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VO2max lowered by open water swimming activities?

JOLACA01
over 5 years ago

I usually don't run. I just swim, mostly pool swimming and sometimes open water swimming. My VO2max  has never been affected by pool swimming but since I have my 945 I have detected that my long open water swimming sessions do decrease my VO2max. Is that normal behavior? Should I expect this to happen?. I'm using 2.80 firmware on my 945, and this was the last activity that decreased, once again, my VO2max:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4084171735

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Nothing swim related should ever affect your VO2max. 

    Out of curiosity, do you have a current Training Status? 

    What I'm guessing happened is that lacking a recent update to your VO2max from running, your watch did an analysis based on some walking around data. It's designed to do that so that you have at least some sort of fitness assessment, even when you aren't running regularly outdoors or cycling with a power meter. It's my understanding that these more casual walking around based VO2max assessments aren't fed into the Training Status analysis, because they aren't quite as reliable as the running-based assessments.

    And in before anyone asks, the reason VO2max isn't calculated during swimming is because there isn't a reliable measure of external workload to tether the analysis. Naturally, during a swim, provided you have good HR data, it's possible assess the intensity of your exertion and express that relative to your maximum exertion capability... but without a good, reliable external workload parameter it stays you relative to you. 

    Hope that helped. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to HermanB

    Thanks HermanB. Indeed,I don't have any training status. So I guess that's what happened. I'm planning to start some cycling in October so I hope this will restore my old VO2max.

    BTW,  what I do have is training load information from my daily swimming sessions and I've got low aerobic and even anaerobic load but I'm lacking and have a shortage of high aerobic load, guess that's what I need running or cycling!! Slight smile