Fitness Age not counting vigorous days

Thanks for posting. It was just yesterday when I had a look at the components of Fitness Age and wanted to post, but I forgot. Some more data, vigorous minutes (in brackets  VM just from activities):

Week 15:

Wed: 51min (49)

Mon: 26min (26)

W14

Thu: 69min (69)

Tue: 29min (26)

W13

Sun: 27min (25)

Wed: 81min (75+3)

Tue: 13min (11)

W12

Fri: 15min (15)

Tue: 52min (52)

W11

Nothing from Fri to Sun

Apart from the two days where vigorous minutes was below 20 minutes I can garantee that in case of all the activities there was continuous vigorous minutes for at least 5 minutes. And I can guarantee that even in case of 13 minutes and 15 minutes they were in a 30-30 minute period, respectively.

Total for 4 weeks is 360 minutes.

Fitness Age say "4w avg of vigorous minutes is 60.5 min" as if GC divides by 6 instead of 4, or as if GC counts only days over 50 minutes and then divides by 4 (the result is not exactly 60.5)

EDIT

But if I count only the activities related VMs and filter them with a threshold of 30 I get not 360, but 245. It is very close to 60.5*4 and  if I allow some rounding error I am fine.

Btw the 4w avg of vigorous days is 1.8. If I use mathematical intelligence, and assume that there is no error in the division  (so the divisor is really 4) and there is no error in the backward looking period ( that is 4 weeks and not falsely 3) then 1.8 must be 1.75 and thus the vigorous days are 7. I

f there is really no error in the division, backward looking period etc. then the threshold is not 5 minutes, but somewhere between 15-25 minutes.

7785372 said:

Some comments say that you need 5 CONTINOUS vigorous minutes for the day to qualify as vigorous.

This seems incorrect, the following official source says "at least 5 vigorous intensity minutes in a 30-minute time period":

See this official source: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=pNU9nnDzzGAHmEavp9rpY8

even Garmin has multiple definitions for it. In this article they mention 5 continuous VMs.

And neither your source, nor mine  says nothing about how to sum up vigorous minutes for a period of 4 weeks to finally get a weekly avg for these 28 (???) days.

Only those count which are part of a 30 minute long period and are equal to or over 5 minutes? Or just the continuous VMs of at least of 5 mins? Or just those minutes which were collected on days equal to or over 30 mins?

Its so ridicoulous that this has not been fixed yet.

Clearly the watches:

-count the vigourous minutes 

-decide which days are vigorous on the base of the watch definition

So why not make transparent what is a vigourous minute and which days? A simple way is in the intensity minutes to use the tick to show if its a vigorous day? Today the tick signals when you reached 150 intensity minutes which is not particularly useful...

Just don't understand why Garmin is so set in not being transparent about this....

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Week 15:

Wed: 51min (49)

Mon: 26min (26)

And

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Fitness Age say "4w avg of vigorous minutes is 60.5 min"

And

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Btw the 4w avg of vigorous days is 1.8

And

4 days later I can say that both my 4w avg of VM reached 75 mins and my 4w avg of vigorous days jumped from 1.8 to at least 3.

In the meantime I had only one day with VM, namely 22.

So either there was a secret fix or the whole function is a heap of sh*t. (* is deliberate not to break forum rules)

Considering how Garmin Chat answers on this, I think its the heap of sh*t option - see below copied pasted from the chat and the super helpful Tyrek who then stopped answering....

Tyreik:Not sure what you mean by Vigorous minutes

Tyreik:we have IT minutes you can see that here

Me:Lol how do you not know what vigorous minutes are???

Tyreik:We have nothing by that title we have Intensity minutes

Been with Garmin support for 2 months.

Showed them how the math ain't mathing and after 6 weeks of follow up, the answer was "Everything is fine because now we calculate over 6 weeks and not 4". At the time, app still showing 4 but ok....

Submitted everything again with the 6 weeks and they could not understand simple calculations - had to be put in an Excel file with super precise indications for "the engineers".

What the heck is going on here? I mean surely this is something that is simple when the average vigorous minutes per week don't add up?

Waiting for weeks now and following up for response.... Utterly ridiculous!

Ah and I just had a birthday and my fitness age went up by 1 year.... So that is a bit ridiculous too as it's more "years off your age" than "fitness age'. But anyway....

4263458 said:

Ah and I just had a birthday and my fitness age went up by 1 year.... So that is a bit ridiculous too as it's more "years off your age" than "fitness age'. But anyway....

Do not take it so seriously. It is just a number, not really having anything to do with the reality. If you feel fit, stay at it. If you think you could do more, be more active. The conditions are finally the same for everyone, and it is not difficult at all to meet the required levels.

BTW, did you consider in your calculation that individual vigorous minutes are not included in the sum, unless there are 5 continuous, uninterrupted vigorous minutes? It is not clearly told about the weekly average, but it is definitely documented as the condition for the "vigorous days", so it would not be surprising if it were necessary for the average too. From How Are Intensity Minutes Earned? | Garmin Customer Support: 

A minimum of 5 continuous vigorous intensity minutes is required for a day to qualify as vigorous.

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Conclusion: ast the result of an accidental observation now i know that vigorous minutes related  factors of f. A. Depend on body fat.

Wasn't the previous body weight or body fat value simply older than 7 days? When there is no body weight or fat% data, the Fitness Age feature stops updating. It could perhaps happen also when you switch from weight to fat%. It is an intentional behavior, and documented at What Does Fitness Age Mean in Garmin Connect? | Garmin Customer Support

Stale Weight Data

If your weight or body fat percentage measurement is older than 7 days, you will need to either add a weight manually in Garmin Connect program or use a Garmin Index Smart Scale to record a body fat percentage in order to receive your updated Fitness Age.