VO2 Max increases, but fitness age goes up by 9 years

On 12 December Garmin Connect had my VO2 Max at 43 and fitness age (for a male) at 27 (see image). On 21 December my VO2 Max had improved to 44, but my fitness age had increased to 36 (in fact on 13 December my VO2 Max was still 43, and my fitness age jumped to 37 - this is after being in the high 20's for some time - but I waited until VO2 Max had definitely increased before posting).

Has there been a step change in Garmin's algorithm for calculating fitness age?

The tables that Garmin and FirstBeat have on the web are not that helpful, since they use categories such as "poor" and "good", without indicating the average number for the age group.

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nonparametric over 4 years ago +1

Honestly, I think they’ve improved Fitness Age. I’m 39. My fitness age a month ago was 20. I mean, I’m flattered, but yeah right. Now it’s 34, which seems plausible at least. I also upgraded from a Fenix…

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0 Federonic over 4 years ago

VO2 has been a mess for me after 13.10

I've gone down two points in the span of 3 weeks.

0 1148788 over 4 years ago

Replying to my own post... I notice that Garmin's table of VO2 Max versus age https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/fenix66s6xpro/EN-US/GUID-1FBCCD9E-19E1-4E4C-BD60-1793B5B97EB3.html does have percentiles. "poor" is 40%, "good" is 60%. Just averaging these two leads to an average VO2 Max of 43.6 for a 20-29 year old male, and 42.3 for a 30-39 year old male. So, this implies that my 12 December figure of VO2Max of 43 and 27 years agrees with the table, and the fitness ages from 13 December onwards are about 10 years higher than the table.

0 nonparametric over 4 years ago

Honestly, I think they’ve improved Fitness Age. I’m 39. My fitness age a month ago was 20. I mean, I’m flattered, but yeah right. Now it’s 34, which seems plausible at least. I also upgraded from a Fenix 5 to 6 in that timespan, so I don’t know if it’s the new hardware or algorithm or both.

0 Dr Phil over 4 years ago in reply to nonparametric

I'm 64 with a VO2max that's hovered around the mid 40s for several years (currently 47). Apparently my fitness age varies (for running) from 24 to 27 depending on where I look - 27 on GCM, 24 on GC Interweb. While I understand some people get hung up on the disparity, I couldn't care. If I was to hazard a guess it would be that GCM considers both cycling (45 kg/min/mL) and running (47 kg/min/mL) to derive an average whereas the GC interweb only uses running. BTW, if I look at the cycling VO2max my fitness age is 20 for 45 kg/min/mL.

0 Dr Phil over 4 years ago in reply to Federonic

Federonic said:
I've gone down two points in the span of 3 weeks.

Means nothing without some information on your training for the past 6 weeks plus. I've seen mine drop at least a couple of points if I have not trained for a couple of weeks then go for a run.

0 MalcolmLavery over 4 years ago

My VO2 has dropped from 57 to 51 in the last few weeks. Im running more, running longer, running more hills and running faster!! Why!?!?!

0 Federonic over 4 years ago in reply to MalcolmLavery

Exactly.

I'm just not gonna worry about it anymore..

0 honza_81 over 4 years ago in reply to Federonic

I have the same, drop about 1.2 for no reason IMHO...

0 Federonic over 4 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

I've been running!

VO2 Max increases, but fitness age goes *up* by 9 years

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VO2 Max increases, but fitness age goes up by 9 years