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The problem with the VO2max metric is that there is no measurement of it outside of a few lab methods, certainly not in a fitness tracker, so they're estimating
by milch 2y ago
The problem with the VO2max metric is that there is no measurement of it outside of a few lab methods, certainly not in a fitness tracker, so they're estimating. It makes more sense to look at the other metrics that it CAN easily measure, like heart rate recovery to get a quantifiable and repeatable measurement. I agree for amateurs accuracy is not necessary, but repeatability is. If I weigh myself today and the scale says 10 lbs below my actual weight, and tomorrow it's 10lbs above my actual weight that's a problem. If it's always 10lbs below that's fine, the delta will be correct. You can't say that for VO2max you get out of a fitness tracker.
My watch says my VO2max is 36.8 which would put me very strongly in the long term negative health effects bucket and well below average. Meanwhile Garmin claims it's 51 which would put me in the top 15% of my age group. It can't be both. They're just made up estimations, and following them blindly could be dangerous. What if someone's is going up even though they're not actually doing a healthy amount of exercise? Or someone's is going down or maintaining even though they are, causing them to fall into negative thought or behavioral patterns? Better to stick with some other data points
- Aperocky 2y agoI think you just want to track both over the long term - that is compare your watch with your watch and your garmin with your garmin. But that is a huge gap, I think in general running creates more realistic VO2max data than cycling since there are too many factors at play (e.g. if you're in a group or not or using the drop vs. not).
- dextro42 2y agoI myself did a lot of exercising during the last 1 1/2 years using an apple watch for measures and I would also go with the previous comment: Even thought the VO2max is not accurate (especially not compared to actually lab data) it is a nice graph with a tendency which REALLY helps. High differences might come from different estimation techniques and thus this value is not comparable among different brands but it seems to be for your own value and progress. During a lazier time it depleted a bit, now its going up again. Most other graphs don't show it that nice. E.g. your avg hearth rate will not make huge changes (and drop which, even if its good, doesn't feel that good). Edit: I actually did a Lab test (not VO2max) but an exercise ecg with lactate measurements. I couldn't choose between running and cycling. The problem is: if you choose the bike they can measure the values while you continue riding. If you choose running you have to stop now and then while they take a blood sample. Even there it isn't 100% accurate and might yield different results based on the used method.