Suunto ZoneSense

A Former User

@olson917 Personally, my lactate threshold is at 186 bpm, and I’ve never managed to get it detected while cycling either. From what you described, someone with more experience (@Brad_Olwin) might offer better insight, but my guess is that your actual lactate threshold is higher than you think, which could explain why ZoneSense isn’t detecting it. For me, it only works when I push really hard during vertical runs, with my heart rate climbing to 190 bpm or more.

Brad_Olwin

@olson917 said in Suunto ZoneSense:

Oh, one other thing. I live and train at elevation 5,300 ft or about 1,610m. My understanding is that can lower HRV on its own. I certainly get higher numbers when I’m down at sea level.

Where are you? I am near Boulder, CO and I am 68. I live at about the same elevation, max HR is ~180, my LT is ~164 and only had ZS identify it a couple of times. Short hill intervals at max effort where I hit HR of 177 does not give me an LT estimate. These are 2 min hill intervals. You will need sustained anaerobic effort to get ZS to provide a good estimate of your LT. To me, it seems your LT is likely to low but I don’t know your fitness. For reference, my AT is ~140 and LT ~ 164. The beauty of ZS is you don’t need to know those, just exercise in the appropriate zone for the effort.

olson917

@Brad_Olwin I’m in Denver. My fitness is not what yours is, I do mostly lower intensity stuff, with 1 HIIT workout a week and one longer intense workout a week. Garmin says my AT is 132 and LT is 148. ZoneSense tracks the 132 AT perfectly, often to within 1 BPM. Last Sunday I did a 10 minute climb and varied from 156 to 160 BPM, no go. I about barfed! A few weeks ago I did a FTP ramp test, 15 minutes of steadily increasing HR until I blew at 178. Still no go. But again, my normal HRV range is really low, 20-24. That’s not much for the algorithm to work with.

Brad_Olwin

@olson917 The ramp test should have worked but the hill climb is probably too short. Depends on warm up too. Suunto has S+ apps to test AT and two that test LT. One is a Cooper test and one an LT ramp test. You could try one of those when rested. All of my exercise for serious HR is running so that may differ too. Your LT still seems low. If you can do a 10 min ramp at the HR you state then 148 is wrong. I would look at the ramp test and hill climb but maybe set your LT nearer to 155. Maybe we’ll bump into each other sometime.
Again for training with ZS you don’t need to know your HR zones, but you do need them to set up the watch. You can train in green for recovery/low aerobic; green/yellow for endurance; solid yellow for Tempo; ZS is not good for all out intervals, it takes about 2 min or so for ZS to react appropriately and ZS needs a solid easy aerobic warm up of 10 min.

VoiGAS

Now get Zonesense to work like expected with new belt, new battery, 10 minute rampup. It now responds to my efforts.
Still some topics:
It responds, but slower than Power, HR and Personal feeling
If I (and I see it at other users too) increase effort it goes down before rising up
It needs perfect conditions like descibed above
Its hard to reach red. Maybe because of the slow response

I don’t have the problems with HR and Power, so I will stick to them. I am sure someone will bring a scientific proove that Zonesense is much better, but for me its just not

far-blue

@VoiGAS Nothing wrong with sticking with an approach that works for you I’d suggest 2 ways ZoneSense could still benefit you even if you don’t use it as a primary metric.

It can help you set your HR zones more accurately. If you check the ZoneSense suggestion a few times to get a general idea of when it suggests your zone2->3 and zone 4->5 transitions should be you can adjust to match and you will have your LT1 and LT2 points aligned with the HR you are used to training with (accepting that recovery, illness, temperature etc. will mean these are not perfectly accurate).
On longer efforts or races (or long races!) stress and fatigue can change your LT1 and LT2 points significantly so keeping an eye on this using the S+ app by checking every half an hour or so can help you adjust the HR range you are aiming for. As an example, you might be running a HM an will start with an aim to be in the middle of zone 4 (“tempo” pace) but 60 mins in you notice ZS is showing you are dipping into ‘vo2max’ quite a lot so you could dial back to the top of zone 3 to make sure you aren’t overcooking things. Obviously the same applies if you are more focused on power. In the same way, if you know you can sustain a zone 5 pace for about 20mins and ZS has indicated you’ve mostly stayed out of ‘vo2max’ for your race so far you know you could prob. push the last 15mins up a gear.

A Former User

@VoiGAS ZoneSense is essentially a representation of RPE. Traditional metrics will always respond faster since heart rate, pace, or power react before fatigue fully sets in. No special context is needed. That said, you’re absolutely right — the best metrics are the ones that make you feel good, grounded, and in sync with yourself.

VoiGAS

@far-blue Good ideas, thank you!

Brad_Olwin

@VoiGAS This looks much better. You have some great comments from @Ghost and @far-blue. I think ZS is best suited for longer efforts and racing as stated. Using for intervals is tough, they need to be longer intervals.

Mitch9

Yesterday I had a race and the ZoneSense data (not realtime) is not representative (mostly aerob green but pushed really hard). I think it is because I didn’t record the warm-up and started the watch at race start.

Similar experience?

Sergei Ladeishchikov

Yes, the experience of using ZS at the beginning of the race is interesting

Mitch9

But some wrote here that they use ZoneSense in races. How is this possible? And I don’t want to start the activity before warm-up!!!

Maryn

@Mitch9 I think that the word “warmup” in the case of Zone Sense does not refer to a gentle run, it’s just that the algorithm needs 10 minutes of running (any kind of running, as long as it is continuous and not short intervals) to start working properly. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Mattg576

@Maryn

@Brad said above that “ZS needs a solid easy aerobic warm up of 10 min.”

I’m interested myself as I have some races coming up that I want to use ZS on but know they will
have a banzai start…

Christoph13

@Mattg576 I have a race coming up myself and will simply start by feel and pace as always and 30 minutes or so into the race start looking at the Zonesense page.

One thing I am still not clear about myself where in the yellow zone I would ideally want to be for a well-paced half marathon.

The_77

@Christoph13 on this I did a 1/2 test last year, with a ten minute warm up including some strides - so not from the gun but was almost all orange, and my last 10ish race was all orange, no red. Not that I really checked during the race since it was traily and knotty underfoot.

Christoph13

@The_77 Thanks for that but without knowing how far below the threshold between Z4 and Z5 you stayed it is impossible to know the answer to my question.
It is clear that one would want to run a half marathon in the yellow zone but the tricky bit is what you should strive for on the Zonesense data page in real time.

This is a race last year that I did and felt that it worked out well but a) I only looked at the Zonesense data after the race and b) could I have pushed a little harder still (while making sure to not overdo it) by drawing realtime feedback from Zonesense? That is basically my question.
https://forum.suunto.com/post/154967

The_77

@Christoph13 it is worth noting, now that I remember, that I was sick leading up to this - hence these HR zones:

I might be no further help, sorry!

Brad_Olwin

@The_77 said in Suunto ZoneSense:

@Christoph13 it is worth noting, now that I remember, that I was sick leading up to this - hence these HR zones:

I might be no further help, sorry!

The Z4/5 interface in this example is set too low. You should not be able to maintain Z5 for 30 minutes!

Brad_Olwin

@Maryn said in Suunto ZoneSense:

@Mitch9 I think that the word “warmup” in the case of Zone Sense does not refer to a gentle run, it’s just that the algorithm needs 10 minutes of running (any kind of running, as long as it is continuous and not short intervals) to start working properly. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I will check on this but I believe it needs an aerobic HR.