Manage your stress levels with the Garmin Vívoactive 3
Triathletes are infamously poor at discerning the subtle differences between “really tired” and “too tired." Here's a watch that can help you train smarter.
The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is a watch that fits comfortably with your healthy active lifestyle. As a triathlete, you’re always on the go – from the pool to work, to lunch runs, then back home and on the trainer. Not to mention the time commitments to family and friends. With all that’s going on, it helps to have a watch that keeps up with you.
Related: Review: Garmin Vector 3 pedals
With the Vivoactive 3, there are 15 activity profiles to choose from, including indoor settings that track your treadmill runs, trainer sessions and swims in the pool. With Bluetooth connection to Garmin’s Connect app, you’re able to customize your favourite activity profiles and upload data to Garmin. Plus, with easy pairing to your cellphone, you can receive notifications from your phone – email, text and calling.
The feature that deserves a lot more attention, especially from triathletes, is its stress level monitor. By measuring Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), training load and sleep/recovery, the Garmin Vivoactive 3 calculates your VO2 max, fitness age and a stress rating. With the Connect app, you’re able to track these values over the course of weeks and months.
Related: What is Heart Rate Variability?
Endurance athletes, especially masters of the three-sport discipline, are infamously poor at discerning the subtle differences between “really tired” and “too tired.” Knowing when you need to pull back on your training or prioritize a recovery session can be a huge advantage because it allows you to accumulate more training in the long term. That’s why researchers and coaches have begun to track and monitor HRV (stress). This takes the guesswork out of, “a hard bike session on smashed legs” or “recovery/sleep.”
While most of Garmin’s sport-specific watches and computers have a battery life of 15-20 hours, which is ideal for multisport events, the Vivoactive 3 has a battery that lasts seven days. If you happen to do an activity that lasts 13 hours in GPS mode, the Vivoacitive 3 has you covered.
Related: Garmin Edge 130: The perfect head unit for triathletes
Starting from $320, the Garmin Vivoactive 3 is a great all-purpose watch that doesn’t make a huge dent in your wallet. Plus, if you’re already a user of Garmin products, this addition complements your Forerunner, Fenix or Edge nicely.
