HR does not match effort

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Hi All

Did the breakthrough test. My heart rate has got me worried. I match my garmin hrm with my apple watch all the way but it seems as the effort got harder my HR went slower and it started to get into my head. Does anyone have insight into this?
Been doing a lot of back to back 8 day blocks using the planner en zwift ai. Garmin was complaining I am doing too much Z2 and not enough anaerobic so unproductive at the moment

Please have a look below. Last effort I was fine but the hr just irked me completely.

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Is this recorded from your HRM? To me, it looks like a typical optical HR sensor response when it loses contact with an athlete’s skin.

If you’re wearing an HRM, be sure to wet the contacts before putting it on - run it under the sink or consider using electrode gel, etc. If the contacts aren’t wet, it’s very possible to get ‘bad’ data even from an HR strap. I’ve seen loads of bad HR data over the years, so I don’t think it’s too much to worry about.

I think their Training Status can be a bit of a meme. For example, do a Google search for “garmin training status unproductive” and you’ll see endless threads about this on Reddit & Garmin forums about it.

I increased my Threshold power 17% (~240 → 280 W) over ~4 months and Garmin pretty much said ‘Unproductive’ the entire time & never increased my estimated VO2max. At this point, I take Garmin’s training status/load with a massive grain of salt :man_shrugging:

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It can work :slight_smile:
But as you say, you need quality HR data. I got a velcro band for my Fenix watch to avoid any external light creeping between the sensor and the skin. Newer sensors also seem to work more reliably than olders. E.g. my current Fenix 7 does better than my 6 back then. For the 7 pro they updated the sensor once more.

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TP 270 - 296 in that period. Garmin VO2max estimate almost flat, though, due to some weight gain :frowning:

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You are smart to pay attention to this. It may very well be a problem with the HRM and that’s not uncommon but also it’s good raise the red flag and evaluate things further since if it’s not an HRM anomaly, you’ll want to find out what’s happening.

Try another HRM source and see if it repeats. If so, have yourself checked out.