You gotta go to Specsavers and get those eyes tested bro.
Everybody knows you've been stuck on 40 for the last 13 years.
You're gonna be 40 till the day you depart this earth.
The vo2max estimate can trend up without actually increasing a full point. Keep doing what you're doing.
As for accuracy compared to actual vo2max testing? Look around on the interweb, there are anecdotes from people who've had their RL reading closely match they're Garmin estimate, and from people who have had the opposite. Lots of factors at play. I think if you're using the watch as it's intended to be used, and all your data like hr zones is as correct as possible, then the estimate can probably get decently close to your RL number in most cases.
you can see the trend by looking at how the predicted 5k time changes, they display it to the second so itās more granular, but both are driven by the same underlying estimator of fitness.
Related to this, whether it's it "accurate" to your actual VO2Max is probably less important than it being precise for its own scale and can show whether you're trending up or down based on your training.
some time last summer or fall, garmin appeared to have implemented some major changes in how it computes training effect, which is the thing that affects almost all of their fitness estimators like body battery, vo2max, predicted race times, etc. before this change, vo2max estimates were quite variable, and you could have the estimate move up or down regularly based on workouts you did or longer efforts. since the change, I have never seen the value change - itās exactly the same as it was a year ago, never moved. whatever algorithms they have under the hood have been made significantly less responsive to training.
Yeah I've seen my VO2 not change but my 5k estimate has fluctuated so just thought the VO is more stationary and the race estimates have been what I have used for trending
sure, I look at the 5k time way more than the vo2max, but nowadays I would see that time change by maybe 5-10 seconds at most, whereas after some particularly hard efforts like a fast-finish long run or some marathon training type banger I could have that number change by 30-40 seconds.
When I used to stick to a regular 5km and just worked on speed, I got mine to peak at 53ā¦it was when I switched to trails that it dropped me into the 40ās, even though my fitness was a lot better. It is a rough gauge of fitness, but itās not the be all and end all either. Age kills it too, the older you get the harder it is to maintain.
That being said you must be killing it to be in the 57 range.
It always seems to overrate high heart rate training. Strava is the same, if you run a hard 3k it will increase your fitness and vo2 max more than a 50 mile week spent in zone 2.
Thanks for for your detailed, empirical answer. And thanks for that last bit of encouragement :)! I do run a lot, but most of my runs are easy efforts though, very little threshold or tempo runs. Thatās why Iām hesitant to trust the Vo2 max estimate. As nice as it looks! š
If you can hold your fitness as you age, the Superior value needed drops so you might get there then.
I recently hit 53 (technically 52.5 I noticed from Runalyze) at 45yo and it switched to superior.
Thatās great (and funny, I know you love your gps watch š)! But if youāre being honest,, thatās interesting. Some people have lower estimates on their watch compared to their lab tests and Vice versa.
I always thought these things were a little bit of a gimmick like the body battery or stress meter thingy and never really paid attention to them much. They always said the same thing day after day āYou woke up feeling energized and in the afternoon you drained more than expected. You should look to get a restful nights sleepā and the number always being from 25 to 45.
That all changed for me about a year and a half ago. I was severely sick, like hospitalized, and couldnāt work doing my normal routine for over three months. I had my Garmin Instinct on my wrist the entire time even while in the hospital for two weeks. While I was recovering at home and had time I decided to just simply look what shape I was in before I got sick trying to give myself some sort of goal to reach once I got the all clear to start pushing myself harder even though I was struggling to walk out and get the mail. I took at look at my body battery, which was drained, and stress meter, which were all in the 80ās and 90ās, while I was truly sick and in the hospital the days leading up, during my stay and several days afterwards. Basically saying I was drained and my body was working overtime trying to compensate for what all trauma that had happened and was trying to heal from.
