My Fitness Level Is Way Better Than I thouhgt It Was

[bcalvanese]

I have been using more advanced fitness devices for over a year now. These devices calculate your VO2max during cardio workouts. I have always gotten poor to fair numbers for VO2max, and wondering why this number does not seem to have improved over the past year or so. I have been convinced all this time that my fitness level was poor/fair, and that makes me push hard to try and increase it.

I was looking at all my settings the other day and noticed a setting called "activity class". I thought this was the same setting as on the less advanced fitness trackers that had to do with activity level in terms of your day to day work and stuff. I have a desk job so I have always set that to sedentary or a low number.

Turns out this number is much more than that, and has to do with how many workouts you do per week and METS. I didn't know what the heak METS was so I looked it up and found a METS calculator. I put how far I thought I could jog at a 5 mph pace and for how long if I really pushed myself, and came up with a MEPS number of about 12. I then referenced the activity class number that fit that METS number and the number of hours I work out per week and came up with an activity class of 7 (had it set to 3 or less before that).

I saved the setting, synced my device up, and did a 5 mile jog/power walk interval at 4.4 mph (about medium intensity for me). My VO2max number came out to be in the good zone now instead of poor/fair.

I have been wondering about this for over a year now, and pushing myself to try and improve it.

Mystery solved...

[SunsetRunner]

It is important to give accurate data to the fitness devices, they are all calculating expected calorie burn and VO2 values based on formulas derived from statistical analysis of hundreds of people.

Even your max heart rate should be reset to be more accurate than the default 220-age, that formula is so bad it shouldn't even be used as a starting point. By that calculation my MAX HR should be 169 but in reality mine is closer to 188-189, that's 20 beats difference nearly a 12% margin of error.

Fairly significant.

[bcalvanese]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

It is important to give accurate data to the fitness devices, they are all calculating expected calorie burn and VO2 values based on formulas derived from statistical analysis of hundreds of people.

Even your max heart rate should be reset to be more accurate than the default 220-age, that formula is so bad it shouldn't even be used as a starting point. By that calculation my MAX HR should be 169 but in reality mine is closer to 188-189, that's 20 beats difference nearly a 12% margin of error.

Fairly significant.

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Thanks for the reply and you are correct.

My MHR is 161 based on a stress test that I had done. It just happens to be the same as the 220 - age formula as I am 59.

I do have all my stats set correctly eccept the activity class because I thought it was the same setting as on less advanced devices. On those devices it usually means what your occupation is. Like desk job would be sedintary, so I always kept it on a low number.