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fall of Vo2max from FR35 to vivoactive 3

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hello

One year ago i bought a Forrunner 35, I get my Vo2max going from 35 to 61 during the year. 61 was a month ago. My goal is not the performance, but an indicator of my health, i have diabetes since 2017 and as I am only 39 so I hope to live most of the time without hard casualties.
A few weeks ago, nearly a month, a bought a vivoactive 3 which costs the double and that is prettier -I can wear it all the day- and has additional features such as HRV (for stress). During this nearly month my vivoactive is going down from 41 (first value) to now 39.

I have read that is was "normal" the new watch has to adapt the first weeks, but now it is a month and the fall was massive, from top 1% to bottom 40% of my age in just three days.
I do not run, I walk alone or with my dog and I ride my mountain bike. I do not like to run and as I am heavy I guess that would not be a good idea anyway.

What can I do to improve that ? Is it possible that my previous estimation by the FR35 was wrong and that I am not in a better health than in the beginning ? I walk at 5.6km/h (flat) with an average HR of 106 on a scale from 78 to 181 according to the VA3.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Wow, that´s impressive! Congratulations about that :)

With being an athlete, global_local does not mean to do X hours of sports every week. It´s constantly pushing yourself into the next level and comparing yourself with others.
For me personally, this means to run at least 4-5 times a week and trying to archive to be somewhere around the first 10th of competitions.
This will include interval-training and different training methods to get faster and faster.

well, that is not me then. But that is not a surprise ;-)

Which was also said: Use a HRM strap! The wrist measurement is working okay all day. But not on sportive usage!

before the change of watch I have thought about it, but in Europe the HRM strap are not XXXL and I need at least 120cm and at this particular point I feel the bones and there is not a lot of fat so there is no chance a smaller model would fit even with a huge fat loss.
The HRM starp of garmin does not seem large, and the ones from polar are

XS-S: 51-66 cm
M-XXL: 65-93 cm
XXXL: 76-116 cm

but I do not find the XXXL model near me or in my local amazon or sport websites and it is to small anyway.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Hi,

5 months later I guess I know what happen.

In garmin connect app I only have one v02max, whereas in gamin website I have a vo2max running and a vo2max cycling.

Apparently with the forrunner 35 I had both estimations, whereas with the vivoactive 3 I only have running -and walking under the same value-. In garmin connect app only the best of the two is displayed.

I know that now because in 6 months I got zero estimations for bike.

My guess is that at the beginning I had poor values in bike and running. The garmin algorithm made initial estimations of the vo2max when riding without any powermeter just by assuming that a day where i was riding and walking the vo2max was the same. And then as I was riding more often my performance in riding were upgrading and so my vo2max as riding. But not as running, since I do not run.

I guess that when I have changed the watch, the new watch made new estimations as running, which are still poor.

Could it really be that ?

Now my VA3 is displaying only 34 in vo2max, whereas my performance are very better on bike, I got the third level climber badge last week, that was unthinkable two years ago.

Is there a way to authorize riding evaluation for the vivoactive 3 ? It is a higher price, I expect to have more features, not less ?

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Having faced a similar issue of strange VO2Max decrease in the last 2 months, I can give my inputs:

- I am 58 and practice mainly cycling (without any HR strap)

- last year, with a TomTom watch, the VO2Max, reported by Tomtom was 39

- when I changed to a VA3M, after a few weeks, Garmin Express reported for me a VO2Max of 39:

- The VO2max value decreased during winter to 37, probably because I had stopped cycling activity.

- The VO2max then stayed constant during spring

- But in summer, while obviously my health was better thanks to training, the VO2max fell to 32

- Disappointed, I installed an alternate IQ application: JMG-DTF Cycling VO2 Max

- This application gives me more complete results and the VO2max it reports is 40.

- As it is consistent with the values I got last year, I now only consider the information provided by this application and not any more what Garmin Express reports.

- My guess is that the formula used by Garmin to compute the VO2max, has been changed in the last months and is now worse than it was last year.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Hi,

Yesterday I got an update of my garmin connect app on android, and now I got a VO2 estimation for both cycle and walking. 35 (bottom 15% ) vs 62 (top 1%) LOL.

But after checking on garmin connect website, it is the old estimation of Mars 2019 when I had the Forrunner 35, whereas the other one is from this week. Still no update of the value.

0 OsiMik over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Have you set your HR zones properly? VO2Max is using them for calculations. The zones might have been reset after the App update. Also check your weight, hight and age settings.
You said, that you walk at 5.6km/h (flat) with an average HR of 106 on a scale from 78 to 181 according to the VA3. Assuming your min HR is 60, your VO2Max = 15 x (HRmax/HRmin) = 45. This is very reasonable for your age and fitness level.

You are 39 and your max. HR is around 220-39=181. This is not very precise, since you reached 181 by not very fast walking. I guess your max HR is around 185-190. To reach 80% of your HRmax you should walk at 7 km/h speed.

You kan easily verify your Garmin VO2max calculations by methods from the WiKi:
en.wikipedia.org/.../VO2_max

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to OsiMik

Hi,

I don't set individual values for the HR zones, I let the app doing it. I have no idea what my zones could be.

When I said 78 to 181, 78 means my HR while resting. But is was in Mars, now it is 70.