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Fitness Age Is Nonsense

friendo
4 days ago

Today (my 59th birthday) one of my long-standing suspicions has been proven to be true: Fitness Age is BS.

I've had my Forerunner 255 for about 10 months, so this is the first birthday I "celebrated" with it on my wrist.

In the months that I have used it - I really love it, overall - I have obsessed about the Fitness Age (FA) results each day, and even as the day goes on, observing changes, what changes it and why.

Poor night sleep?  You just got 6 months "older."
Several days on a row of intense workouts? You might drop a year.

In the past 2 weeks, my FA has been fluctuating from 54 in the morning to 52.5 by the evening.

What was I doing during the day to drop 18 months off my FA?  Damned if I know.  The same thing I do every day: I exercise, eat my meals, and go to sleep.

So how do i know the FA is BS?

This morning, my FA showed 54 as it has for several days.

Just as I noticed that my calendar age in the app changed from 58 to 59, my FA changed from 54 to 55.

What?

Am I now a year "less fit" than I was yesterday because my calendar age jumped a year?

Truth is, I always knew the FA was BS, but I thought (hoped?) it was rooted in some sort of logic.

This proves that it is not.

  • 0 4 days ago

    I think it is computed relative to your age, so when your age is stepped up with one, so is is your fitness age.

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to ovekvam

    That's what makes it BS. The calendar changed, not my fitness "age." I'm as fit as I was yesterday.
    What makes it insult to injury as well is this was just after a pretty intense workout.
    A workout I would bet 90% of guys my age would not survive. 

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to friendo

    There is no scientifically precise answer to what an exact fitness age is. It is just an indicator from Garmin to motivate you. You must look at the difference between your own age and the fitness age to see how well you are doing. If it was minus two years the day before your birthday, it should also be around minus two years after your birthday.  

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to ovekvam

    I get it, but it's BS.
    I slept well, had a great workout, and I'm a year less fit - lol.

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to friendo

    Well, you slept well, had a great workout, and suddenly after your birthday you are a year older, not a day... Does it make your real age BS? It's just that if you round your age to an integer, the number will suddenly change by a year some day. The same applies to the fitness age.

    That said, I pay no attention to the fitness age, it's just Garmin's interpretation of your overall fitness, based on some formula (as mentioned by others).

  • 0 3 days ago

    I wouldnt be going on a rant over a nonsense statistic like fitness age.  I would be more worried about the nonsense lactate threshold and body battery measurements which affect everything on the watch.  Adaptive training plans don't work correctly because of them being incorrect.

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to friendo

    As for me, it's not BS, just another funny and useful statistic. That it works differently than you expected (and yes, -1 year on BD is really silly, full ACK, but.. it's Garmin), changed nothing on its functionality. On my 61 yo it's only -9,5 y, that I can reach. Till 60 it was -10. Memento mori, hehe.

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to global_local

    When Garmin changed the algorithms for fitness age a few years ago, I suddenly got 20 years older. Jumped from early twenties to early forties when I was around 50 in real life. 

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to global_local

    I'm not sure that Garmin's decision to use the real age in full years as a basis for the Fitness age is that silly. I personally think that it's less confusing that both your real age in full years and Fitness age increase on the same day. Otherwise the Fitness age would jump up by a year on some other random day (like half a year later, if the watch thought your Fitness age is 7.5 years under your real age or something).

    And again, I agree that the Fitness age shouldn't jump up and down quickly otherwise, it should adapt slowly to changes in the estimated fitness.

  • 0 2 days ago

    Hi,

       Below is my fitness age last year... I am going to turn 50 in August. Lately my fitness age went up not 1, but 1.5 years, I bet that will be down at least 0.5 years shortly... see the fluctuations some months ago. Cannot explain why. I take it as just an imperfect algorithm, kind of a gimmick, more than a serious statistic.

       How I would like fitness age to be? Like a continous function that is not moving in fixed steps, but depending on my measured body stats (sleep, HR, fitness level, etc), improves of worsen, so that the line would be smoothly going up 1 year each year, but sometimes slowing down, and sometimes going up faster depending on how I am doing.

       I don't know if I am expressing it correctly as english is not my first language.

       Best,
       Kurt.-