"Garmin User's Revelation: A Transformative Adjustment that Enhanced Their Training After Months Without Progress"
"Don't make the same mistake I did."
A Garmin Epix user has shared their experience of how an incorrect setting ruined months of training. After working hard for an extended period, they constantly felt like a failure, not noticing any improvements in their performance. The cause of their frustration was an error in the maximum heart rate setting on their device. This 52-year-old user recounted feeling “like a loser” for months, unable to make progress. Despite switching to pace training, they felt like they were running faster and farther than in previous years.
Upon realizing that something was wrong after months without progress, they decided to check their Garmin settings and found an alarming error. Their maximum heart rate was set to 221, a number they had never questioned since they got their new EPIX the previous summer. After correcting it to 168 bpm, suitable for their age, their performance metrics improved significantly: "V02Max has increased, training is productive, and the endurance score has also gone up."
Maximum heart rate is considered the highest number of beats the heart can reach safely during exercise and is typically calculated by subtracting your age from 220. This number decreases annually and is essential for determining the effectiveness of training. Knowing your heart rate and training zones is crucial for exercising efficiently.
The heart rate zones are expressed as a percentage of the maximum heart rate, with zone one being 50-60%, where one is during a warm-up or brisk walk. Zone two, ranging from 60 to 70%, is popular for building endurance. Zones three, four, and five are for higher-intensity workouts that cannot be maintained for long periods. This user, who needed to reach between 101 and 118 bpm to enter zone two and start noticing progress, had been operating in zone one unknowingly.
Therefore, if you have a new Garmin device or have never checked your maximum heart rate, it is advisable to go to the Garmin Connect app or your watch to adjust this parameter. Garmin recommends the standard method of 220 minus your age, although you can also determine your true maximum heart rate through high-intensity training sessions.
