Log In to TrainerRoad

Which has a more gradual warmup and a few sprints to liven things up.

The Daily Suggested run workouts are pretty good though, I use them occasionally.

I also broadcast HR from watch to Garmin 530 when riding - so no need for HR strap.

And I find the smartwatch features useful - notifications, music (my bank wont work with Garmin Pay).

A forerunner is great if you want all day/night HR tracking, if you run or swim, or if you want a basic smartwatch.

But for bike training then TR plans (instead of just Train Now) are better.

Also, from experience it’s much, much easier to follow workouts on a 530 than a watch… Which is why I got a 530. And I don’t think you can push 955 suggested workouts to a 530?

You mean using train now in TR? Tr picking bike workouts for you is more intelligent than Garmin in that is much more custom to you. Garmin doesn’t really track how your body responds to workouts over time.

That’s indeed part of my question: specifically the new Garmin units are marketed as ‘knowing’ more about both your recent history and current state. I have no clue about how true that is.
But in my 6 years of using TR, i haven’t really seen how it really knows how my body responds to workouts, even with AT. I do know it myself a bit now, and especially after starting a block with new ftp i tweak intensities to make it more reasonable (they tend to get too low).
Also, what feedback do TR get from my activities? My opinion at the end; does it even take HR vs W and duration into account?
Again, Garmin claims might be mostly marketing bs (although suggested ftp i get from the 530 tends to be quite spot on), but with all the promise of AT, AI, deep learning and whatnot, i can’t say I’m impressed in my current use of TR compared to years past.

Garmin Edge 530 hrv-power-hr based metrics - training effect of workout, ftp, VO2max, etc - work very very well in my experience. I’m going to upgrade my wrist from Apple Watch 4 to FR 955.

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The FR955 suggested workouts definitely take your body response (notably recovery) into account. It doesn’t do the fine grained PL/AT stuff but you know what, until a year ago TR didn’t either and it was still perfectly fine for getting better :slight_smile:

The Garmin daily suggested workouts are not as refined, varied or interesting as TR workouts.

Honestly I don’t think making things very complicated really matters. If I did, I would never have used the TR running workouts which are extremely simple, even simpler than the Garmin recommended ones.

The main advantage TR has for me right now:

  • Sport specific plans. Garmin currently doesn’t even handle triathlon on their tri-specific watch!

  • Alternate workouts. You can look ahead in the week and pick an alternate on Garmin, but it’s not anything like TR where I can adjust on the fly if I have more/less time than usual. For a busy life this is currently the killer feature for me. (Too bad it’s only cycling :P)

  • Planning workouts on the calendar and figuring out which workout goes on which day.

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Did you end up making the upgrade?

I’m interested in having HRV and related features for my cycling and weight training. This seems to be marketed as a running watch and I have no desire to run :rofl:

Not yet, I’m waiting for sales later this year.

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The solar version is 9% off but don’t know if we should expect bigger sales :thinking:

I feel like this would be much more useful if TR used this data to help with adaptive training

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I don’t disagree…but at least in the meantime I can manually adjust with workout alternates if needed, or have a friendly reminder to stop trying to go crazy on endurance rides with I’m not 100%!

I wouldn’t run if you paid me and yet I really enjoy my 955 Solar…mostly just for the HRV/sleep tracking. Had a Whoop before and find this to be more informative/customizable.

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Same here, used Whoop for a few years and recently switched. The 955 has been great. It does a better job condensing all the data vs how whoop throws it at you and Garmin integrates structured workouts from TR much better. Less tech issues, battery is so much better. It even tells the time! I was very accustomed to the whoop’s daily red/yellow/green stop light recovery score, but have come around to the Garmin’s approach of averaging HRV & Sleep quality out over the night and consecutive days. Feels like a better approach to me.

Agree with everyone above, the suggested bike workouts aren’t great and I’ve stuck with my TR plan. Running is a bit better. If you want to spice things up, pick a different training specialty, use TR Train Now exclusively, or mess with workout creator.

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OMG the battery life alone is worth it…and it charges really fast.

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Well, that seals the deal. Just ordered the non-solar version. Thanks all!!

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I got one last week and I’ve been super happy with it. Sold my Karoo 2 and it worked great for a long gravel ride with power. Plus I’m really enjoying the Training Readiness, HRV, sleep tracking, and such, even if there isn’t enough data yet for it to mean anything.

I haven’t worn a watch in a couple of years, but the whole experience is a huge upgrade from the Forerunner 645 I was using before.

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I’m not sure these are comparable. Don’t get me wrong I love my fenix 7 (though wish I had more patience and got the 955 as its cheaper and don’t really need the metal) but the screen is too small and the wrist is a horrible location for navigating well on a bike. When I used it as a backup cause my Edge wasn’t working, kind of a pain. Maps are great for hiking and everything else though so just a physical limitation of screen size and position on wrist

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Absolutely. I still haven’t ordered a new computer to replace (will probably pick up a 1040 when I can find a decent price on one), so it was nice to be able to just record everything. It was a route I know well, so I didn’t need anything apart from being able to just save all the ride data.

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If you’re using your watch to record a ride, does it automatically pull in HR data along with power?

Sometimes I like the idea of riding without a computer but still want credit for the work! :rofl: this could be a nice alternative to bringing the bike computer but leaving in your jersey.

Yep, that was the great part. It records everything a bike computer does (power, HR, speed, cadence, it can even connect to Varia radar) but I was able to just space out and enjoy the day without having a computer staring back up at me from the bars.

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