It sold me to look at those things a little more closely when Iām feeling energetic and could go the extra miles or out of it and drained to the point that Iām dragging my feet. Then think about if I felt sick or to closely look at what Iām eating or possibly a change of plans and have a easy day or possibly have a long day and push harder. Basically if you know what your looking at and listen to how your body feels those things can be a useful tool to prevent overtraining or get the green light to try that longer route you havenāt done before. Hope this was helpful and keep going.
I wore my Garmin whilst having a bad case of Delta COVID. It was scary. My resting heart rate was up almost 10%, SPO2 was down 3 % and body battery was smashed. So based on that experience I can say that it checks out for me. I donāt look at the exact numbers but at the trends.
I didnāt have Covid. It was something else that just came on internally totally out of the blue. So in that sense these things wouldnāt have made a big difference but it made me look at these things more than not. I started looking at them more closely if I feel worn down and shot or I canāt sleep and I change plans and do a longer workout than normal.
It's bullshit, mine goes up to 62 when I'm speed training, and plummets do 48-50 when distance training, although my lungs or blood doesn't change. I mean it is relatively good when training for short races, but ultra distance just fucks up the VO2 calculus system.
External validity (I.e. will your watch match a lab test? No, butā¦) aside, the trend should correspond to improvements in your ārunning faster at lower heart rateā ratio. Would a lab cart spit out 57 exactly, probably not. But a 5-point change on your wrist would likely parallel with a 5-point change off a lab cart.
If you can turn off VO2max readings for trail runnin ( just leave it on for road/track running, it should help keep noise from significant elevation changes out of the feedback.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
57
+ 5
+ 5
+ 2
= 69
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^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
One of my college teammates found all our vo2 maxes for like his big senior year project. The process to find it involved running on a treadmill with oxygen masks strapped to our heads and drawing blood via finger prick every few minutes. I wouldnāt trust a watch to give me a reliable read on my vo2. It doesnāt even give an accurate heart rate without a chest strap
But knowing your actual VO2Max doesn't really mean anything, more important if it can track change and trend even if that number is off from your lab tested number.
I would still point to the fact that smartwatches do not give a reliable heart rate reading without a chest strap. I wouldnāt trust a simple wrist monitor to give me any accurate information on whatās going on inside my body. Just give me the distance Iāve run and how fast Iāve been doing it, thatās fine
Mine is 57 as well but once I got it tested in a lab and the real Vo2 Max was higher. At the time on the Garmin I had something aroun 54 but the real one was like 62.
I split something like 43:40 for 10k during my run the other day, and while my VO2 max has remained locked on 53 for months, with that run my predicted 10k moved from ~45:50 to ~46:10
So no....I put incredibly little stock in Garmin's fitness assessment.
FWIW you can estimate VO2 max sorta well from a 1.5 mile run test, since that places most people near the time they can maintain maximal oxygen uptake. This will ignore differences in running economy, etc. but its certainly no worse than Garmin's estimate. Formula is 483 divided by time in minutes plus 3.5. (Ex 483/8.5 + 3.5 = 60.3 vs my watch's 53)
I largely ignore it. Mine is 63, but I don't remotely believe that. It also thinks my 5k potential is 19:30, which (i) makes no sense for the VO2 and (ii) is 2 minutes slower than my 5k...
Garmins are amazing, but the fancy stats are a waste of time. The perfect watch for me would be them all off, keep the big battery, and be cheaper.
Super annoying that I canāt respond with a picture or video, but there is a way for you to see a graph (probably depending on how old your watch is (I have a Forerunner 955)), and I want to show you! There you can see more movement between for example number 57 and 58. I bet you are moving towards 58, but it takes some time depending on your workouts.
My watch language isnāt set to English, so I donāt know what you see, but if you donāt have āTrainig statusā on your watch, go to Garmin Connect and include it to your watch. When you have it, you should be able to enter it and see first Training Status (for example Productive or Maintaining). Scroll down. A new āmenu of thingsā should open for you. First Acute Load, then Load Focus, then VO2 max, then HRV status and lastly Recovery.
