Interesting article by Alex Hutchinson: Your Watch Doesn’t Know How Much Recovery You Need with the tagline The algorithms used to estimate your training load have some fundamental flaws, scientists say
At least for me, this resonates as I’ve done rides and my Garmin will give me a recovery of 70+ hours
I never really pay attention to the recovery times that my Garmin 530 suggest. I am however, very impressed by the “body battery” feature of my Vívoactive 4 and how well it correlates to how I’m actually feeling.
Are you actively recording what the “body battery” says so you can go back and check how well (or not) it correlates with actual performance over time?
I’m not really comparing it to my cycling performance, more at how I feel in general.
IMO if you’re counting on Whoop, Oura, or Garmin to tell you when and how much to recover, you’re doing it wrong. (Oura/HRV4T user here) HRV is good for longer term (weeks not days) trends and keeping tabs on sleep is important, but trusting a random algorithm to tell you what to do is less than optimal, again IMO.
As a person watching this all from a distance, I think there is potential here but like most other tools and metrics in our area, needs to be taken with grain of salt. Probably not an absolute do/don’t type of thing as much as another consideration along with real RPE and general status (physical & mental).
How it all works on a separate tool basis is interesting on it’s own. Then considering whatever TR is cooking up with the Red Light / Green Light tool and how that might integrate with these tools is more so. After having my own swing from minimal data to maximal and back down several steps, I think there is room for these items. But I sure take all them into a wider frame when looking at my training and how I may or may not modify my daily plans.
Per @dcrainmaker reviews/articles, the “recovery” is to do with the next hard session, rather than just when you’ll feel recovered.
I’ve found it pretty interesting so far, but obviously you have to pay attention to your body.
I think the potential is there for devices to pick up long term trends, but not how you will perform on any given day. I think the micro - performance on a specific day - is impacted by factors (mood, motivation, etc.) that a device just won’t be able to get.
In case anyone is looking for a place to log so you can look back at your performance versus all this information, you can do this in Intervals.icu. I get up in the morning and check all my Garmin data and then record it, along with things like motivation, fatigue, stress, and hydration in Intervals.icu.
I’ve been using free training peaks ( cancelled paid about time tr calendar came out) to track my Monday morning weight/bodyfat/water. I forget if the free version lets you add other stuff in metrics. I know it was logging hrv from an app I used to use before changing phones. If not I guess recording that stuff might be a reason to try intervals finally. Keep forgetting to sit down and actually lack at it more in depth.
One nice feature of TrainingPeaks is you can easily download annual archives of fitness data.
The free version of TrainingPeaks does allow you to record a plethora of metrics.
Yeah, the thing I like about Body Battery is that it doesn’t really try to quantify Training Load (which is the focus of the above article) and infer some predicted recovery time, but rather looks at how well you are ACTUALLY recovering (as measured by HRV stress).
I mean if “recovery” means keep it chill til your next workout in “x” hours I guess it could be ok but if it means wait that long til your next ride you’ll never get better.
Maybe you could have a listen to what Garmin means by this?
Unfortunately the author of the article and his friends haven’t.
————
The subject matter though is well covered in That Triathlon Show if you want a clearer understanding from the author Passfield himself of why TSS and every load metric isn’t accurate 
I listened myself this morning, I have to admit it didn’t really grab me and I had no new takeaways really.
i agree, but I love m Whoop, it has truly improved my riding and my training like nothing else, not because it tells me how much I need to recover, but because it has allowed me to measure my recovery, and see what affects it (with the help of the questionare), Aged 52, I now trainer a lot harder than before, have a all time high FTP, but I do have a extra recovery day in there, some weeks, not all. I no longer follow TR plans because they were holding me back resting on days where I had a good amount of recovery
Like I’ve said before these are just tools to help you / give you better insight, but like a Hammer is a tool, it’s rubbish at sanding a surface, but that doesn’t make it a rubbish tool
But I am Type 1 diabetic, with Asthma and other, so I never feel wonderful, which could be some of it for me
I think this all depends on how well in tune you are with how recovered you are. I monitor HRV / resting HR every morning but the ultimate arbiter is still “How do I feel?”
I get the same from my Oura/HRV4T combination. I just ignore the “Readiness Score” because it’s utterly meaningless to me. Trends are key.
Exactly. HRV, to me, can give a good indication of when something else is up. I’ve seen this personally in my data. I felt fine, but external stressors drove my HRV down. The external stress from work/family/impending illness is one of those things that a lot of us aren’t sensitive enough to, and HRV can be a good tool (again, over the course of time, not necessarily day-to-day) to raise our awareness of that.
