Thanks for this explanation - that makes total sense. You’re right, there’s a difference between 1RM and lifting to failure. But I have a question - if you get to the point where you lose form, is that failure, from your definition?
It s a bit crazy but I’ve been thinking about this. The focus strength and HIIT gets for the aging I might swap endurance for 400m track as I turn 50! Its mostly lifting and short runs…
This may sound harsh, but can you get a strength coach to talk about it? I think @Jonathan has mentioned CycleStrength and/or Dialed Health in the past, for example. Or perhaps one of the authors of the meta-regression you seem to rely on, Zac Robinson or Michael Zourdos? They both have a history of podcast participation (and hosting). I bet they would have a lot of insight not just in the very nuanced details but also at the high level, with simple takeaways.
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I agree with your changes because, as we get older, our strength will never be the same as when we were young due to decreased testosterone production. However, resistance training relies more on heart and breathing, and training your endurance has more practical benefits when you are older than strength training, which can even cause injuries. So, good choice overall
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It would be awesome to get Art O’Connor on the podcast.
It’s not an either/or choice, do both. One of the best things you can do to slow the effects of aging is to build and maintain muscle mass, and strength training is the best way to do that. Strength training done properly is more likely to prevent injuries than cause them.
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Hi Nick,
ah yes indeed. I enter those manually into Strava.
And also indeed: those would have very little to no information on stress or strain on me other than the simple fact that there happened an activity which the athlete themselves classified as strength workout.
Which - to be honest, would be about the same as when the activity came from a device which would probably only add heart rate (if at all) as a very not meaningful idea about the strain, too.
So both would be at the same time nice to at least just see and acknowledge inside the Trainerroad realm and equally of no use w/o some additionally entered info. Which of course is the topic of this Thread.
Catch 22, I’d say. But thank you for the clarification on the aspect why my activities doesn’t get imported in the first place. 
On expanding the topic: I could imagine I would be happy with a sort of fuzzy rating of say 3 or 4 (very broadly defined) strain levels I could assign to a strength session. And maybe also tweak to myself. Say, not leg-taxing but adding a little to my weeks calorie need and to be watched for weekly body recovery capability over somewhat, very and extremely taxing (the latter I’d probably never use, but that’s just me).
This would give the user (i.e. me) an idea and overview over weekly load and could aid your AI a little. In the end and in it’s current state I personally neither use TR calendar for overview and analysis nor rely on workout levels or your AI. Neither of both is useful for me in it’s current form and capabilities. But thats no call to action from my side to improve on your end. I just state it how it is and your future developments may or may not get nearer to what I’d want and would see added value in.
I won’t say that you’re wrong, but the fact that strength training prevents injuries is true if you do it when you’re physically more capable. However, if you only start it when you’re older, it’s more of a risk than a benefit. I mean, sure, if you do it with caution and small weights, there won’t be anything wrong, but I still believe cardio is better for older people
Strength training is like the old adage about planting a tree - the best time to start it was 20 years ago, the second best time is now! There is no age at which you can’t safely start some level of strength training with the right help, and there’s a ton of help available.
Again, it’s not a choice, you can make a case for either being “better” but doing so is missing the point which is that if you want to increase your chances of staying active and healthy as you age you should do both.
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Not to beat a dead horse but one of the main reasons to lift when you’re older is age related muscle loss ( sarcopenia), which comes with better joint health and mobility.
Cycling won’t help you with that and strength training will. I’m not saying you need to be a power lifter but if you want to be an overall healthy human you should do both.
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My mother started weight lifting earlier this year, has a coach. She’s 81.
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Is there any reason why my strength sessions keep importing as “other” I’ve changed the activity type in garmin connect to strength training and weight training in strava
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Let me find out and I’ll get back to you
Update:
Changing an activity type in Garmin will have no affect in TR. Unfortunately we do not have a webhook setup available with Garmin to receive those changes.
If you explicitly change the activity type in Strava to Weight Training, we should receive the change request.
Additionally, if you are able to record the activity on your Garmin device as weight/strength training ahead of time, everything should sync as expected.
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Good evening Trainer Road Team,
Something to take into consideration would be more specificity with the Upper and Lower categories. “Upper Body Compound, Upper Body Isolation, Lower Body Compound, Lower Body Isolation, Full Body, Core” would be the categories I would recommend.
As we all know there’s a VAST difference in systemic fatigue between squats and leg extensions, bench press and triceps pushdowns etc, you get the point. Not sure what sort of algorithm you’re currently working off of but I don’t think we could begin to get accurate feedback on fatigue without taking that variable into consideration.
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This is to complicated for the average Jo. Sets to failure ? , manual capture, I tried it , to cumbersome.
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So my device doesn’t have a strength training activity so I record it as a cardio workout then change type once it has synced in both garmin connect and strava but it doesn’t seem to update in TR
If we need to go to failure do we need to do it every set? Example would we bench fail at 12 reps then next set fail at 8 then next fail at 5 we would log 3 upper bodies?
Let’s try only connecting Strava to TR in the Activity Sync settings. The Garmin file may be making it to TR first and leaving the Strava file out as a duplicate and thus why it’s not showing as such.
Would it be possible to keep the upper/lower/whole body sets defined in scheduled TR strength workouts when associated to recorded Garmin workouts?
I record my strength training as free, ie sets and reps but no exercises, and when these are pulled to TR and automatically associated with the scheduled workout, the planned sets are ignored.
Ok I have disconnected the garmin sync, will see what happens next sync
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