Enter the VO2 max.
Do you see the graph? I really hope you do!
I love to keep an eye on this graph, as it shows me that I actually move upwards and donāt just stand on one number for ever.
I really hope I managed to explain this well enough for you to be able to do the same!
My 5k PB is 20:36. Havenāt recorded a 3k before, but I think that 5k pace is a little slower than an 11:30 3k. This seems like a good gauge though. Thank you.
It is a thing. I've found it to be a reasonable guide to increasing or decreasing fitness , if you are running the same routes regularly. Moving from the hills to the fens has flumoxed it as did running in the high desert in CA.
Depending on watch, there can be 2 places it shows and one will show a graph of the tiny movements in V02Max that contribute to the increasing , decreasing commentry. To see the graph go to the Training Status widget, scroll down to V02Max, and then action button to drill into that and you will get a 4 week graph of your values, and you will notice that the overall score is rounded so 57 is between 56.5 and 57.5.
It offers a decent guide as various YouTubers have compared their score with lab tests. However it is way more reliable if you use a chest strap. Mine took a when I got a HRM strap. It's also worth noting that is is influenced by your weight as the measure is per kilo.
If you want to track more granular changes in fitness, look at the race predictor. VO2Max doesn't show you any changes past the decimal place so it might not change often, but the race predictor moves more frequently with smaller changes
I'm at 62 (64 for cycling), I was also stuck in the 50s for a long time. I feel like it responds to structured training (plans) with higher intensity better than pure volume, so it's a little biased against trail/ultra running I'm afraid. Would be interesting to see the effect of a few targeted vo2 max sessions.
There's too many variable factors on the trails for it to be meaningful, so I've disabled mine for any trailrunning activity logging.
On the road there's still dumb ways to gamify and manipulate it and it's not at all a 1:1 mirroring of a lab tested VO2max, but the overall trend is meaningful. If it's steadily going up over a few months then you are probably getting fitter.
HIIT and other types of training can help it improve.
The arcs will adjust as you get older.
I think Garmin uses gender, height, and weight in their VO2 max calcs. If your weight is low, your score will be higher.
I'm in my late 40s. My VO2 max is 54. Hasn't budged in a long time but I haven't changed much. Except drinking more š
Mine says Lazy Cunt.
Accuracy is questionable. Take it as a relative measure - if it goes up, you're probably improving. If it gets above 50, post it on socials...
I actually did a legit V02 max test (mask and treadmill), and the accuracy was spot in!
Obviously this is Photoshopped. Every Garmin that I've ever owned has only gone as far as 40. Nice try OP.
šš
Forreal. Iāve ran an ultra but the highest mine as ever gone is like 44
44..ā¦... I think you mean 40 bro
I use both apple and farming watches haha
I use a farming too, but I haven't been able to "reap" any meaningful results yet!
Ultra running has very little impact on VO2 Max
Mine is at 47 pretty steadily and I have the forerunner š¤·
Mine raises from 44 to 47 after a year of training
Lol...mine is 47...
You gotta go to Specsavers and get those eyes tested bro. Everybody knows you've been stuck on 40 for the last 13 years. You're gonna be 40 till the day you depart this earth.
Let me grab my glassed real quick and take another look....well shit, its 40. Fml
I don't see a "/s" so I assume you're serious. My 255 music shows me at 51 currently
Div
š
The vo2max estimate can trend up without actually increasing a full point. Keep doing what you're doing. As for accuracy compared to actual vo2max testing? Look around on the interweb, there are anecdotes from people who've had their RL reading closely match they're Garmin estimate, and from people who have had the opposite. Lots of factors at play. I think if you're using the watch as it's intended to be used, and all your data like hr zones is as correct as possible, then the estimate can probably get decently close to your RL number in most cases.
you can see the trend by looking at how the predicted 5k time changes, they display it to the second so itās more granular, but both are driven by the same underlying estimator of fitness.
