TSS (hr) different for imported activities

Matěj Novotný

short version:
I love TSS charts and Suunto App. TSS (hr) is way lower for activities recorded by Race S compared to activities imported from either Garmin or Polar. Can I do something about that?

long version:
I am Suunto fan for long time, I still own working ~10 years-old Ambit 3 sport watches. I am doing different sports (rock climbing, skitouring, running, hiking, etc.) and I like to use TSS charts to track my overal activity load. I like Suunto App for these TSS charts, for it’s great UI/UX, I use it as my activity diary including photos for my activities, I have there my old activities imported from Movescount. I wanted some better watches few years ago, mainly “aerobic GPS” activities. Suunto 9 Peak pro was the best offering from Suunto of that time so I ended with Garmin Fenix 7s. Watches are ugly but works well, Garmin Connect is horrible, doesn’t show TSS charts and doesn’t work offline. I have found iPhone app called RunGap which can read activities from Garmin and write them to Suunto. Some time later, I started measuring HR also for my rock climbing, I ended using Polar Verity Sense and it’s memory for it’s convenience. I also use RunGap to sync from Polar to Suunto. Recently I started playing with Suunto Race S as I would like to get rid of my ugly Garmins. I also had to mention that I use chest strap for aerobic activities, not unreliable optical HR, I like idea of ZoneSense. Optical is fine for rock climbing for me.

So my current setup is:

Garmin Fenix 7s (aerobic activities) -> Garmin Connect -> RunGap -> Suunto App
Polar Verity Sense (rock climbing) -> Polar Flow -> RunGap -> Suunto App
Suunto Race S (testing for aerobic) -> Suunto App

The issue which I have is that I will get 2x smaller TSS (hr) for same activity measured by Race S (or Ambit 3) compared to same activity measured by Fenix 7 or Verity Sense and imported. That is making my TSS charts completely useless. I have same maxHR and almost same HR zones on both watches. I can get rid of Garmin and switch to Suunto for my aerobic activities, but I would be difficult to avoid Polar as it is very inconvenient to use watches while climbing. And even if I will be able to switch completely to Sunnto, I will have huge jump in my TSS charts which I don’t like.
Is there some solution? Maybe TrainingPeaks, but the membership is expensive, and I don’t know if I would like their iphone app.

Mff73

@Matěj-Novotný
short answer : for imported activities, TSS is following “default” HR zones, and not user (per suunto watch) own zones -> thus TSS is different.
You can’t do anything else voting for some posts in this forum to ask Suunto manage such topic. ‍️

Matěj Novotný

@Mff73
Do you mean default which is similar for all users? Because, I have my max HR and resting HR set to same values both in the app and on watches.
Do you know where I can vote for such fix?

Likarnik

@Matěj-Novotný yeah, I have same issue, I set TSS manualy

Matěj Novotný

@Likarnik But how to calculate or estimate it? Do you use some coefficient which you calculated by comparing different measurements of same activity?
I can imagine doing that because my rock climbing sessions especially in gym had vary similar HR pattern and only difference is that when I climb overhangs I have higher peaks compared to climbing slabs. So coefficient * TSS should give good enough results. I can record few sessions with both Polar and Suunto to calculate the coefficient.

Likarnik

@Matěj-Novotný I sync all my data to intervals.icu as it is better tool for analysing activites, loging gear usage, seting zones and so on. So I import activity to SA, which is then synced to intervals.icu where TSS (Load) is calculated and then I set maunal TSS back in SA.