I am a little puzzled about fitness information I get from Garmin Connect.
I am following my TR plan which I started after summer. Most of the times I push workouts to Zwift. Sometimes I just do them in TR.
I have master plan with 2 times higher intensity workouts and 2 times endurance.
My workout results are pushed to Garmin connect where I usually check for fitness progresses.
Until end of October the Garmin training status was more or less matching what I was expecting from my plan phase, my perceived stress etc.
At beginning of november I had the typical endurance/recovery week. I think I missed one session during that week because I was sick.
At that point Garmin set my training status to unproductive (which seemed to be ok).
After that (4-5 november) I went back to normal TR training.
As a matter of fact during the last couple of weeks I set new power PRs for my 10, 20 and 30 minutes as part of the workout execution. Garmin even detected Vo2max increase.
Nevertheless my trining status is stuck to unproductive since beginning of november.
Am I doing something wrong? or are all those garmin metrics just BS ?
When you look at the Training Status Load Focus, what does it tell you is the shortage? Thatâs the answer. Hereâs the thing though, if that shortage is not what youâre focusing on at this point in your training, that recommendation is kind of useless. Example - if youâre in a phase where youâre doing a VO2 block, it doesnât really matter what Garmin thinks of your High Aerobic or Low Aerobic numbers. Same if youâre doing a block where youâre doing lots and lots of Low Aerobic Base building. Youâre trying to build the foundation of your house and Garmin is telling you you need to do more High Aerobic or Anaerobic work to be âProductiveââŚbut that isnât the focus of your current training phase. So, you kind of have to decide if you want to follow the Garmin guidelines or follow an external training program.
What happens when you click on the Training Status widget? Iâm thinking you might see some sort of summary about what Garmin thinks you need to do to get out of the Unproductive status. And when you then click on the âLoadâ option in this second screen, what do the little graphs show? Are you in the âOptimalâ zone for all three of the Garmin parameters?
My Training Status seems to be influenced by my VO2max Guestimate. You sometimes dont see it on the VO2max but productive, maintaining and unproductive always coincides with it when you look at the 7days graph.
It says âTraining Status - Unproductiveâ but âLoad Focus - Balancedâ? Thatâs a new one for me,
What does it say below âTraining Status - Unproductiveâ? Usually it will say something like, âYour training load is too focused on low intensity, try mixing in some high aerobic exerciseâ.
Ah! Yes, I have seen this one before! Itâs saying that your body is not keeping up with the stress youâre incurring. How has your sleep been? Have you raised your training load significantly? Are you dealing with a lot of life stress? Itâs basically warning you that it thinks youâre overtraining.
Hmm. So is all of the data going to Garmin cycling based only? In other words, your running v02 isnât going down while your cycling one goes up? Are you feeding it HR data? Maybe it thinks your HR has been at a higher percentage for equivalent work? Have you updated your HR zones or weight? (Or has something else updated them?")
Just thinking out loud based on what I know about how they calculate this stuff. I wear a Garmin watch, so it has 24 hour data on me. If youâre just feeding it rides from your head unit, some of what I mentioned above obviously doesnât applyâŚ
I HATE that they use the word âunproductiveâ. Itâs such a negative word that could mean so many things that are perfectly reasonable in an athleteâs day to day life/training cycle.
So, I am not sure what my running VO2Max is doing because I donât run. Only cycling.
My cycling Vo2Max went down to 56 during my endurance/recovery week. Which always happens. As soon as I do Zone 2 workouts my cycling VO2Max goes down one or two points.
During that time I was also slightly sick. I still trained so it might be that my HR was slightly higher for the same type of endurance training.
But this was back at the beginning of November.
Since ~10 days I am back to normal training with two high intensity rides per week and two Zone 2.
during these past 10 days I set new PRs for power. I have increased VO2Max (according to Garmin) but still unproductive (argh!).
It might just be that there is a lag in the recalculation of the status, meaning that the week when I was not feeling well is still affecting my training statusâŚ
What I think I had a few years back was my Gâestimated VO2max increasing from indoor rides and solo TTs but Training Status often had unproductive after outdoor group rides. I think there my HR was higher for less power.
As to HRV Iâve only had a watch capable of recording it from January and havenât really noticed it having an impact on my TS despite the blurb.
Once Garmin told me that I needed 4 days to recover after my 20 min warmup ride prior to a race. Obviously it didnât have all the intel to make that recommendation. And Iâve found thats the problem - it doesnât know when it doesnât know enough.
For years it estimated my FTP at about 200w (low) no matter what I did. Then after a race in October it estimated my FTP to be over 500 watts! Iâm a petite woman . Thatâs 8.3 w/kg!
. Thatâs 8.3 w/kg!