Body resources interpretation
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@BinoWorld-UK I use HRV4Training as my HRV reference. Body Resources are great, but HRV4Training works on a rolling average score. It’s extremely good.
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@BinoWorld-UK
Resources is effectively Garmin’s Body Battery - i.e. an indication of energy levels - so really not the same as Garmin’s training readiness.
I tend to use it more for level of intensity for today’s training:
if over 75 then I know I can do a super intense morning activity and will still be fine that night.
If over 50 I know I can do an intense activity and still be fine that night.
If under 50 I prefer not to do intense activities as I know that by night time I will be struggling - especially as if my BB is less than 50 in the morning it usually means something is going on - I am usually ill, injured, hungover etc - which all suggest I really should be going easier to give my body a chance to recover. -
@Jamie-BG Hi Jamie
You are spot on with your analysis, I also kept an eye on body resources from the minute I wake and throughout the day. My take on it is that anything over 70% upon waking is decent for training. Depending on the time of the day, sometimes I am around 30% by 3pm which is indicative that I haven’t got much left in the tank for a good session.
Sometimes I am at my desk all day and actually start to gain resources and remain very highly up until late afternoon. This is the time where I know, I am well recovered and basically have a high HRV.
Other times, even eating late at night can lead to a poor body resources score due to poor sleep quality.
I had Covid and Body resources was a 11% most day and never climbed up
So in a way Body resources can be a very good indicator if you listen to your body and make sense of the score and decide if it’s an easy training day or a hard one
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@BinoWorld-UK if you are serious about playing with HRV, choose HRV4Training. I can’t think of anything better and (more importantly) more reliable! Of course, this is just my opinion.
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@BinoWorld-UK I used a Fenix 7 Solar for some weeks and found Training Readiness completely useless.
Example: Had a Training Readiness Score of 56, did a 5k run and it dropped to 47 (which seems reasonable, since I trained). After resting on the couch for some hours it rose to 50 again (also ok) and then I went to sleep and in the morning I had a Score of 28 ??? After 7 hours of sleep my score dropped like I had just ran a halfmarathon? - telling me to relax. Body Battery rose by 70 points, but Fenix tracks my sleep wrong and sees it as not restorative, while an Oura 3 Ring at the same time gave me a good sleep tracking score. In fact my TR Score never made it over 60 even after 4 days if complete rest and 9h sleep every night…
And there are other things that bugged me (completely wrong race prediction times, GPS failed once miserably - midtrack misplacing my position by about 100m. If that happens in the mountains or the wilderness I would not be very happy. In the end for a 800€ watch this is just too much I disliked. I just leased it from Grover, so I could give it back.
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@ChrisA wow that is an eye opener! Thanks for sharing your experience with the F7
Were you wearing the F7 all day and to bed as things can slip if not work for couple of weeks solid.
I must say, I had a F6 and I never liked the design or the TFT screen hence why I am still with the S7 which has some limitation but great overall watch
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@BinoWorld-UK I wore it 24/7. I was looking for a long lasting watch (Solar) with big/clear display for my 82yr old father, which would have an “emergency button” and some kind of incident detection. I also tested the Instinct 2 In the end the Fenix 7 was too big so he went with the Instinct 2 and i had some time to test it
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I really like the Fenix 7’s looks and a lot of features are great, but, while all those new recovery metrics might work for some people, they don’t work for me. Actually I found that looking at my resting HR at night is an almost similar and more reliable indictor for my recovery. -
@ChrisA fact RHR is the most reliable way of knowing whether you are recovered, falling sick or stress out. Basics always work.
I was at my desk today and quick glance and my RHR, it was 53bpm and my body resources was also climbing up as I am typing emails. There you have it, you can’t beat simple data
Oh also I think Suunto stress tracking is stupidly accurate as some days I am mega stress out and hit 10 hours stress and other days same place (work) but relaxed and having a cheerful day and it’s below 3 hours stress for the entire days
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@BinoWorld-UK actually Suuntos Resources works better for me than Garmins Bodybattery. With BB I really have to sleep to raise the values in any way. The value it gives me after wakeup is interesting, but then it just falls until it hits a certain value at the end of the day, often giving me similar values, with no real information.
With Suunto Resources, sitting relaxed on the couch, reading or watching TV - actually raises resources and doing 30-60 minutes of meditation raises them significantly. So Suunto gives me feedback on how good relaxing works for me and that’s something I really like. Now if Suunto could only work out how to fix this very annoying bug, which lowers resources from 80% to 0% after a 30 min walk or stretch
(at least on the S5 and S9 series, not sure if that’s also on the S7 since its HR monitoring works differently) -
@ChrisA I think for bug solving FB assistance was requested. But solution was not found. If I am not mistaken someone mentioned it in previous posts about Resources.
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@dulko79 yes, I remember that I read this too, but I hoped, that somehow there could be a workaround where the app can recognise this sudden drop and calculate the real value and add it to the value it gets from the watch - or something like this? ( I am not a programmer / IT guy, so I don‘t know how hard that would be to do).
Actually Suunto sells watches with a feature they know it is not working correctly and if someone buys a Suunto for the first time and is looking to get information about his energy resources (and maybe this is an important reason for him to choose a Suunto e.g. over a Coros or Polar watch, which don’t have this feature) and it doesn’t work and he then finds out, that this is a known bug he might be loosing his trust in the brand (forever)
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@ChrisA I can confirm my S7 does not have sudden resources drops and I am very conscious of how it works. Mine seem to work a treat.
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@ChrisA am currently no seeing what you see on the Epix.
Did you go into the training readiness breakdown to see what the cause may have been?
Last couple of days have just been falling outside of optimal into low, due to my stress history. Think I have slightly over trained and am now seeing the impact for this. RHR is slightly up, sleep is still good, stress is struggling (during day and during sleep - where I normally have excellent, only fair at moment as normally clear and am now getting points of stress during sleep). Unfortunately no HRV status yet (getting close) but am seeing similar points and am getting highest higher reads than before this started a couple of days ago. My acute load is sitting in optimal but is showing an very steady and high increase since the update; while load focus for high and low is over the optimal range, and looking at exercise loads am pushing it. I am pretty sure this is all pointing to me stressing out my body and potentially over training - haven’t yet gone for a run so no training status (as this really overloads my body) - so will give it a while an maybe ease off an see how that impacts the training readiness and if that resolves my stress issue. -
@Jamie-BG I don’t think, that Garmins Training assessment is completely wrong, but the problem for me is that Garmin is not tracking my sleep correctly and this „kills“ Training Readiness most of the times for me. All other values are in a good range (Load, HRV, Recovery …).
Garmin often sees me awake for hours, when I am soundly sleeping and often tracks only some minutes of deep sleep. If I would sleep like this, I would be in a very problematic physical condition. I tested this with many devices again and again (wearing the Fenix 7 and other new Garmin devices together with an Oura ring, a Polar Vantage, Suuntos and a Amazfit Watch (sometimes wearing four devices, one on my ankle ) and they all showed me sleeping, when Garmin sees me awake. I found Oura for me to be most consistent with how I feel that I slept and correlates best with sleep and awake times.
