ZoneSense
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Anyone else’s Zonesense data not fit on the screen in the App (in the image below in red box) ?
Not duplicating posts but got told off for posting same question in the main Zonesense thread
@GiPFELKiND I saw your reply there also but didn’t comment so as not to enrage the mods further (although i know that doesn’t bother you as I see you do it often
).iPhone12
IOS Version 17.7
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Is there any info on the kinds of runs zoneSense can best make use of to calibrate? There’s info one the kinds or runs it doesn’t work well with - short intervals, longer runs etc. but I really don’t like wearing an HR strap so I’m likely to only wear it on specific runs I know zoneSense will be able to use to advise on my LT. So it would be good to know which runs
My initial guess would be longer intervals (such as 3mins or 5mins with 1min recovery) or possibly threshold / tempo runs but these are entirely guesswork so anyone have any more specific info?
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Should I go to the doctor?
ZS calculated an LT like my “normal” AT during a ski touring activity
Suunto Spartan Ultra (since 2016) FW: 2.8.24 (retired)
Suunto Vertical all black
Wife : S9PP
SA: Always the latest beta :)
Android 13, Galaxy S205G -
@Mff73 not you, ZS algorithm might need to, it’s software right, can’t be bug free
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@Mff73 Or rather, due to cumulative fatigue or whatever the reason, you reached anaerobic threshold much sooner than in well rested state?
9PP since 09-2025.
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@jussim i didnt got red zone while doing intervalls… Heart rate Zone 5 but zone sense says GREEN ??? Whats going on here?
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@GiPFELKiND as far as I understand it, reacting on short intervalls is NOT what Zonesense is capable of and made for. It’s more suitable for longer „phases“.
Actually I would interpret it that way, that your interval workout was deemed aerobic as a whole and that you could increase intensity, if you want. Zonesense is not about HR measurement, Suunto says, but about Heart measurement, measuring the stress of the heart. And I think it makes sense, seeing that after your short intervals Zonesene tracks you moving into higher aerobic states.
There is a pretty good youtube video from Suunto, describing this.
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@Mff73 I suspect what this is saying is that your heart doesn’t like it much when you run up and down mountains
The time you were at the top and when you were on the flat bit near the end it was much happier -
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Actually I would interpret it that way, that your interval workout was deemed aerobic as a whole and that you could increase intensity, if you want. Zonesense is not about HR measurement, Suunto says, but about Heart measurement, measuring the stress of the heart. And I think it makes sense, seeing that after your short intervals Zonesene tracks you moving into higher aerobic states.
This is by far the easiest to digest explanation of the behavior I have seen. This makes perfect sense.
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No it’s my turn to have questions about ZoneSense. Today I did a run that felt fairly easy and so my ZoneSense stayed mostly green and the graph in the App agrees with that:
If we look at the detected thresholds ZoneSense thought it is a bit lower today - I can live with that…
No second threshold - it was an easy run.
So far so good. If we take in consideration that I set my LT1 to 152 and ZoneSense even lowered that to 148, I wonder why ZoneSense agreed with easy, when I look at my real heart rate recordings:
It gives me 55% of the time above 152, so above 148…
If the data makes sense somehow, possibly the presentation in the app is not reflecting that?
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@2b2bff You said it felt fairly easy and the ZS reflected that. I find ZS matches my RPE very well.
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@Brad_Olwin said in ZoneSense:
You said it felt fairly easy and the ZS reflected that. I find ZS matches my RPE very well.
yeah I get that, but what about that heart rate discrepancy?
Suunto Race S
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@2b2bff Why is there a HR discrepancy? ZS is reporting effort in real time. HR Zones are set either from lab or field test and are good only on the hour/day you test. That is the power of ZS. HR zones will change depending on stress, sleep, caffeine, training,fatigue,etc
This is the reason to use ZS! It is not a tool to find HR zones but instead a tool to measure real time effort. I have not had enough time in VO2M to assess that transition but I know when I cross my LT as my breathing changes and ZS is showing that transition well.
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what about that heart rate discrepancy?
Your “Measured” “Aerobic threshold” of 148 bpm for that day is just a bone thrown to our obsession with exactitude. I don’t know if it is an average for the whole exercise, or the very first instance of measurement (observe we don’t get the number on our watches), but it is supposed to detect (I’ve forgotten the used terminology) when our HRV-system goes: ‘Hmmm… This doesn’t look like rest anymore’ [i.e. LT1]. Overall, the Heart Rate can be seen as living its own life - think about Pulse Drift for example - while HRV and its associated hormones and chemicals live another. The two measurements can at times be very decoupled.
Let me offer a recent exercise of mine which illustrates the decoupling in stark detail. I’m not used to running much above easy LT1 sessions, so the slightly below LT2 Pace-based 8x3 minutes with 1 minute jogging rests was an ordeal. In fact, I had to cut it short at 7 times because I was completely knackered; at such an extent that I had to start walking as the Cool Down instead of doing a normal running end. The “Measured” “Aerobic threshold” for the day was 145 (lab-measured some years ago as 148) and the first screenshot below is just to show, with a marker, where HR is in step with that threshold at the beginning. 3 minute intervals are not enough for ZS to shine, but it shows the exhausting trend quite accurately. There’s a HR dropout of ca 1 minute at about minute 22 - hence the flat lines in both graphs:
The next two screenshots have the marker at almost the same time (hard to manoeuvre with a finger) with the colourised ZS and HR versions of the graphs. At that time I’m walking in the “Light aerobic” HR Zone with 106 bpm, but as ZS shows well and truly Anaerobic. I was exhausted:
In this instance there really is no sense in talking about an “Aerobic threshold” of 145 bpm
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@Brad_Olwin That’s what I meant with: If the data is okay, maybe the visual representation is not optimal.
After some reasoning: There is no sense in having one HR pinpoint as LT1 if LT1 shifts throughout the workout. So the presentation of the measurement as one number it not reflecting the reality.Suunto Race S
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@2b2bff That is why there are 3 zones, green aerobic, yellow mixed aerobic/anaerobic and red anaerobic. No need to fixate on a single HR number. The number you get is the predicted for THAT workout.
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@2b2bff I agree with the presentation as being suboptimal, but how to change it? On the one hand there is the oldish training philosophy with rather static HR Zones (3, 5, 7, 9 or whatever, depending on the specific seller of books and methods), on the other there is some newer attempts of a more dynamic view, like ZS, where HR in itself plays a less prominent role.
In the example you provided you obviously had a very good day, where the HR (post 20 some minutes) could average about 155 bpm without the Nervous System/Brain starting to pump too much Lactate into the blood stream. In my example exercise, which was designed to reach and keep Lactate at about 3 mmol/l in the main segment, the Nervous System/Brain put its foot of protection down at the end by forcing me to quit and walk, and at the same time refusing to clear Lactate even with a low HR.
How can these fluid situations be grafted unto a list of HR Zones and Thresholds? Perhaps they shouldn’t… Perhaps anything Zone Sense should be kept as a separate page with more elaborate explanations.
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@Brad_Olwin if the number is predicted for THAT workout - and it keeps consitent throughout the workout, so why have I been below LT1 most of the time according to ZoneSense and at the same time I have been in Zone 3 - above LT1 - according to the HR measurement. Even though the ZoneSense LT1 is below what I configured as the starting HR of my Zone 3?
That was the whole point of my question…@Inge-Nallsson I honestly don’t know. Possibly Suunto should take out that screen that you get when touching (i) alltogether. The two graphs make sense to me. That other screen left me clueless…
