Altitude adjusted VO2 max

Hmm, the text on their website (https://www.firstbeat.com/en/consumer-feature/vo2max-fitness-level/) doesn’t really seem to specify so I imagine you are referring to the diagram near the bottom where it says ‘up and down hills’?

Anyone from First Beat confirm or shed more light on whether/how elevation gain/loss during activities (separate from altitude acclimatization) factors into VO2 max calculation?

I think HermanB (a FirstBeat rep) confirmed that the baro is used to adjust VO2Max (on newer models at least) IIRC.

Hi folks, 

There's a bit of justified confusion here. The accounting for 'climbs and descents' that @tmk2 is referring to are the increased or decreased effort required to maintain the same pace running uphill or downhill vs that same pace over effectively level ground. That's, necessarily, been part of the VO2max analytics from the beginning. This is a different thing than recognizing and accounting for the decrease in performance capacity related to higher altitude environments due a decrease oxygen availability - which triggers your body to gradually adapt (or acclimate, if you will) to better facilitate performance under those more challenging conditions.

But, I think you specific question is more about a scenario where, for example, someone is running up Pikes Peak.

And, that, I'm not 100% sure about. 

Thanks for jumping in, HermanB. This is of particular interest to me as someone living in Colorado.

I guess there are really three potential altitude-related factors:

- Amount of elevation gain/loss during an activity

- Elevation at which activity occurs

- Level of acclimatization to elevation at which activity is taking place

HermanB, do you know how many of these three are accounted for in VO2 max calculations and by the altitude acclimation function?

Bumping this with the hope that HermanB will answer the question about which altitude related factors are accounted for in VO2 max and altitude acclimation.

In the meantime, for anyone: what does it mean when the altitude acclimation widget says 3000 feet if I live at 6000 feet?

Thanks, HermanB! Your answer does make sense and it was what I was after - and on the final point, I was only wanting to know whether the difficulty of going 13 miles up Pikes Peak (vs 13 flat miles) is taken into account. On that point, though, I see in your response here and in the related forum on TE for trail runs in the MARQ sub, is it only through effort level as determined by HRV and not using elevation data? And is that the case for the other two factors also (elevation and acclimation to elevation)? If so, wouldn’t fitness level factor into how much effort is required to go up a hill?

Just commenting on these posts from 8 months ago.  Maybe things have changed since then, but I am just as surprised as some of the people asking questions here and elsewhere relating to running up hills and its impact on VO2max.  Firstly, my question is purely about how V02max takes into account the much slower pace and higher heart rate associated with running up hills.  Despite HermanB's and FirstBeat's assurances, I have not seen anything but reductions in VO2 max reported by my very expensive 945 whenever I am running hills.  I am usually doing this as part of my 'long slow run' training in Zone 2.  I have had significant drops in V02 max and Training Status every time I do these runs in the very hilly area where I live.  When I run fast on flat terrain, where I usually do interval training, I usually see increases in these metrics.  Thinking about this, as I often am, having forked out so much for my watch and like so many others being very interested in the data that it provides, I don't understand why Firstbeat/Garrmin can't get this right.  Surely if my watch is able to tell me exactly what altitude gain and loss I experienced, it can more appropriately take this into account than it seemingly does?  I have read the FirstBeat claims that their algorithms take hills into account, but I am not at all convinced.

And this leads me to my last point.  I don't understand why we owners/users, who have made such a big investment in this technology, have to seek answers from other similarly confused users on this community site.  Most of the responses I read appear to be from users searching for the same answers and doing their own research by analysing the data from their runs.  And often they appear to be guessing.  Why isn't someone who knows the answers to these questions monitoring these posts and giving the definitive answers to people's questions instead of leaving it up to users to assume or provide their own analyses?  I too thank HermanB for weighing in here with his advice - it is greatly appreciated - but I note that he too doesn't seem to be too sure of his answers either - and I for one am challenging his response.  If "degree of difficulty" is "absolutely and necessarily" taken into account, why can I almost guarantee that my watch's analytics will 'penalise' me with poorer results every time I do a long slow or recovery run in Zone 2 up hills - at almost half the pace of my flat terrain runs?  And not surprisingly, I get the same spurious results when I am running slowly through soft sand on the beach, which I can understand would be far more difficult for the technology to take into account.  Wouldn't it be great if experts from Garmin and FirstBeat could provide clear answers to such questions, instead of leaving us users to surmise for ourselves?

Good feedback, thanks for all of that mylestomp. 

I'll pass your comments/thoughts/concerns along to our team.

"Always learning" is a core principle at Firstbeat for a reason. There's literally a poster that says this on the wall. There are always improvements being made based on the feedback we get, like yours. It's in our interest to get it right. 

For my own part, I'll try to be more concrete and specific when I can. It's not always possible, but I'll try. The obvious challenge is to be open and helpful without (even accidentally) divulging anyone's intellectual property. Another, challenge my own appreciation for the complexity of some of these situation and an understanding of how little of the big picture of what matters is actually being communicated in a forum post.

Thanks again.