Short answer
No. The Forerunner 165 does not include Training Readiness, and it does not include Training Status either. Garmin brought both down to its cheaper watches with the Forerunner 70 and 170, released in May 2026, and they are on the 265, 570, 955, 965, 970 and Fenix-class watches. The older Forerunner 255 has Training Status but not Training Readiness. The 165 does have HRV Status, Body Battery, sleep score, recovery time, Training Effect, daily suggested workouts and the Morning Report. Those are the inputs Training Readiness is built from, so you can read your readiness directly from them: HRV Status for the week’s trend, the morning Body Battery for last night, recovery time for the last hard session. What the 165 — and every Garmin — cannot tell you is why any of them moved.
Updated 6 November 2026: corrected the watch list: the Forerunner 255 has Training Status but not Training Readiness. Garmin’s Forerunner 70 and 170, released in May 2026, include both; the 165 still has neither.
The Forerunner 165 is the watch Garmin sells to people who want good GPS, good battery and a fair price without the full Fenix menu. It gets a lot of the recovery features, and the search results suggest a lot of owners are looking for the one it does not. Since May 2026 it is also the odd one out: its newer sibling, the Forerunner 170, has Training Readiness built in.
What the 165 has and lacks
| Feature | Forerunner 165 | Forerunner 170 (2026) | Forerunner 265 / 965 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Training Readiness | No | Yes | Yes |
| Training Status | No | Yes | Yes |
| HRV Status | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Body Battery | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sleep score and Morning Report | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Recovery time and Training Effect | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Daily suggested workouts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| VO2 max estimate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Feature lists change with firmware, so check Garmin’s page for your exact model. For years the pattern held: the composite scores were the upgrade and the inputs were not. The 70 and 170 broke it by putting Training Readiness and Training Status on Garmin’s cheaper watches, which leaves the 165 as the current-range watch without them.
The thing you are not missing
Training Readiness is a blend of six inputs: last night’s sleep, recovery time, HRV status, acute load, sleep history and stress history. Four of those are HRV or derived from it, and the 165 measures all of them. What you are missing is Garmin’s weighting of them into one number and a label — and that weighting has no independent validation. You are missing the summary, not the information.
The 165 gives you the ingredients. The 265 gives you the ingredients and a recipe nobody has tested.
How to read readiness on a 165
Week: HRV Status
This is the best metric on any Garmin, and the 165 has it. Balanced means train as planned; Unbalanced means find out what changed; Low means easy only. HRV Status explained has the four categories and their causes.
Last night: morning Body Battery
The value you wake to is a clean read of sleep and yesterday’s recovery. Above 70 on a Balanced week is as green as any readiness score gets. Body Battery for runners covers when it misleads.
Last session: recovery time
If the watch still shows 30 hours of recovery from Tuesday’s intervals, that is the acute-load component. It is conservative; use it as a prompt, not a rule.
Then ask why
None of the three tells you whether a low read came from a hot run, two glasses of wine, a late meal or a heavy session. That is the part worth knowing, and it is the part no Garmin provides.
Should you upgrade for it?
If you already own a 165, not for Training Readiness alone. It has the physiology, and a score built on the same inputs is a convenience rather than new information. If you are buying new, the answer has changed: the Forerunner 170 includes Training Readiness and Training Status at the 165’s level of the range, and the Forerunner 70 brings them in below it, so there is no longer a reason to choose a 165 for its recovery features. For maps, a brighter screen, longer battery or multi-band GPS, the 265 and 965 are still the step up. Spend the money on a chest strap for key sessions; it will improve every estimate the watch makes more than a new watch would.
Kovr gives a Forerunner 165 the readiness read Garmin left out — with the why.
Kovr reads your 165’s workouts, sleep, heart rate and active energy through Apple Health, asks for HRV once each morning, and adds what no watch has: your food, your drinks and the temperature and dew point you ran in. One colour every morning, and a sentence that says what moved it.
Download Kovr on the App StoreFree with a 14-day trial · Garmin, Apple Watch & Oura
Sources cited
- Firstbeat Technologies (2014). Stress and Recovery Analysis Method Based on 24-hour Heart Rate Variability (white paper). Firstbeat Technologies Ltd — the HRV-based models behind Body Battery, stress and recovery time
- Plews, D.J., Laursen, P.B., Stanley, J., Kilding, A.E. & Buchheit, M. (2013). Training adaptation and heart rate variability in elite endurance athletes: opening the door to effective monitoring. Sports Medicine — why the seven-day HRV average is the metric to read
- Miller, D.J., Sargent, C. & Roach, G.D. (2022). A validation of six wearable devices for estimating sleep, heart rate and heart rate variability in healthy adults. Sensors — overnight HRV accuracy of wrist wearables including Garmin
Frequently asked questions
Does the Forerunner 165 have Training Status?
No. The Forerunner 165 has neither Training Status nor Training Readiness. It does have HRV Status, Body Battery, sleep score, recovery time and a VO2 max estimate.
Does the Garmin Forerunner 165 have Training Readiness?
No. The Forerunner 165 does not include Training Readiness or Training Status. Both are on the newer Forerunner 70 and 170, released in May 2026, and on the 265, 570, 955, 965, 970 and Fenix-class watches. The Forerunner 255 has Training Status but not Training Readiness.
Does the Forerunner 165 have HRV Status?
Yes. The 165 tracks overnight HRV and reports HRV Status — Balanced, Unbalanced, Low or Poor — against a personal baseline, which is the most useful recovery metric on any Garmin.
What does the Forerunner 165 have instead of Training Readiness?
HRV Status, Body Battery, sleep score, recovery time, Training Effect, daily suggested workouts and the Morning Report. Those are the inputs Training Readiness is built from, so you can read readiness directly: HRV Status for the week, morning Body Battery for last night, recovery time for the last hard session.
Should I upgrade from the 165 to the 265 for Training Readiness?
Not for that alone. Training Readiness is a weighting of inputs the 165 already measures, and the weighting has no independent validation. If you are choosing a new watch anyway, the Forerunner 170 now includes it without stepping up to the 265. For better recovery data from the watch you own, a chest strap improves every estimate more than a new watch would.
Will Garmin add Training Readiness to the Forerunner 165 in an update?
Garmin has not added Training Readiness to the 165 by firmware. Instead it released the Forerunner 70 and 170 in May 2026 with Training Readiness and Training Status built in. Check Garmin’s feature list for your model, as this can change.