Cardio fitness “potential?”

[JDWolverine]

My cardio fitness score is poor, which I expected. I’m disabled and I’ve been bedridden with illness for years until recently. I also have POTS. My question is in the app it shows an estimate of my potential to improve with increased exercise intensity, and it’s still poor. I find that really discouraging. Why is that? Isn’t exercise a massive factor in cardiac fitness? Like, I thought building cardiac endurance through exercise would be THE main factor? Are there other factors? I need to stop following this metric if it’s never going to come out of poor no matter how hard I work, that’s not good for me. Why don’t I have more potential?

[alexthecat]

@JDWolverine I think you probably have more potential than the Fitbit app wants to admit. It sounds like you have been sedentary for a long time and now you're able to be more active. Most people don't have that experience and the calculations probably don't account for that. 

One thing I can tell you is that I was injured in a cycling accident several years ago. I was non-ambulatory and mostly bedridden for about a year. My fitness score tanked during that time. Once I was able to get around again, that score increased quickly. Part of that was related to weight loss, but my overall fitness improved a lot too. 

I think you have a lot of potential, no matter what that score says. Maybe you can just focus on trying prove it wrong. That calculation is based on some idea of "average". You're not average and maybe it doesn't apply to you. 

[LZeeW]

@JDWolverine   For those who don't know about POTS, it is an acronym for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.  I suspect that you have a lot of information and have searched the internet ("asked Dr. Google") looking for more.  Have you come across this article in your searches?  I looked at your profile and can see that you are very new to Fitbit.  There is a brief exercise regimen suggested.  Was your workout plan similar to this one?  You joined in August and it is late October, so it might be too soon to tell.

It's also possible that following your cardio fitness score won't work well for you.  Fitbit describes it like this.  If you have two otherwise identical people running side by side, the person with the slower heart rate will have the higher cardio fitness score.  Individuals with POTS tend to have a faster heart rate at a given intensity than non-POTS individuals.  It just might not be a good metric for you.  Exercising for quality of life improvement would be a better goal.

[t.parker]

@JDWolverine cardio fitness score is nothing more but VO2Max and people with POTS will have lower VO2Max. The potential for improvement will be lower, too. There has been done plenty of research on VO2Max and POTS. You just need to do best you. The metric is based on comparison of statistical data which isn't working in your case. Now, the problem here is that Fitbit seems to be applying labels like poor, good etc. What may be considered poor for healthy individual may not be poor for you but Fitbit has no idea about it. The statistical sample it uses is based probably on rather healthy people who don't suffer conditions greatly limiting their abilities. Moreover, the VO2Max is just an estimate and it may not be correct at all (that is for lab test to find out). Potential is just prediction based on the statistical sample but it doesn't take into account medical conditions or genetics (the potential for best VO2Max may be very different for two healthy people just because of one won genetic lottery). You don't need to ignore the score but I would probably ignore labels and leave the potential out of it. You need to craft this feature to be useful for you. Fitbit tries to turn everything into "motivating" colorful feature and sometimes that backfires. VO2Max isn't there for you to be motivated. It's just a metric and in real world it isn't even that important on its own detached from other metrics. If you want to use cardio score (geez, I so hate this name, it's VO2Max for Pete's sake! It's not a score) make the best you can from that and just do best you (and ignore labels) 🙂

[LokeAa]

@JDWolverine , disabled is a specter, and POTS syndrome on top of that foes not make it easy for you. The good news is you seem determined to increase your cardiac health.Determination and stuborness can get you a long way. To improve your cardiac helth boils down to get that heart pumping.  What kind of excercise are you able to do at the moment?

I understand you find it discouraging to see a bad potential. I would recommend you to download an app called "Memento". This app can connect to your Fitbit account, and it shows your improvement in a different way. It is all about heart rate. What is kind of cool is that a person with low cardiac health benefits from cardio training fast, and I promise you, if you get your heart pumping, you will see improvement very soon.

Memento is available both from Apple store and Play store. You can read more about Memento, and the science behind it here.

I'm rooting for you, and if you have any questions you think I can answer, feel free to ask.

Best of luck to you!