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VO2max and cycling vs running

I have recently stopped running due to an injury but I can still cycle. My bikes don't have power meters and my injury will take months to heal. How long (if ever) will it take for Garmin to start basing my vO2max on my cycling activities instead of running?

0 ovekvam over 1 year ago

If you have no power meter, I think it will never get any measurements. Eventually it will just start guessing you VO2Max based on any exercise you do.

0 Eightball1985 over 1 year ago

You need a power meter for cycling vo2max

0 TedW over 1 year ago in reply to Eightball1985

Actually, I don't think Garmin does a good job evaluating vo2max or hrv and I'm pausing my training staus because it serves no useful purpose for me. I'm keeping the watch for now (using it to record rides), but I have serious doubts about continuing with any garmin products when my watch stops functioning. They're just too limited and inaccurate.

0 1371157 over 1 year ago in reply to TedW

I'm not really sure what the solution for VO2 max estimation without a power meter would be. Way too many variables contributing to cycling speed to allow for an accurate calculation.

More broadly, yeah VO2 max estimation is not perfect. That's because it's based off HR and not VO2 exhaled. HRV however is very accurate (whether it's insightful or actionable is another question that will be different for everyone). I compared it to a whoop for a month and the two HRV figures moved perfectly in line with one another. There are several blogs out there which have conducted similar experiments and have found garmin's overnight HRV highly consistent.