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Fitness Age Broken

I am a 41 year old male in fairly decent shape. I've been running 5-6 days a week. My fitness age is showing as 20, which seems rediculous. 

A running buddy of mine, who is more of social runner has a VO2 well below mine, but also has a fitness age of 20. So does his wife. It seems like this is a bogus static value? 

Anyway to get this to reset and calculate correctly. My fitness age according to other available calculators is now likely around 33-37.

  • I have the same problem with this Fitness Age issue.

    I am a 52 year old male living in Malaysia. My VO2 Max shows up as 44, and fitness age shows up as 23 (!). 

    I have calculated using the online calculator at www.worldfitnesslevel.org/ . This indicates that my VO2 Max is 43 and fitness age is 34 (which is more believable). 

  • Firstbeat's Fitness Age (which Garmin uses and now actually owns) is based on giving you an age group where people with "average" (normal) fitness have that VO2max. (Ok, actually the algorithm factors in some other things, but if you exercise regularly, VO2max is the main measure). You can see VO2max/age tables for example from https://www.firstbeat.com/en/blog/whats-a-good-vo2max-for-me-fitness-age-men-and-women/

    Now, different calculators give you different "ages" because their fitness target may be different. If a calculator sets as its baseline people in "good" physical condition (instead of average), then of course the resulting age will be higher. But statistically its undisputable, that if you are male and your VO2max is 44, you are in the same group as average 20-24 year old people. But it may tell more about the fitness of average people than you. Slight smile

    But on the whole, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the whole Fitness Age number, as any such number tries to oversimplify things. It's much better to rely on more direct numbers like VO2max (and even that is an estimate with watches).

    Also, the Fitness Age maxes out at 20 years (because that's the age when people on average have their peak VO2max), so if you have a good VO2max, your Fitness Age doesn't change any more. When I had a TomTom watch (which also used Firstbeat's Fitness Age), their app actually said after reaching 20 that Fitness Age is no longer relevant, and you should just concentrate on VO2max and like.

  • Tks for the feedback, but bottom line is if the Stat cannot be calculated with any form of reasonable value or accuracy then Garmin shouldn't use it and remove it.

    Being a software developer myself, something like this would never make it to production/final release software if it reports rubbish or inaccurate data.

  • Agreed, the stat should be removed. The Garmin Fitness Age is misleading for a 50+ like me. Which could potentially be dangerous, as in trying to compete with 20+ youths 

  • I'm still not sure why you think it's misleading? If your fitness age shows as 20 years old, it means you should compete well against AVERAGE fitness 20-year-olds. That's quite clearly said. It's not "inaccurate" or "rubbish", it just doesn't seem to give the results you want it to give.

    Also, if fitness age would be changed so that it uses "good fitness sportsmen" as the comparison basis, it would be equally misleading to those 25 year olds who have just started exercising and learn that their fitness age is 60.

    The fitness age is good for exactly what it claims to be: you can know your fitness compared to average fitness of an age group. 

  • If you don't like or agree with a measurement, ignore it.  But remember that other people do like that measure.

  • I have a fenix 5x.  I've been walking briskly 3 miles every other day for 2 weeks.  My fitness age has gone from 55 to 59!  I'm 50!  But getting much older by the day!!!

    However I am more in shape than I have ever been!  I know it's just numbers,  but I'm a data geek and engineer for a living.  I'm really more curious as to what is going on.