Hello,
In Garmin I have five zones, with Zone 1 lower end at 130 BPM. I would like to setup intervals.icu to match this. However, it seems that it is mandatory in intervals.icu to have a zone with the lower end at 0 BPM. This means that Zone 2 in Garmin = Zone 3 in intervals.icu, which is not ideal, especially as the total time in combined HR zones doesn’t include Garmin Zone 5 (intervals.icu Zone 6).
How to fix this?
Here is how it looks on my end…
Also is there a way to make the HR percentages be based on hear rate reserve instead of maxHR?
First read this to understand what thelimitations are:
Thank you!
All zones are able to be changed to suit your own individual physiology. This means each zone is the same in all applications. All my applications have the same zone setup, and changes based on certain testing/modelled data.
That said, Garmin Connect doesn’t like me entering 158, and will either use 157 or 159.
@tennisninja, I don’t think you’re the first or the last person to ask this. Yes, 100%, it’s possible to make the respective HR zone configurations match, exactly as @Gerald showed. I briefly went through the same head-scratching as you, perceiving at first what seemed like a misalignment of the HR zones. We can blame Garmin’s UI which doesn’t make this as intuitive as it should be. If you look at Gerald’s screenshot of the Garmin UI, it helps to think of 114 as the end of Zone 1 rather than the start of Zone 2, etc.
I let Garmin auto-detect a new max HR and then I update Intervals if/when this happens. Post-ride, the HR zone distribution between Garmin and Intervals almost always matches perfectly.
I also keep my Power zones matching, but I do not let Garmin auto-detect a new FTP. I test independently and then update both platforms when necessary. Also, difference between how Garmin and Intervals treat the decimal watts between integers means that, especially if you’re riding for long periods hovering around the boundary between power zones, your watts distribution will never match perfectly between the two platforms.
To clarify, it’s not an issue getting the BPM of the different zones to match. The issue is with the naming of the zones, because Zone 1 in intervals.icu must start from 0 BPM, whereas Zone 1 in Garmin starts from something above 0 BPM (130 BPM in my case).
If it were possible to rename the zones in intervals.icu then this wouldn’t be a problem; I would simply rename Z1 to Z0, Z2 to Z1, etc.
That just shows the inconsistency by Garmin because Power Z1 does start at 0.
You could set the top of Garmin Z1 as the upper limit of Interval’s Z1.
Anyway, in Garmin Z1 is called Warm-up. 130bpm as a minimum for a zone called warm-up, looks a bit off.
Personally, I don’t care because I never look at Garmin stats, but I can understand that you sort of got used to that before using Intervals.
In my Garmin Z1 for power doesn’t start at zero.
I don’t really want to change my zones in Garmin. There are lots of things I don’t like about Garmin but until there is a mobile app that can fully replace Garmin Connect, I think I will continue to use it.
Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I just have to remember that zone 2 in intervals.icu is zone 1 in Garmin, etc.
