Source
r/GarminFenix•
igalan

Stamina is the least useful metric by far... Please go back to the basics!

I've had Garmin Fenix 6S (and a Forerunner before) and for over a year the Fenix 7. I use it 24x7, for racing, sleeping, everything. So it has as much data as it can hope for. But Stamina is almost always so wrong, in races and even trainings. I did the Sgrail 100 (a gravel triathlon) and the stamina was all the way down to 1 by Km 60 of the bike leg (with 32 Km more to go and after that the run). In the track when doing intervals I've also seen it down to 1 with a few more intervals to go, in races, etc. It just doesn't do anything useful for me, running or cycling. I don't bother with it in races, of course, it's only when I go home and look at the numbers that I realize the watch though I was finished halfway though 🤣 .

But this is not the only number that is very wrong. Race predictions are also way off. I just ran a crowded 10 Km in 44m40s, but I never had a chance to get up to speed, too much people. The race prediction was 47m. I could have run it in 43m.

Then we have these new indicators: elevation score and endurance score. They are a joke and provide no useful information or guidance.

Please Garmin we don't need more numbers to chase. We need more precise metrics on basic things. The Swolf in my swims is all over the place for no apparent reason, I'm not a novice swimmer and the watch struggles to know when I flip turn or something. Pace when running is very unstable, if I run in the track (in track mode), so the most controlled environment you can run in, it will still wiggle up and down for no reason.

Please focus on making the best of the current indicators or remove them if they just don't work.

Oh, a big one, enable again incident indicator for MTB where it's most needed. You can have incident indicator when running in a track but not with the MTB? Come on! I've been doing gnarly descents and never had a false incident.

Posted Nov 26, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

124
Lazy-Explorer7117•

This post is hilarious 😆

Prediction is just…. a prediction. Lol

All my metrics have been very accurate because ive taken the time to adjust my HR zones accordingly. To me, your post sounds like something is truly off and thus you get shit numbers.

13
alshabbabi•

What do you do to adjust your hr zones? Doesn't Garmin automatically configure based on resting peak hr?

1
apathy-sofa•

You can set the in Device Settings > User Settings.

1
alshabbabi•

And what are those custom zones based on?

1
apathy-sofa•

Typically a test. For example, I test for my aerobic threshold - top of zone 2 - at the start of every major training cycle, using a heart rate drift test. My max I also set manually.

My LT (top of zone 3), I let Garmin set after I do a guided run with my strap.

Some people, like D1 athletes, might do gas exchange based testing, so could set their zones based on that.

1
igalanOP•

I’ve spent a good amount of time setting my HR zones. Doing a max heart rate test is very hard so I only do them every 6 months or so. But I do hard interval sessions where i get very close to that. Still the numbers are way off. Also I use a heart strap to get the numbers as accurate as possible, even thought the wrist sensor works fine for me. Also I have the Running Dynamics Pod for additional metrics. Garmin has as much data as it can hope for.

1
Excellent-Ad-8109•

"Please Garmin we don't need more numbers to chase. "

You can delete it from your activity page.

I do find the stamina numbers useful while training on my bike. When doing intervals, the difference between actual and potential stamina gives me a relative measure of how hard I'm pushing myself.

7
igalanOP•

Even that difference between actual and potential stamina is undermined by the fact that it probably underestimates your overall stamina, if you base your activity on that number you may not be getting the most out of your training. But if it works for you all the better, I'm hopping when this feature was release it was tested to work across a broad range of people 🤞

1
Excellent-Ad-8109•

Consider the word “relative“ in my comment, and you may then understand why your response is irrelevant.

1
buenosbias•

You are right on stamina. For ultrarunners, it‘s really ridiculous, running on zero stamina for hours.

5
igalanOP•

I've yet to meet a runner for which this indicator does what it's supposed to do. For ultrarunners I am sure it is so much worse.