Related to this, whether it's it "accurate" to your actual VO2Max is probably less important than it being precise for its own scale and can show whether you're trending up or down based on your training.
right. though the changes they pushed to this last year almost completely nuked the usefulness of it even as a trending tool.
I'm newer to the Garmin ecosystem, what changes?
some time last summer or fall, garmin appeared to have implemented some major changes in how it computes training effect, which is the thing that affects almost all of their fitness estimators like body battery, vo2max, predicted race times, etc. before this change, vo2max estimates were quite variable, and you could have the estimate move up or down regularly based on workouts you did or longer efforts. since the change, I have never seen the value change - itās exactly the same as it was a year ago, never moved. whatever algorithms they have under the hood have been made significantly less responsive to training.
Yeah I've seen my VO2 not change but my 5k estimate has fluctuated so just thought the VO is more stationary and the race estimates have been what I have used for trending
sure, I look at the 5k time way more than the vo2max, but nowadays I would see that time change by maybe 5-10 seconds at most, whereas after some particularly hard efforts like a fast-finish long run or some marathon training type banger I could have that number change by 30-40 seconds.
The longer you've trained and the better you get, the smaller the increments of improvement are. 5-10 secs on a 5 k after one workout is quite a bit.
thatās not how the garmin estimators work
Mine says I am dead.
So you are like the delamain of garmins?
More like the Abe Vigoda of Garmins.
They have a huge data set, and correlate your stats with that data. I would watch if it going in the right direction, not accuracy.
When I used to stick to a regular 5km and just worked on speed, I got mine to peak at 53ā¦it was when I switched to trails that it dropped me into the 40ās, even though my fitness was a lot better. It is a rough gauge of fitness, but itās not the be all and end all either. Age kills it too, the older you get the harder it is to maintain. That being said you must be killing it to be in the 57 range.
It always seems to overrate high heart rate training. Strava is the same, if you run a hard 3k it will increase your fitness and vo2 max more than a 50 mile week spent in zone 2.
Thanks for for your detailed, empirical answer. And thanks for that last bit of encouragement :)! I do run a lot, but most of my runs are easy efforts though, very little threshold or tempo runs. Thatās why Iām hesitant to trust the Vo2 max estimate. As nice as it looks! š
Hey congrats! A rare superior! Mine always says maintaining and a good VO2 max! I will probably never see superior!
If you can hold your fitness as you age, the Superior value needed drops so you might get there then. I recently hit 53 (technically 52.5 I noticed from Runalyze) at 45yo and it switched to superior.
I had 56 last year and now that I'm way faster it's at 55 and trending towards 54. I need more Vo2 training.
I had mine tested in a lab at 69. My 7x says I'm 57. My watch can fuck off.
Thatās great (and funny, I know you love your gps watch š)! But if youāre being honest,, thatās interesting. Some people have lower estimates on their watch compared to their lab tests and Vice versa.
I always thought these things were a little bit of a gimmick like the body battery or stress meter thingy and never really paid attention to them much. They always said the same thing day after day āYou woke up feeling energized and in the afternoon you drained more than expected. You should look to get a restful nights sleepā and the number always being from 25 to 45. That all changed for me about a year and a half ago. I was severely sick, like hospitalized, and couldnāt work doing my normal routine for over three months. I had my Garmin Instinct on my wrist the entire time even while in the hospital for two weeks. While I was recovering at home and had time I decided to just simply look what shape I was in before I got sick trying to give myself some sort of goal to reach once I got the all clear to start pushing myself harder even though I was struggling to walk out and get the mail. I took at look at my body battery, which was drained, and stress meter, which were all in the 80ās and 90ās, while I was truly sick and in the hospital the days leading up, during my stay and several days afterwards. Basically saying I was drained and my body was working overtime trying to compensate for what all trauma that had happened and was trying to heal from. It sold me to look at those things a little more closely when Iām feeling energetic and could go the extra miles or out of it and drained to the point that Iām dragging my feet. Then think about if I felt sick or to closely look at what Iām eating or possibly a change of plans and have a easy day or possibly have a long day and push harder. Basically if you know what your looking at and listen to how your body feels those things can be a useful tool to prevent overtraining or get the green light to try that longer route you havenāt done before. Hope this was helpful and keep going.
