Where zones come from and how to refine them

Intensity zones — by heart rate, speed, power and lactate — are stored in the metabolic profile. Time in zones, calories and macros of a workout are counted from them, and heart rate zones are also used to build the workout for your watch.

Where the profile is

Menu Account → Metabolism tab. A profile is set up per sport: it holds intensity zones, VO2max, thresholds, blood values and sweat composition. A new sport is added with the Add type button.

You can have several profiles. One is marked Default for its sport, and one is Global.

Where your starting zones come from

Your starting zones are calculated by formulas on the Zone Calculator step when you first sign in — see Getting started:

• heart rate zones — as percentages of your maximum heart rate;
• speed and power zones — from VO2max;
• lactate zones — from a common template.

This is a starting estimate: refine your zones once you have test results.

Zones don't update by themselves — neither from workouts nor over time. They change only when you edit them or apply a calculator.

How to refine your zones

In the Intensity Zones block, pick a metric: Heart Rate, Speed, Power, Lactate or Nutrition. A panel with tabs opens:

• Edit — zone values by hand. Choose a Source — Laboratory, Testing or Clock (Gadget) — and set the Date of measurement: the zones apply from this date. Don't know is there for every metric except heart rate and clears the zones of that metric.

• Calculator — zone calculation:

  • heart rate — from maximum or threshold heart rate;
  • speed — from maximum or threshold speed, or from a personal best: 5 km, 10 km or a ramp test;
  • power — from VO2max or from FTP;
  • lactate — from a template or from the lactate threshold.

  An applied calculation is saved with the Testing source and today's date.

• History — all values by date. You can delete a wrong value and undo the deletion.

You can enter a lactate test result in the VO2max calculator, on the Lactate + Speed and Lactate + Power tabs (for running and cycling), or in the lactate calculator from the lactate threshold.

Thresholds

Thresholds are separate cards, LT1/VT1 and LT2/VT2. Saving a threshold doesn't change your zones. To calculate zones from a threshold, use a calculator: from threshold heart rate, threshold speed, FTP or lactate threshold.

How many zones

Six zones are always stored. You can show 3, 5 or 6 — this changes only the view. How many zones to show in new workouts and in the weekly summary is set in Settings → Settings tab → Default number of zones.

Which zones a workout uses

A workout uses the profile for its sport: first the one marked Default, then any other profile for that sport, then the Global one, and without it — any. It takes the values that applied on the workout's date. If there were no values yet on that date, it takes the earliest ones.

The workout window shows which profile the workout uses: Metabolic profile → Change. There you can pick another profile and a date from its history, with a Current and New preview. After you save, the workout is recalculated right away.

Recalculate workouts after a change

Changing zones doesn't recalculate workouts by itself. You can recalculate:

• one workout — with the Recalculate button in its window;
• all workouts of a profile — in the profile menu on the Metabolism tab: Recalculate workouts of this profile. The recalculation runs in the background, and you see the progress on screen;
• workouts without a profile — Bind workouts without a profile in the same menu.

After a recalculation, each workout gets the zones that applied on its date: future workouts get the new ones, past workouts the previous ones. If the new zones have a Date of measurement in the past, they apply to workouts from that date — up to the next entry in the history, if there is one.

A workout is also recalculated when you save it: a planned workout always, a completed one if it hasn't been calculated yet or its profile has changed.

If there are no zones

If the profile has no zones for the metric needed, time in zones, calories and macros aren't counted. The workout window shows a hint — for example, "The metabolic profile has no heart rate zones — time in zones and calories are not counted. Fill in the zones and recalculate the workout." — and a Fill in button.

Without heart rate zones, a workout doesn't go to your watch, and the FIT file can't be downloaded: "Set up heart rate zones for this sport to download the FIT file."

For coaches

A coach can edit an athlete's zones and recalculate their workouts the same way as the athlete. If an athlete's workout has no zones, the Fill in button in the workout window opens the athlete's metabolic profile. Bind workouts without a profile works only in your own account.