Is the cardio fitness score on a Fitbit accurate? (versus, burn, calories)
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I exercise everyday. I have to lose 40 lbs but I don’t have trouble exercising. I am go on the elliptical most days or walk. I did a spin class recently and while hard I pushed myself and was able to get through it. I thought my cardio score would be at least average but it says 24-28 which is poor to fair. I have my weight entered in there so I think that factors into it also. I just wonder how accurate it is because someone while I’m exercising it will say my heart rate is 115 then change to 140 and then back to 110 all within a minute. I know that isn’t accurate because I will check it manually or on the machine I’m on and it’s steady until I slow down.
Like turf said, the old Army PFT run time is a good enough scale. If you can't score a 60 for your group, I would call that below average cardiovascular fitness. It doesn't work quite as well for older populations. E.g. for a 41 year-old it's 18:18 for men and 22:42 for women. There's no real reason, baring disability, that you can't run two miles in that time into at least your 60s. Maybe not today but you could get there. We're not talking about world records here (5:29 mile for a 71-year-old) that are completely unreasonably for most people to achieve.
Pretty sure that score is based on some consideration of both resting and exercising heart rate, and that's all. At least, that's how the older model I got for my daughter works. Not very accurate IMO, and I don't have much faith in the"excellent" rating for myself, with resting pulse in 50s, since it doesn't seem my heart rate is often that low during waking hours.
Pretty sure that score is based on some consideration of both resting and exercising heart rate, and that's all. At least, that's how the older model I got for my daughter works. Not very accurate IMO, and I don't have much faith in the"excellent" rating for myself, with resting pulse in 50s, since it doesn't seem my heart rate is often that low during waking hours.
Yes, I think that is how it works as well. There could be other factors at play as well. For example, I was on one medication for a few years that raised my resting heart rate by 15-20bpm. I am sure I would have been in the “poor” range at that point, even though I was in quite good health otherwise at the time. My resting rate is usually in the low to mid-60s and I exercise quite a bit, but when I was on the medication, it was in the 80s.
It's a very good estimation of your VO2 max. Slightly difficult to understand so they call it a cardiac fitness score. That link should help explain it a bit more effectively. I find it to be very accurate, however, when I get my heart rate into peak zones 160-180 it has a harder time keeping track of my HR.
It's a very good estimation of your VO2 max. Slightly difficult to understand so they call it a cardiac fitness score. That link should help explain it a bit more effectively. I find it to be very accurate, however, when I get my heart rate into peak zones 160-180 it has a harder time keeping track of my HR.
I looked this up and apparently the Garmin units with GPS were tested against real VO2 max tests and found to be pretty close, but overestimating consistently the scores.
Without GPS I don't think they could utilize running heart rate because no idea of running pace. Or, terrain for that matter. I always run trails so my times will be slower than flat ground. Resting heart rate can be misleading as poster above pointed out.
Important to wear at night to get more data on resting HR.
Yeah, there's two ways they could do it. One would be off heart rate alone which might have some degree of accuracy as if you've gone through periods of varying degrees of fitness you know how much faster you recover from efforts when you're in shape versus how long it takes when out of shape. I don't really know that that's what they're doing but that would be less accurate. A V02 max guestimate based off of GPS-tracked running would be much more accurate but that's really just a V02 max guestimate by another name. It's not terribly expensive to get an actual V02 max through various sports clinics, usually around $100-150. All it really is though is a feedback mechanism and to really get much use out of it you'd need to test multiple times throughout the year. Maybe if you're a very competitive age-grouper in marathons or triathlon that might be worthwhile but it's mostly the realm of pro athletes
I exercise everyday. I have to lose 40 lbs but I don’t have trouble exercising. I am go on the elliptical most days or walk. I did a spin class recently and while hard I pushed myself and was able to get through it. I thought my cardio score would be at least average but it says 24-28 which is poor to fair. I have my weight entered in there so I think that factors into it also. I just wonder how accurate it is because someone while I’m exercising it will say my heart rate is 115 then change to 140 and then back to 110 all within a minute. I know that isn’t accurate because I will check it manually or on the machine I’m on and it’s steady until I slow down.
Why worry about a cardio “ fitness score”? You should be tracking the calorie burn if you are looking to lose weight. Some made up score is of little use to you.
If only it was made up. All of the data points that are used to estimate your "fitness score" are also used to track calories burned during exercise. The higher the heart rate the more calories burned. If you never work out in peak zones your fitness score won't improve and you will burn less calories than a more fit person.
If one understands the information it is very useful.
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