5
txdline•

DCR called it close enough. Guess it depends

1
igalanOP•

It seems to work right for everyday trainings. But on tough sessions or races it fails almost every time for me.

1
txdline•

Thanks. I can see where that makes sense but maybe they could also adjust it to let you give 110% when you've set it to run an event

1
comalley0130•

Hi meet me.

1
Yisus19891989•

It's useless because it is not accurate. That's the problem with Garmin in regards to any stat that requires an algorithm

3
reissue89•

I only consider stamina and accurate metric for training. When I’m racing, I’m pushing myself deeper than I would during training, which is where the increase chance of injury creeps into play. Every 70.3 race I have done I have depleted my stamina before finishing. I shouldn’t be depleting my stamina during training, so I only mind it then. My race predictions are pretty close but mostly correlated to 100% ideal conditions, so I personally have no complaints in that department. I respect that fact this it’s a prediction and not a standard. Theres so many uncontrollable variables a watch can never account for.

2
AJohnnyTruant•

I used to look at stamina for training but just replaced that field with the training effect graph. It’s way more useful as an indicator of stimulus accomplished so far on an activity. Stamina just doesn’t mean much since I can pretty much go forever if you give me enough salty sugar water

1
igalanOP•

That’s closer to my experience. But in some training it also drops to 1%, particularly VO2Max intervals when the efforts are somewhat long.

1
ditlevrisdahl•

I think its an indikation that the last 32 km you are hurting/doing harm to yourself right? So from 60 km onwards you resources and spend and you are degrading yourself rather than improving yourself (which is completely fine in race scenarios).

At least that is what I think as it shouldn't be like death at 0 stamina..

2
igalanOP•

That’s not what the reference says. It states it is an estimation of how long can you keep at that pace. For my last 10 Km race I ran negative splits even when stamina went down to 1% at Km 6-7. I ran way faster the second half regardless, so Km 10 was the fastest, then Km 9, then Km 8 and so on.

1
comalley0130•

Stamina is remarkably accurate for me. If it doesn’t work for you or you don’t like it… then remove it from your data screens.

1
Excellent-Ad-8109•

Looking through these responses, it seems like some posters (perhaps including the original poster) don't understand the Stamina measure. Here's a start, though more reading is probably necessary to really understand it.

1
Rallih_•

I agree with everything.

1
ramii99•

Most of those Garmin metrics are useless and completely off and it seems Garmin don't care and don't bother improving them.

The worst ones in my opinion:

  • vo2max is like 20% lower that the value I had measured in a lab. And it goes up for a few days when I do a speed workout and then goes down again, which is ridiculous.
  • rest required is WAY too high, like 48 hours or more even though I'm used to running every day
  • Race predictor gives me overly pessimistic predictions. E.g. when I ran a 1:20 half earlier this year, it had predicted a 1:30. What's even worse is that it didn't update afterwards so still showed 1:30 even though I had just proved it wrong. Where's the AI here? Really disappointing.

Free sites like runalyze offer far more accurate metrics and you can customize everything. So I tend use those and simply ignore Garmin.

1
igalanOP•

This is in line with my experience. Race predictions are below what I can actually do and won’t update after a race. VO2 Max I haven’t tested it in a lab so I don’t know for sure; I have seen people comparing it with the lab reports and it seems to be reasonably good.

2
fordmustang44•

how was sgrail??

1
igalanOP•

It was amazing, the best triathlon I've done by far. In fact a few days ago I registered for 2024 😀 . The swim in Cadaqués is beautiful, then 92 Km of gravel, with about 1300 m elevation in the first 25 Km, then it is flat and fast and at the end a bit more elevation. Then the trail run which is quite steep in the first 4 Km or so, expect a lot of walking, then it goes down all the way to Girona. The attention to the athletes is excellent, it doesn't even have cut times, so people of all levels are welcome. Highly recommended if you can do a half distance, because it's tough none the less.

1