ENTER RESTING HEART RATE

But I know what my resting heart rate is. I have checked it manually, at the doctors office and a few times with the watch while actually resting.  Its 76 bpm right now. 

Garmin says over last 7 days 129, 135, 124, 126, 140,127,132

Resting HR is not constant. It changes with your fitness, with your age, health, and with other conditions. It is one of the most important indicators of your fitness and health. Some experts consider it more important than VO₂max. Setting it constant manually just to see your fitness age lower makes absolutely no sense. You need no smartwatch then. 

Wear the watch 24/7 and you'll have much more accurate metrics than just the Resting HR, and Fitness Age.

trux said:

My experience with several different Instinct models differs. Fitness age shows exactly the Resting HR that I have set manually. Perhaps you did not notice any difference after changing the RHR value, because Fitness age uses the 7 days average, so you may need to wait up to a week, before you see exactly the value you have set.

Interesting.

No, like I said, I've had my custom resting HR (for HR zones) set to 50 "forever". To be clear, it's been over a year.

To be 100% clear:

Settings > User Profile > Heart Rate & Power Zones > Resting HR > Use Average = Off

Settings > User Profile > Heart Rate & Power Zones > Resting HR > Set Custom = 50

This has not changed in over a year.

But, again, fitness age tells me to "maintain 45 bpm", which is exactly the 4-week average displayed in Connect for my measured resting HR. I do not think this is a coincidence. Btw, my 7-day average is 42 (significantly different from the 4-week average).

I have a Forerunner 955. Maybe Instinct works differently, or maybe it's because I haven't changed my custom resting HR recently. Not sure exactly how it should work in my case - would the custom resting HR "expire" at some point for the purposes of fitness age calculation? You would think that if it worked the way you described, the fitness age page would say "maintain 50 bpm", since my custom resting HR (in the HR Zones settings) has been 50 for a very long time.

Maybe if I change it *now* and wait 7 days, it will change? Idk

EDIT: I checked my fitness age page again, just after midnight, after last checking it several hours ago. Now it says "maintain 44 bpm", even though Connect's Heart Rate page still says my 4-week resting HR average is 45 and my 7-day resting HR average is 42. Not sure if there's some difference between the start/end of the exact rolling time periods that are used for the fitness age page vs the heart rate page. I guess I don't care that much. It's just clear that - for me - the custom resting HR that I set a long time ago is not used for fitness age.

trux said:

Perhaps you did not notice any difference after changing the RHR value, because Fitness age uses the 7 days average, so you may need to wait up to a week, before you see exactly the value you have set.

I never said I changed my resting HR recently. I think I did make it very clear that the fitness age page was showing the 4-week average for my *measured* resting HR. (A few hours later, it shows 1 beat lower than the displayed 4-week average, which hasn't changed)

Anyway, the Edge 1040 thread I linked above has a comment which says that - for them (2 years ago) - setting a custom resting HR from the menu that you mentioned did not affect fitness age, even though their Edge received a firmware update which explicitly said such a thing was possible (setting resting HR manually in such a way that fitness age is affected). (The change log did not say which setting - existing or new - would be used for this functionality though)

So either:

- something has changed over time [*]

and/or

- something is different about Instinct

and/or

- you are doing something differently than me (and the Edge 1040 poster)

[*] Obviously *something* changed for Edge 1040 2 years ago, since a firmware update was released saying that one of the changes was to enable the ability to manually set resting HR for the purposes of Fitness Age calculation. This implies:

- Edge 1040 did not have this ability prior to that update (so this is objective evidence that at least Edge 1040 - prior to the update - did not behave the way Instinct behaves for you, which means that it's evidence of at least one difference - either between models and/or over time)

- Clearly the existing the hr zones > resting HR setting did not affect fitness age prior to the update (since that ability did not exist at all). According to the post I linked, even after the update, that setting did not affect fitness age

- Garmin knew that it's a problem for Edge that automatic detection of resting HR produces values that are too high, since Edge only connects HR data while you're doing activities. I've never heard of any such update for watches (although I could've missed it), so it seems to me they just expect you to wear your watch all the time if you want accurate resting HR (except for watches like Instinct which apparently allow you to set it manually, including for the purposes of Fitness Age)

toddsdn said:

But I know what my resting heart rate is. I have checked it manually, at the doctors office and a few times with the watch while actually resting.  Its 76 bpm right now. 

toddsdn said:

Garmin says over last 7 days 129, 135, 124, 126, 140,127,132

Yes, obviously what Garmin says is wrong and you already identified the problem:

"I only wear my Garmin watch when I am doing actual activities"

If you want Garmin to measure your actual resting heart rate, you will either have to wear the watch more often (like when you sleep), or you will have to find a way to manually enter your resting HR in such a way that the fitness age metric will be affected.

toddsdn said:

On another note, looks like Garmin recently add a link below your vo2max reading saying see your fitness age whereas before is just said it right under the vo2max reading only with percentile.  I am 61, vo2max 44 and it used to always say my fitness age was in the 20's.  Now that its using 132bpm is says my fitness age is 62!!!  I love it.

If it makes you feel better, newer Garmins have a lower limit on fitness age (it's something like your actual age minus 8 years). (The upper limit might also be something like your actual age plus 8 years).

I think the idea is to make the fitness age algorithm more realistic.

flowstate said:

But, again, fitness age tells me to "maintain 45 bpm", which is exactly the 4-week average displayed in Connect for my measured resting HR.

It looks it may depend on the device you use. I my case, with Instinct 3,  the Fitness Age shows exactly the RHR value set manually, which differs from the value shown in Reports.

flowstate said:

If it makes you feel better, newer Garmins have a lower limit on fitness age (it's something like your actual age minus 8 years).

I believe it is at least age minus 12 years (mine is currently age - 10.5) and that the maximum difference may increase as you get older. I may be able to confirm this next month when I hit my 67th birthday.