Do folks think displayed VO2 max values are reasonably accurate?

Garmin is displaying a VO2 max value for me that is extremely flattering, but I would guess quite inaccurately high (it puts me in the "top 15%", though I still consider myself just past the "beginner" stage of running/metabolic fitness).

Is that a common observation? Or is the general consensus that it is fairly accurate/well in the ball park?

0 NeilJonesOnline over 6 years ago

nmyeti I'm similar - I'm 50 with an HRMax of 200. I know that 220-age is supposed to give a good 'average', but the margin of error is just so big either side that I think people would be much better served just pushing themselves as hard as they can and then maybe adding a few bpm for good luck.

I think your HRMax technically stays the same even if you can't actually reach it such as when you're out of shape, tired, ill etc. It's not a measure of fitness, it's just a personal physiological metric that reduces very slowly with age at approx 1bpm per year (but again, this can vary). So I shouldn't worry about how recent your last reading was. Even if it was a couple of years ago it's not going to have changed by much more than 1 or 2 bpm, and even when you last recorded it, I bet you actually had a couple more bpm to give.