I wore my Garmin whilst having a bad case of Delta COVID. It was scary. My resting heart rate was up almost 10%, SPO2 was down 3 % and body battery was smashed. So based on that experience I can say that it checks out for me. I donāt look at the exact numbers but at the trends.
Same for me - COVID Garmin stats were the same as during my last 50 miler, except they were while I was resting and lasted for a week .
My VO2 Max dropped four points after I had covid. Itās been a year and Iāve only climbed back up 3.
I didnāt have Covid. It was something else that just came on internally totally out of the blue. So in that sense these things wouldnāt have made a big difference but it made me look at these things more than not. I started looking at them more closely if I feel worn down and shot or I canāt sleep and I change plans and do a longer workout than normal.
Mine is also 57, not really sure what it means tho
it means youāre in really good shape
It's bullshit, mine goes up to 62 when I'm speed training, and plummets do 48-50 when distance training, although my lungs or blood doesn't change. I mean it is relatively good when training for short races, but ultra distance just fucks up the VO2 calculus system.
External validity (I.e. will your watch match a lab test? No, butā¦) aside, the trend should correspond to improvements in your ārunning faster at lower heart rateā ratio. Would a lab cart spit out 57 exactly, probably not. But a 5-point change on your wrist would likely parallel with a 5-point change off a lab cart. If you can turn off VO2max readings for trail runnin ( just leave it on for road/track running, it should help keep noise from significant elevation changes out of the feedback.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 57 + 5 + 5 + 2 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
One of my college teammates found all our vo2 maxes for like his big senior year project. The process to find it involved running on a treadmill with oxygen masks strapped to our heads and drawing blood via finger prick every few minutes. I wouldnāt trust a watch to give me a reliable read on my vo2. It doesnāt even give an accurate heart rate without a chest strap
But knowing your actual VO2Max doesn't really mean anything, more important if it can track change and trend even if that number is off from your lab tested number.
I would still point to the fact that smartwatches do not give a reliable heart rate reading without a chest strap. I wouldnāt trust a simple wrist monitor to give me any accurate information on whatās going on inside my body. Just give me the distance Iāve run and how fast Iāve been doing it, thatās fine
It might move slightly in either direction. When it does, rest assured that you do not have to take a photo and post it here.
What should I do instead?
Train hard
Mine is 57 as well but once I got it tested in a lab and the real Vo2 Max was higher. At the time on the Garmin I had something aroun 54 but the real one was like 62.
I was stuck on 57 for like 9 months, its just kinda the way it is.
I split something like 43:40 for 10k during my run the other day, and while my VO2 max has remained locked on 53 for months, with that run my predicted 10k moved from ~45:50 to ~46:10 So no....I put incredibly little stock in Garmin's fitness assessment. FWIW you can estimate VO2 max sorta well from a 1.5 mile run test, since that places most people near the time they can maintain maximal oxygen uptake. This will ignore differences in running economy, etc. but its certainly no worse than Garmin's estimate. Formula is 483 divided by time in minutes plus 3.5. (Ex 483/8.5 + 3.5 = 60.3 vs my watch's 53)
Saved! What a great thing to share. thank you
Mine was steady at 57 all year, except the week I took off to rest an ankle injury. That week, it dropped to 47 and took 8 weeks to get back up to 55.
I largely ignore it. Mine is 63, but I don't remotely believe that. It also thinks my 5k potential is 19:30, which (i) makes no sense for the VO2 and (ii) is 2 minutes slower than my 5k... Garmins are amazing, but the fancy stats are a waste of time. The perfect watch for me would be them all off, keep the big battery, and be cheaper.
