Suunto ZoneSense

6iovanni

how is it possible when going uphill , with over 170Bpm for some minutes the app to be showing i am in the green zone

ZS is not only based on HR and also depends on how your current and past baseline is. Have you trained enough in the past in the aerobic zone? Did you give ZS time to stabilize at the beginning of the session?

In the first few minutes ZS calculates the initial baseline (which remains constant throughout the session) and then applies a correction at later times.
Now you have seen 170 bpm in the green zone and it might be strange, but it is perfectly legitimate. Suppose at the beginning of the session you are tired, for example due to accumulated fatigue, stress, etc. This means a low HRV value. This low HRV value determines the initial baseline! Then the ZS begins to determine the correction to be applied to this initial value during training.

e.g.
A (you in good shape, so good HRV): starting baseline 0.90
B (you in bad shape, so low HRV): starting baseline 0.70

suppose during session your values decrease of the same amount for both A and B with the following values:

at 5’ you have 0.9 at 130bpm
at 10’ you have 0.8 at 140bpm
at 15’ you have 0.5 at 170bpm
at 20’ you have 0.2 at 180bpm

so the corrections are:

at 5’ A) 0.9 - 0.9 = 0 B) 0.9 - 0.7 = 0.2
at 10’ A) 0.8 - 0.9 = -0.1 B) 0.8 - 0.7 = 0.1
at 15’ A) 0.5 - 0.9 = -0.4 B) 0.5 - 0.7 = - 0.2
at 20’ A) 0.2 - 0.9 = -0.7 B) 0.2 -0.7 = -0.5

green, yellow and red are then determined when:

green, when correction is >= -0.3
yellow, when -0.3 > correction >= -0.6
red, when correction < -0.6

so

at 5’ A and B are in green
at 10’ A and B are still in green
at 15’ A in yellow, B still in green !!
at 10’ A in red, B in yellow

So a low initial value makes ZS less sensitive to changes

thanasis

@6iovanni said in Suunto ZoneSense:

@thanasis said in Suunto ZoneSense:

how is it possible when going uphill , with over 170Bpm for some minutes the app to be showing i am in the green zone

ZS is not only based on HR and also depends on how your current and past baseline is. Have you trained enough in the past in the aerobic zone? Did you give ZS time to stabilize at the beginning of the session?

warmed up etc in aerobic yes. then after a point i went uphill .

However those questions indicate that there may be an inherent assumption about zonesense that it should be not considered as a reliable indicator outside some very clear and set preconditions. Unfortunately the app doesn’t tell you if those are met (e.g. can it measure my current load? is my HRV too noisy? am i going uphill but the data are not proper etc…) and it still gives you an indication.

If this hypothesis stands true, I (as an amateur, non scientifically trained user) cannot really make use of it.

However, in my cases , i do try to follow this very easy warmup phase and flat surfaces and then gradually step up

Stefano M64

@6iovanni said in Suunto ZoneSense:

also depends on how your current and past baseline is

if SZ gives you a live information about your (actual) body status, as Egika said, and believe that is like that, then it shouldn’t depend upon past data.

6iovanni

@Stefano-M64 imho the baseline starting point for each new session depends on the previous ones, and its value changes according to the efforts of the latter. So, again in my opinion, a mix of easy and difficult sessions is the best way to make DDFA work effectively.

cosme.costa

@thanasis said in Suunto ZoneSense:

i also want to rely on zonesense but i really struggle to understand how is it possible when going uphill , with over 170Bpm for some minutes the app to be showing i am in the green zone… In principle i am excited about relying on hr variability but am i harming myself by relying on it? that’s the big question for me

This is normal, because metabolically you are still in green. You do not enter/exit one zone only for changing a few HR beats. As you observe that at 170 bpm you do not go red immediately you will also observe that if you are red at the top of the hill, when you start to go down and your bpm are going down you are still in red for some time, because you are still not recovered metabolically. When you are going uphill, instead of reducing your pace try to keep the pace and continue pushing you will see that you will enter in red rapidly, or start the uphill at higher pace.

In my opinion, since the release of ZS, amateur runners we should do a lab test/medical check to see if your heart is healthy and there are no issues with it and then you can trust ZS for you training. Of course you have to use it correctly, do the warm up, do the first sessions slowly and use a good chest strap.

In order to use it properly, we should unlearn some things.

@thanasis said in Suunto ZoneSense:

If this hypothesis stands true, I (as an amateur, non scientifically trained user) cannot really make use of it.

On the contrary, you can use it more. The zones that it indicates are the real ones for that exercise/day and you do not need any expensive lab test.

In my opinion, as ZS is now, ZS is pretty good and solid but Suunto should do a next step integrating ZS in the watch firmware and let you decide to work with the 5 zones or the 3 ZS zones.

In my case, I use ZS from time to time because chest straps wound my chest if I use them continuously. So when I have a session that I want to be strict with the zones I use ZS and the days that I do not care I use an OHR armband.

James Eastwood

@cosme.costa yep, also the audio queues.

Doing a long run and trying to stay in green zone is a pain when you have to keep lifting your wrist.

Brad_Olwin

@cosme.costa Well said! And, I have been asking since before ZS release to bake into the outer ring. So have other testers……we will see.

Sportsfreund

@timecode Same problems here. Another prob is that I never reach vo2max zone. Tried all case while running.

Sportsfreund

@Sportsfreund ZoneSense is still in the development phase. So far, it’s unusable, at least for me. Furthermore, the incomprehensible values in the watch never match those in the app.

atoponce

@6iovanni said in Suunto ZoneSense:

ZS is not only based on HR and also depends on how your current and past baseline is. Have you trained enough in the past in the aerobic zone? Did you give ZS time to stabilize at the beginning of the session?

Is this true? Does ZoneSense keep a running baseline from previous days? if so, is that baseline averaged or weighted in some way, or is it just point-to-point? I couldn’t find an answer to this in the documentation. If my ZoneSense baseline is persistent from day-to-day, does this get transferred to other watches that are paired with the app?

James Eastwood

@atoponce yes it builds a baseline from regular easy efforts, it’s covered in the FAQs. I don’t know about the multiple watches question.

For me ZoneSense is really promising, but it feels like an alpha product.

6iovanni

Hi @atoponce,

FAQ My workout did not seem to be in “right intensity”, what could be the reason?

Each workout you do will impact how your personal ZoneSense measurement works. The normal easy aerobic level measured with DDFA is saved to your watch & personal profile.