Cardio Fitness score and exercising at high elevation grounds.

[TheCreags]

My cardio health says im fair/average for my age. However my Vo2 levels are different and lower because im running at such a high elevation, on flat ground. I doubt fitbit is taking this elevation jnto consideration. Is there a setting to change that? If not, what math would tou have to manually do for a more accurate score? Is there a formula for that?

Moderator edit: Updated subject for clarity

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hi there @TheCreags. Great to have you in the Fitbit Community Forums! 🙂

I think I can help you with this. VO2 Max is a measurement of how well your body uses oxygen when you’re working out at your hardest. Fitbit estimates your VO2 Max and refers to it as your cardio fitness score.

Your cardio fitness score is determined by your resting heart rate, age, gender, weight, and other personal information. For best results, make sure your weight is correct in your Fitbit profile. Also, wear your tracker or watch to sleep for a better resting heart rate estimate.

Now, in terms of elevation, this will be indirectly sensed by your Blaze because of the effort you will put on running at a higher elevation and this will be reflected on your heart rate and then, processed by Fitbit to give you a more accurate Cardio Fitness score.

Hope this answers your question and if you need anything else, I'm always around!

[TheCreags]

So you’re saying the Fitbit does recognize that I’m running at 6200 feet elevation and changes my score accordingly? 

My score wouldn’t improve from simply going to a place at sea level elevation and running there? Because I know if I went to a lower elevation and ran that my Vo2 levels would appear much better than where I live now. I know Fitbit will monitor changes in elevation during a run or as I throughout my day, but does it recognize my starting elevation as opposed to someone else with a Fitbit at sea level?

[Dementat]

This is a fair question that isn't addressed adequately. Though I now live near sea level, I used to live at an altitude of ~7000 feet so I also wondered if there was a way that fitbit adjusts the cardio score. There's research suggesting that VO2 max is related to altitude linearly (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16311764). Even if fitbit decided to not apply an altitude correction within its software, it would probably be enough if fitbit would provide details on how it relates V02 max to its cardio score for you to compute it manually. However, I'd wager that fitbit will claim that the formula is proprietary. Sources suggest that a 3% decrease in V02 max per 1000 feet increase in elevation is ballpark reasonable. If you're willing to assume a linear relationship between fitbit's cardio score and V02 max, then if you're at 6200 ft, then you'd expect ~18% improvement in V02 max (18% improvement in cardio score?). So a cardio score of, say, 50 at your elevation, would be 1.18*50 = 59 at sea level. Of course I'm making a huge assumption about the nature of the relationship between cardio score and V02 max being linear, so take this with a huge grain of salt.