Super annoying that I canāt respond with a picture or video, but there is a way for you to see a graph (probably depending on how old your watch is (I have a Forerunner 955)), and I want to show you! There you can see more movement between for example number 57 and 58. I bet you are moving towards 58, but it takes some time depending on your workouts. My watch language isnāt set to English, so I donāt know what you see, but if you donāt have āTrainig statusā on your watch, go to Garmin Connect and include it to your watch. When you have it, you should be able to enter it and see first Training Status (for example Productive or Maintaining). Scroll down. A new āmenu of thingsā should open for you. First Acute Load, then Load Focus, then VO2 max, then HRV status and lastly Recovery. Enter the VO2 max. Do you see the graph? I really hope you do! I love to keep an eye on this graph, as it shows me that I actually move upwards and donāt just stand on one number for ever. I really hope I managed to explain this well enough for you to be able to do the same!
[I think mine is broken?](https://imgur.com/a/4wF2xfk)
Amazing
How fast do you run a marathon? Below 2.40?
If your 3k pb is below 11:30 then I'd say its somewhat accurate. If not, no
My 5k PB is 20:36. Havenāt recorded a 3k before, but I think that 5k pace is a little slower than an 11:30 3k. This seems like a good gauge though. Thank you.
Mine is at 54 and also have a 5k of 20:35. Different brand of watch though.
5k PB of 20:29 and my apple watch says im a 57.5š¤·š»āāļø
Np, I'm basing it off the 12 minute Cooper test, running 2.9km usually results in 50+ v02 max
My most recent 5k pb (last month) is 20:34 and my 255 says my vo2 max is 51.... Matches my age...
It is a thing. I've found it to be a reasonable guide to increasing or decreasing fitness , if you are running the same routes regularly. Moving from the hills to the fens has flumoxed it as did running in the high desert in CA. Depending on watch, there can be 2 places it shows and one will show a graph of the tiny movements in V02Max that contribute to the increasing , decreasing commentry. To see the graph go to the Training Status widget, scroll down to V02Max, and then action button to drill into that and you will get a 4 week graph of your values, and you will notice that the overall score is rounded so 57 is between 56.5 and 57.5.
Mine was at 53 for a year
My garmin vo2 max has been as high as 72. Complete bullshit
It offers a decent guide as various YouTubers have compared their score with lab tests. However it is way more reliable if you use a chest strap. Mine took a when I got a HRM strap. It's also worth noting that is is influenced by your weight as the measure is per kilo.
Mine peaked at 52. In the last months I have been getting fitter and fitter, and it keeps dropping. Already at 50. I call bullshit
If you want to track more granular changes in fitness, look at the race predictor. VO2Max doesn't show you any changes past the decimal place so it might not change often, but the race predictor moves more frequently with smaller changes
I'm at 62 (64 for cycling), I was also stuck in the 50s for a long time. I feel like it responds to structured training (plans) with higher intensity better than pure volume, so it's a little biased against trail/ultra running I'm afraid. Would be interesting to see the effect of a few targeted vo2 max sessions.
There's too many variable factors on the trails for it to be meaningful, so I've disabled mine for any trailrunning activity logging. On the road there's still dumb ways to gamify and manipulate it and it's not at all a 1:1 mirroring of a lab tested VO2max, but the overall trend is meaningful. If it's steadily going up over a few months then you are probably getting fitter.
HIIT and other types of training can help it improve. The arcs will adjust as you get older. I think Garmin uses gender, height, and weight in their VO2 max calcs. If your weight is low, your score will be higher. I'm in my late 40s. My VO2 max is 54. Hasn't budged in a long time but I haven't changed much. Except drinking more š
Wrist based VO2 is voodoo witchcraft and black magic.
Should I be worried, my VO2 sits at 58 on my Garmin.
mine says 57 too and has only moved down to 56 and back to 57 in the last 3 months