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Can I correct the VO2 max estimate?

Cooad
over 1 year ago

Is there a way to set a VO2 max estimate manually, if I know it's way too high?

I've had a Garmin Vivomove hr for about 5 years, so there's some history on my Garmin account. At the end of February I bought a FR255. The reason I bought it is because I want to run a half marathon this year, and a marathon next year. So it's my coach Slight smile

When I started running at the end of February my HRmax was set to 191 (220-age). During the first 2-3 weeks of training I realized that the max HR too high, because I just couldn't hit zone 4 (which started at 167 BPM). I took a look at my history, and I've found that the highest HR ever recorded with Vivomove hr watch was 177, and that was 4 years of sitting on a couch ago. So I did some tests (hill repeats and other such things), set my HRmax to 175, and my zonest to use heart rate reserve. Based on my last 6 weeks of running with these settings, I think the HR zones (and by extension HRmax) are set correctly.

When I changed my HRmax, my VO2max estimate started dropping by 0.05-0.15 (I can see the drop in the .fit files) each run, which totally makes sense. I started out with 49 (which is too high), and I'm currently at 46.1 (which is still too high). The issue is that because my VO2max is dropping, my training status is "unproductive" or "tired". I assume that with enought time, the VO2max estimate would stabilize, and I'd get positive training effects - is there a way I can speed up that process?

Runalyze is estimating my VO2max at 28 - if that's true, with the rate the estimate is currently dropping, I would have to wait ~6 months for my watch to be accurate. That's an awefully long time to hear your coach tell you you are unproductive Disappointed

I tried setting my VO2max to 30 in Garmin Connect Web, but that got overriden by my watch on the next run.

Bonus question: after I changed my HRmax to 175, my watch "detected an HRmax change" and set it back up to 185. I lowered it manually again, and next time it reset it to 180, so I disabled the auto HRmax detection. In both of these activities my max HR didn't exceed 155. I assume this won't happend, once the VO2max is (more or less) ok, and I'll be able to turn that feature back on?

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  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Cooad
    Cooad said:
    Seems like my LT is 149 BPM. (5:50 minutes/kilometer). 

    For a comparison as to why 220-age wouldn't work with narrow zones for many people. My maxHR is 190 and my LT is 171 bpm. I am in my 50s.
    Each time I have got a new watch and forgot to set my zones (sucks that you can't carry this over but I sorta understand why with optical HR evolving) absolutely everything I did would be in zone 4/5

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to smashsmashsmash

    The zones I've had for the past ~6 weeks (based on heart rate reserve) weren't that different, and that VO2Max estimate is slowly dropping, so it is slowly getting closer...
    So there's no way to speed up that proces, by making a small manual adjustement or some other trickery? Disappointed

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to smashsmashsmash
    smashsmashsmash said:
    Their zones are wrong. They used the age formula to determine max HR for one. (mine is higher by 20 bpm

    That is not my impression.

    I am 42 years old and had a FR245 long time, then FR255, now switched to FR955. On all watches, I entered my calculated HR Max (Sally Edwards formula) for the start, but let it on autodetect.

    And guess what: Autodetection corrected it, but NOT to 178.
    All watches corrected it to 183 and that feels about right, when I do tempo runs or Anaerobic intervals.

  • 0 over 1 year ago
    Cooad said:
    after I changed my HRmax to 175, my watch "detected an HRmax change" and set it back up to 185. I lowered it manually again, and next time it reset it to 180, so I disabled the auto HRmax detection

     You misunderstand the meaning of VO²max. This is not the 1st grade metric. It is a calculation based on your heart rate under a certain load. If you disable autodetect for HRmax your whole telemetry goes down the drain. Forget vo2max. Let your watch autodetect your HRmax if it works - do an LT test, but that's not necessary at first.

    And no, it is not possible (and not necessary) to manipulate your calculated VO²max. And please don't compare to runalyze "effective VO²max" it's different thing.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to global_local

    Ok, I do get the point that I can't correct my VO2max estimation manually.

    However I stand by my decision to disable auto HRmax detection. Based on this link: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/health-science/heart-rate-monitoring/

    "If a heart rate higher than your currently set maximum is identified and passes a reliability threshold, your personal maximum heart rate is updated on the device or in the Garmin Connect app."
    That means garmin doesn't detect that your HRmax is lower than what it thinks it is. I would be forever stuck with a value that's too high.

    Also, my HRmax got updated to values much higher to what I have achieved during these activities, which was comunicated as a bug in FR955 forum: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-955-series/309583/max-heart-rate-changed-without-meeting-the-new-max-heart-rate-during-the-activity
    I know it's not the same device, but firmware changelog might suggest they share a big chunk of code.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Cooad

    It is not normal to actually reach your HRmax during an activity. If I set my HRmax to 180, the watch will quickly adjust it back to 182 or 183, even if I don't register any heart rate over 160 in an activity. The estimation algorithm seems to work very well.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to ovekvam

    I'm going to give it one more go, once my VO2max estimate with my manually set HRmax stabilizes.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Cooad
    Cooad said:
    That means garmin doesn't detect that your HRmax is lower than what it thinks it is. I would be forever stuck with a value that's too high.

    No, that is not correct.

    In fact, see what I wrote above. I set my max HR manually to 185 (formula calculated). Three (!) different Garmin watches corrected that value to 183 after first run, so lowered it.