Interesting that you are getting credited intensity minutes when the data is imported from your Concept2 Rowers app but not from TrainerRoad . If I were to give a reasoning for this, it would be speculation since this is not something we control on our end.
We simply transfer the data to Garmin Connect. I suggest you reach out to Garmin Connect Support about this.
Are you recording your workout on your Garmin head unit and the Concept2 Rowers app simultaneously?
We don’t normally recommend recording your ride on the TrainerRoad app and your Garmin head unit simultaneously. This is because it can cause connection issues, and ultimately power issues, thereby making for an unpleasant experience. However, if you minimise interference elsewhere by following the steps in the article below, you may get away with recording your ride on your head unit and TrainerRoad simultaneously. By recording the workout on your head unit, the Workout should contribute toward your intensity minutes.
In this case, TR and Concept2 ErgData apps are on equal footing: both are interacting with their respective devices (TR with my Saris H3 and ErgData with the rower) and then publishing their data to Garmin Connect. I’m not using any head unit beyond the iOS device.
I am wearing my Garmin Fenix 7 while using both, but I’m not tracking the activities on the watch, beyond its passive measurements. I’m using a Polar HRM in both cases, as the source for heart data. So, Garmin devices are not involved in the collection of workout data.
In this case, I’m using Garmin Connect as a personal and training dashboard. It gets all my sleep data, etc. It’s the training readiness assessment that I’m most I interested in. Since this is not a core TR capability, I would hope that TR would be supportive in addressing this.
Thinking about this at a technical level, it would seem this is most likely to be an issue at the source, in this case TR. I expect that Garmin has a single set of APIs that all providers use (there may be multiple supported versions but logically there’s a single set of APIs). If true, one provider is successfully sending training intensity (Concept2) and one is not (TR). I would ask that this get escalated in TR to investigate.
Generally, the watch should pick up the increased heart rate and credit you with the intensity minutes, evven without recording an activity. Possibly with the lack of arm movement with indoor cycling versus rowing, activity autodetect does not pick up the cycling, and therefore not trigger the higher power OHR settings required to pick up higher heart rates accurately. You could try starting a Cardio activity and discarding rather than saving at the end to avoid duplicates.
Curious on this. I have auto detect of activities turned off, since I’m using dedicated apps for these two (indoor rowing, indoor cycling). In the details for a rowing session, it says the Concept2 app was the source.
As much as I like my Garmin watch, the setting navigation can be confusing, so I may be missing something. Move IQ seems the closest to what we’re discussing, I’ll make sure that is turned off before my next rowing session.
Mine (Forerunner 955) doesn’t, at all, for either cycling or rowing, even if I have a HRM band paired to it. And if it does pick up an elevated heart rate, it assumes it’s “stress” and suggests a breathing exercise. The only way I can get it to credit me with intensity minutes is to double-record on the watch and then discard it afterwards, as you said earlier.
@MrBirchling, I will dig into this for you and will circle back when I have more information from the team .
@gesteves, do you use a different app to record your rowing workouts? If so, do the workouts that are recorded in a different third party app contribute to your intensity minutes, readiness assessment etc, like the they do for @MrBirchling?
Thanks in advance if you can answer those questions . That will help me offer more clarity on this!
I use Concept2’s ErgData app on iOS, which syncs to the Concept2 logbook (which I believe is what actually syncs to Garmin Connect). The intensity minutes it records are very hit or miss:
23:38 row, recorded with ErgData, wearing a Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar (not recording an activity) with a Polar H10 HRM paired to the PM5 and the watch, no intensity minutes:
30 minute row, recorded with ErgData, wearing a Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar (not recording an activity) with a Polar H10 HRM paired to the PM5 and the watch, only 4 intensity minutes recorded:
As mentioned, recording a rowing activity on the watch and discarding it afterwards does record intensity minutes. 22:32 row, recorded with ErgData, wearing a Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar (recording an indoor rowing activity, which I discarded without saving) with a Polar H10 HRM paired to the PM5 and the watch, 21 intensity minutes recorded:
It seems to me that if intensity minutes were something Concept2 is calculating and sending over to Garmin Connect, all my rowing activities would have intensity minutes roughly matching the length of my workouts, but that’s not the case unless I start an activity on the watch. Rowing workouts synced from Concept2 don’t contribute to training status or exercise load no matter what, though.
@mcalista it looks like you were correct. For todays rowing workout, I took my Garmin watch off and powered it off, to eliminate any doubt. I didn’t get any intensity minutes in Garmin for that workout. I’ll try again on my next rowing session with the watch on but MoveIQ turned off.
Disappointed, as I really was hoping that there was some magic piece of data missing that could enable TR to automatically get included in the intensity data. The idea of separately running a Garmin indoor riding session while doing my TR workout grates on me, due to the hassle factor.
@SarahLaverty not sure there’s anything for TR to do at this point. As mcalista noted, need somehow to automatically get Garmin to pick up on the increased heart rate. Given it’s passively involved, I don’t know there’s an obvious answer. You all are way smarter than me on this stuff. Thank you TR team!
For what it’s worth I felt the same way, but eventually embraced using my watch as a second screen for data that TR doesn’t show (e.g. cycling dynamics,) and I actually dig it now, it’s been pretty useful.
OK, this is getting curiouser and curiouser. Punchline: I’m going to file a ticket with Garmin.
Wednesday, I did White -5, which is an Endurance workout. Garmin actually recorded 22 intensity minutes for that workout.
Today, I did Bell Mountain, which is a Threshold workout with 5 intervals. No intensity minutes were recorded, evening though this clearly is a more intense workout.
Found a thread on Reddit where others noticed similar behavior in Zwift. Apparently it stopped for them about 2 months ago.
EDIT: As I poked around my Garmin settings, I noticed it had my max HR at about 25 beats higher than what I experience in practice. I’ve lowered to see if that changes anything.
Sorry to bump an old topic but has anyone came up with a way to make TR workouts count to intensity minutes in Garmin? Ive tried editing the workout but no luck.
This is what i have resorted in doing, recording the tr workout as indoor cycling at the same timw aa running tr on my phone. I then delete the garmin workout but it keeps my hr data. I may be mistaken bur it seems to give me accurate hr data this way, maybe because it measures more often when an activity is specified?
. If I were to give a reasoning for this, it would be speculation since this is not something we control on our end.
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. That will help me offer more clarity on this!
