aerobic decoupling

Hi,

I’ve always done the math to calculate it with my AW… and I’ve just discovered that there’s a S+ that does the boring calculation for me and I’ve also it in real time. Oh boys…

Brad_Olwin

@ultravox The realtime is particularly helpful for estimating your Aerobic Threshold as you can dial up or down the pace to see what happens in the display. In addition, I use this on long runs with power hiking where I am attempting to avoid going too hard. I like this one a lot!

@Brad_Olwin said in aerobic decoupling:

@ultravox I use this on long runs with power hiking where I am attempting to avoid going too hard

logger

I’ve been playing around with the aerobic decoupling S+ app, and while I’m not a professional athlete by any means, it seems like it would still be useful as a kind of fitness test. However, I don’t really understand the data I’m getting: I just came back from a 25km run with a fairly steady pace and HR, and the decoupling app showed less than 5% for almost the entire run, as confirmed also by the graphs in the phone app after the run. But then in the activity overview grid, it shows a 7.1% “aerobic decoupling decouple value”, so I’m trying to understand how to make sense of the two together. That is, where does that 7.1% come from? It’s definitely not the average value for the entire run, and it doesn’t seem to be the highest value recorded either. And even if it’s the highest value, then what is the use of that? There’s a set of steep stairs near my house that I almost always run up at the end of a run, and naturally the value goes up there because of the decrease in pace and increase in HR, but surely those 30 seconds cannot be a useful metric? I’m including a screenshot of today’s run below with pace, HR, and decoupling shown—can anyone help me make sense of this? I use an HR strap. Thanks!

Francesco Pagano

@bobson I’m not a pro either, but I can imagine that this app is not perfectly developed yet, especially with the data that SA displays after running an activity with it. I reported something similar about the Running Economy app, some fields seem to be duplicates although showing different values. I’d be more curious to hear from the pro’s how they make use of it during the activity.
If you want to use Aerobic Decoupling as an indicator of your form, I can suggest analysing it with intervals.icu that allows you also to trim some of the first and last part of an activity; that might be useful for you if you want to exclude, for example, the steps at the end of your run.

lexterm77

@logger

Pro, no pro, beginner, metrics are useful if input is valid. When you have technical terrain, windy conditions, etc, watch will try to filter data to get accurate altitude via gps and baro sensor. Those errors are visible in your graph as decoupling values. If you want to do a test I suggest doing it on a flat terrain without too much windy conditions and if your altitude profile is flat on a watch and in reality you can assume test is valid. Other factors include kinematics that are different when you climb stairs vs run on flat and surface, surface also influences your power but power calculation cannot account for it. Thats why you try to keep all constant (flat terrain, same surface, no wind gusts or large air pressure changes).

App also does not rely on NGP but pace or power, and power for ascending does not have same efficiency as power for flat running, so you will see decoupling. Grade on which you are climbing have
Different efficiency factors also.

If you have a long steady climb, then you could use it as there aren’t many variations while ascending.

For biking it is same, power/hr does depend if you are pedaling off seat or on seat and at what cadence

Producing 200W at 60 cadence will have different efficiency than producing 200W at 90.

Good part about bike decoupling is that you can ignore altitude errors and your output is power meter load cell.
But when you bike and coast you decoupled your power while your heart is still beating fast, and lo and behold your decoupling values are not correct.

@Brad_Olwin I use it a lot too, but I miss the ability to see other metrics, e.g., pace/power, at the same time and once the activity is over set Z1 and Z2 accordingly if decoupling is in between 3.5-5%

@A-Former-User said in aerobic decoupling:

I miss the ability to see other metrics, e.g., pace/power, at the same time and once the activity is over set Z1 and Z2 accordingly if decoupling is in between 3.5-5%

I’m voting for this too!