Monthly cardio load results…what do I need to do to meet goals

[LindaMtl]

I have cardio goal set to improve. I usually meet or exceed cardio load targets. In January, I was at risk of overtraining. In fact I was amping up to my normal activity, given I had slacked off in December. Fair enough. February, I increase my average daily cardio load and result is maintaining fitness. What do I need to do to improve cardio load? I’m 68 and my cardio fitness score is excellent for my age. 

 

 

 

[Oldraven]

I am still trying to get my head around this whole cardio load thing and it kind of baffles me to be honest. I am paying more attention to the metrics stats and the readiness score for now. I had set my cardio for improving my fitness, but it seemed impossible for me to regularly meet those goals. Now I have it set for maintaining. Relieves a lot of guilt! I am 73 and walk a lot but my knees are kind of shot so I have to take it easier than I used. I pay more attention to the way my body feels now. If I walk five miles a day that seems to be enough for me to handle. I would like to improve my upper body exercises, but I am not consistent with that I have to admit. The readiness score seems to be fairly accurate, but even that is sometimes not agreeing with the way my old knees feel. The way I look at it is, I am doing my best and at my age that should be enough.
Take care

[YachatsMike]

I have been trying to guess what Cardio Load is trying to tell me and I think it's just supposed to tell me how hard I should work.  The calculus for calculating the actual score and how they set your Target are a mystery to me.  That said, when I look at the primary purpose of the score -- to tell you whether you should go for a personal best or slack off -- isn't that useful to me.  I check my sleep score, my readiness score, and how I feel generally before I start my exercise.  I always try to do the best I can and do my recovery during one of my off days.  My body is pretty good at making me slow down when I should.  More than once I've gotten on my rower and after 5 minutes quit  because the old body was just not up to to it today.  I never let the Cardio Load Target  score dictate my intensity.

[RiekoC]

Hello @LindaMtl 

My apologies if you've already reviewed this help page on Cardio Load & Target Cardio Load (<-- click link).

I've had the Cardio Load feature since it was released for the Pixel Watch 3 last year and I still don't fully understand it. I have my goal set to Maintain, considering that my cardio score/Vo2 max is Excellent for my gender & age group. I monitor where my dot is on the Your past 7 days of training graph with the goal to keep my dot in the Maintaining section. There are days when I don't reach the suggested target cardio load. But as long as my dot is in the Maintain section, I figure I'm doing okay.

FWIW, I've read posts by users who switched their goal from Improve to Maintain because the suggested target range was so high. After the switch and doing several days of their "normal" activity/workouts, their dot was in the Improve section of the graph, where they wanted to be in the first place. This might be a strategy to consider. 

[YachatsMike]

Maybe the algorithm decided your basic fitness as measured by your January performance was higher than its initial determination.  Based on the January numbers it increased your baseline Cardio Load.  That would make the overtraining evaluation in January into a maintenance performance in February.

[LindaMtl]

I changed my goal to maintain a few days ago. I do find the target is now often too low but exceeding it no longer puts me in overtraining. It shows improvement, which is my real goal. Yeah. It is a confusing metric though. 

[LindaMtl]

Makes sense, thank you

[LindaMtl]

Agree with you. Cardio load not what I rely on for my training. 

[LindaMtl]

I too reset it to maintain and now my routine is logged as improving. Unfortunately, our aches and pains are not a factor in the Fitbit metrics. 🙂

[YachatsMike]

True Fact.  Cardio Load and Readiness are cardiovascular measurements.  They don't account for muscles and joints.  You have to listen to your body for advice on them,