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VO2 max decreasing

Former Member
Former Member over 5 years ago

I was a long time Apple watch user and over last year my VO2 max was improving as per Apple watch. A month back, I moved to Garmin. I started with 46 VO2 max but over 3 weeks, it has come down to 42.

I am following same schedule of 3 x 9-10 km runs a week, 1 hike around 3 hours and daily walk. I have seen during last 1 week, with each run, my VO2 max is reduced by 1 number. please find here some run details and VO details.

is there any way to improve my VO2 max ? or should I ignore this as it seems to be incorrect to me. 

Run 1

Run 2

 

Run 3

Run 4

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    As your watch is relatively new, your VO2 max may take some time to settle down.  The initial estimate is just that, an estimate.  It is the long-term trend that matters more.  I often find I lose a point or two sometimes for no obvious reason and I guess this is just natural variability in my body. I also more often see a lower VO2 max if I'm varying my run types, e.g. following a training programme. This makes it harder for the watch to compare one run with another.  This might have happened with you as your later runs are slower than your first one.

    Note that the iPhone is suspected to use much more agressive smoothing algorithms, as on their GPS tracking, which sometimes gives a false impression of accuracy. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    For me it looks like that if "performance condition" is positive for a couple of runs, then you are about to get a higher reported VO2max value. And the opposite, that is if "performance condition" is negative for a couple of runs then the VO2max is about to decrease.

    Also, it seems that hot temperature is not taken into account for VO2max, so if you run in hot weather, then VO2max goes down if you do that for some runs.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I think this behaviour is weird. I started to use the 645 mid December, had a start VO2max of 46, after a couple of weeks it climbed to 47. It is very stable right from the start.