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Questions about VO2 Max

I have been monitoring my VO2 Max as calculated with my VA3. I am a 56 year old male and my Vo2 Max is now at 38. I have made a few observations that I am trying to understand:

1. The Firstbeat VO2 Max Whitepaper indicates that a VO2 Max value of 38 should translate to 'Good' performance. Various other sources support this value and some also indicate a value of 38 as being "Excellent". For some reason, the VA3 indicates a value of 38 to be only "Fair".

2. Additionally, the VO2Max dashboard in Garmin Connect indicates that a man of 56 with a VO2 Max of 38 is in the 50% percentile with a fitness age of 53. Does that means 50% of men my age have a VO2 max greater than 38? This doesn't seem to make sense to me as probably fewer than 5% (or 10%?) of men my age run or do any other aerobic fitness activities. What does this value mean? I don't understand the fitness age value either. The Firstbeat Whitepaper doesn't touch on either of these stats.

Comments?

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0 peterv_1 over 7 years ago

This doesn't seem to make sense to me as probably fewer than 5% (or 10%?) of men my age run or do any other aerobic fitness activities.

Let's say this statement is true, I think the cohort you are compared with is men in your agebracket who wear gear like this. I'm guessing they'd be more inclined to do running or other activities to stay fit. Just my 2cents

0 SAHO over 7 years ago

I've been wondering about the OP's point no 2 as well. The fitness age and percentile - is it compared to real data from other Garmin users - or estimations of the general human population in my age and gender segment globally? (Or something "in between"?)

Knowing the cohort your being compared to is quite vital in order to get any useful interpretation of your result.

0 HermanB over 7 years ago

1. One of the nice things about metrics like VO2max is that they help us, as human beings, escape the squishiness of natural language to some extent. I, personally, wouldn't put much stock in trying to suss out the nuances of the category labels; Good, Fair, Excellent, Superior, Poor, etc... and even the edges of the categories themselves can be blurred. Is there some magical difference between a high-end 'Fair' and a low-end 'Good'? Probably not.

Regarding your specific example of a VO2max 38 ml/kg/min being rated as "Excellent" - that description is pinned to the relevant categories of age and gender. Without looking it up, I'm guessing you'd need to be a 50 year old woman or a 60+ year old man to get that sort of feedback. It certainly wouldn't be 'Excellent' for an 18 year old; male or female.

2. For VO2max classification/categorization, Garmin utilizes the table from ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (Ninth Edition) - which is utilized with permission of the Cooper's Institute. That same data set is used to ascribe percentiles, and is used in the Fitness Age interpretation.

Hope that helps

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

RE 2 I'll be sixty later this year and my VO2 Max reading is currently also listed as 38 Fair. Apparently the description changes with age though as mine says "Your Fitness Age is 51. That's the top 50% for your age and gender."

Given how little exercise I do (walking is mostly it), I'm not sure how relevant the numbers are which appear to change (low was 37, high was 41) given how quickly I can complete my daily walk to/from work.

I will say that I've done more floor climbing since I bought the VA3 so maybe it is helpful to encourage me to be more active especially now that warmer weather is arriving again.

0 brian.savage over 7 years ago

For VO2max classification/categorization, Garmin utilizes the table from ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (Ninth Edition) - which is utilized with permission of the Cooper's Institute. That same data set is used to ascribe percentiles, and is used in the Fitness Age interpretation.

Hope that helps

thank you. This is useful. I will see if I can find this Guideline.

0 HermanB over 7 years ago

There's some interesting research these days relating VO2max and health - and of course, healthcare costs.

Of particular interest to older men is a study based on data from the US Veterans Administration. They looked at data from nearly 10,0000 subjects aged roughly late 40's to 70 years old. Based on their findings a 3.5 ml/kg/min increase in VO2max equated to a reduction of just over $1,500 in health care costs annually. And the difference from one quartile to the next was about $4100/yr.

It's easy to latch on to VO2max as a performance metric (it is), but it's also a great indicator of overall health - particularly as we get older.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29195922

Protip for anyone who has a look at the paper - some researchers and journals prefer to utilize MET as their unit of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), which is describing the same phenomenon as VO2max - just a different metric. (1 MET = 3.5 ml/kg/min VO2max).

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

My information doesn’t make much sense either. My “fitness age” and my actual age are the same right now, yet my fitness level is “poor” and I am in the bottom 40% for my age and gender. Seems like I should be in the 50 percentile is they are equal and the level should at least be fair. It makes more sense if I am just being compared to Garmin wearers. Frustrating as I recover from a surgery.