My Garmin Training status is on a Productive Streak. How and Why?

Providing that your zones and workout data are correct, Garmin’s Training Status is a good overall indicator of progression across recent weeks or months.

More: Garmin Training Status – Detailed Explainer

Along with Load Focus, I periodically check my Training Status as a sense check to whichever plan I follow. A great way to do that is to look at it quickly when viewing your Morning Report before even getting out of bed, giving you time to consider if you need to tweak today’s training subconsciously.

My Data

I started following a plan in January this year but have annoyingly inflamed a minor but chronic running injury, which has led to me cancelling my A race to avoid the expense and chance of having to pull out. I’ve set my sights on a different but ‘serious’ domestic race to compensate. It’s a shorter race, so I need to do quite a bit of intense training (which I can’t do on the run side), so I’m combining proper bike training with endurance maintenance run training (including hills) and maxing out the gym at least 3 times a week to get super-strong. I don’t usually like the gym and have perhaps neglected it recently.

My Training (Status)

I’m doing lower volumes of running and cycling than usual – but I’m doing the latter more intensely with a good mix of VO2, threshold and short sprints. The big difference is three times the amount of gym work.

With the “minor problem” that I probably won’t be able to run fast without breaking on race day, the strategy seems to be going well. I feel good, and Garmin agrees – even my cycling VO2max has bumped up…sadly, so has my running VO2max (according to Garmin), which is incorrect.

What I did wrong

In reality, I should have started the more extensive gym work in the fall/autumn of last year, and I probably also should have started increasing my volume at the start of the plan more conservatively than I did. That way, I probably wouldn’t have inflamed the injury.

It’s interesting, though perhaps not unexpected, that doing more gym work helps. Too often, triathletes neglect the gym for fear of missing valuable kilometres of swimming, biking and running. Except if you get injured, you miss a LOT of kilometres of swimming, biking and running.