Vo2 levels

ldxmsg

@stefan-kersting I have a question about this too. I had been using an S9B for most of 2020 and my fitness age was consistently around 25 (I’m 43). I sold the watch and mistakenly moved to a Garmin before coming back to Suunto about a month ago and now have a new S9B titanium. I walk most days at a fast pace that increases my heart rate and run twice per week (thank you national lockdown and home schooling for stopping me going out more…). The new Suunto originally gave me a fitness age in the high 50s and it has risen to 60 but I have no idea why. Any idea what I’m doing wrong as I’m confident the watch is in error, not me! I should also note that the temperature recording seems way off, though I appreciate that’s probably unrelated. Any ideas?

lexterm77

@ldxmsg said in Vo2 levels:

Any ideas?

Definition of vo2 max is maximal amount of oxygen that your body can utilize in one minute. Your body does not use only aerobic pathway to produce ATP, you need sustained maximal effort to get the right reading so that anaerobic supplies get nearly exhausted. By doing near maximal effort for 12-15 minutes you basically eliminate your anaerobic supplies and get your (more) accurate vo2 max. If you do less than maximal effort watch will try to calculate your vo2 max based on a model that scales your speed, heart rate, and other metrics. Because there are so many (unknown) variables that varies with a person to person (for example your heart rate is not on scale your blood volume because stroke volume increases with frequency at a different rate for each person) and physiological changes from day to day (you blood plasma volume, amount of glycogen stores, etc) modeling at low itensities is like testing a car for maximum horse power at dyno but with quarter throttle and then multiplying by 4. Or telling everyone at race to run at half their maximal effort and hoping everyone will honour that so that race will reflect what would really happen if everyone would be giving their best effort.

ldxmsg

@lexterm77 thanks for the detailed response. I’m not disputing the intricacies of the science, nor the fact that measurements are imprecise across devices; rather, my question is why my fitness level has dropped from around 45 to 35 with different watches, despite no discernible difference in my actual fitness. Both my previous S9B and Garmin Tactix gave a similar score in the mid to high 40s, but this new S9B is mid 30s and dropping. In short, I’m unclear what’s causing it as I’m confident in saying it isn’t my actual fitness/VO2 levels.

lexterm77

@ldxmsg

Your vo2 max on a new watch has dropped to 30 after doing walking? Ignore it, after you do a proper 15 minutes of sustained max pace you should start looking at your vo2 and fitness age screen. Before that it is just teasing you to do a proper test. Your old watch had your fitness age at 25 because you actually done some running data on it. Make sure your hr data is clean and that you have good view of sky, flat and clean patch of road.
Some people walk at 90bpm and can do 5k in 15min, some peope walk at same bpm but run two times slower, hr means nothing, speed does (energy/mass) for more than 12minutes.
I think that even your profile is not developed on a watch if you are not doing any maximal efforts, reglardless of what you enter as your resting and max heart rate or zones are. Give a new watch to a ultra runner, a let him/her walk with it, it will show low fitness, let him/her do a 3mile max effort run it will jump to a proper level.

BrunoH

@lexterm77 Could you explain sustained max pace? My English skills failed me. Probably not the same as constant max pace?

I know this VO2max is not foolproof, but what pleases me is that at least the measurements in my S9 are consistent. My trend is nicely linear and going upwards. There are no sudden drops or sudden high peaks!

ldxmsg

@lexterm77 THanks. I have been running, as well as walking fast enough to push my heartrate up to 100bpm. I’ve done a hard reset of the watch to see if that makes any difference. Fingers crossed!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ldxmsg do you have the same max hr and zones ? Do both devices read the same data in regards to heart rate ?

ldxmsg

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos Thanks. Yes, as far as I can tell everything is the same. The new S9B does sometimes give overly heart rate readings at the start of exercise and then settles to what I would expect after a few minutes. Might that explain the discrepancy?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ldxmsg of course. Vo2max can be defined better at max capacity.

I would:

Do a full reset of the watch (as the watch bases the vo2max on the 6 last sessions as well)
Set up the zones like my Garmin
Use a belt and garmin with OHR

check the value after 1-2 good workouts.

ldxmsg

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos Will give it a go. Many thanks.

lexterm77

@brunoh

Running at same pace for 15 minutes so that at the end you feel nearly exhausted.

sartoric

@lexterm77 said in Vo2 levels:

@brunoh

so that at the end you feel nearly exhausted.

Or you have heart attack

BrunoH

@sartoric That’s what I’m afraid of. I’ll never look at my VO2max levels again, just to be sure!

lexterm77

@sartoric said in Vo2 levels:

@lexterm77 said in Vo2 levels:

@brunoh

so that at the end you feel nearly exhausted.

Or you have heart attack

If you do it often, body adapts to it. (Not the heart attack)

Brad_Olwin

An independent test for VO2 max that is fairly good. For me, this test and the S9 baro give very similar results. Cooper test. It is best done on a track.

stromdiddily

@brad_olwin ah yes, the “cooper”

Reminder of the glory days of yesteryear, and fitness testing…stuff of nightmares

lexterm77

@stromdiddily said in Vo2 levels:

@brad_olwin ah yes, the “cooper”

Reminder of the glory days of yesteryear, and fitness testing…stuff of nightmares

Go to a sports lab and ask them to extrapolate data with half the maximum effort

Edit: bring helmet with you

Bulkan

The Garmin only takes in count the running (not trail running, hiking…) and cycling and ONLY with heart rate strap if I recall well.

That’s different of the Suunto.

isazi

@bulkan said in Vo2 levels:

The Garmin only takes in count the running (not trail running, hiking…) and cycling and ONLY with heart rate strap if I recall well.

Running with HR (no belt necessary for what I remember), cycling with a power meter. And they end up in two separate VO2Max values, one for running and one for cycling.