VO2max Estimation by Garmin device

Garmin fenix 3 HR

which has VO2max estimation feature

VO2max

VO2max is one of performance factor for athletes.  Traditional way to estimate the number without special lab equipment is "Cooper Testing".   It is so called "12 minutes running".  Based on distance people can run in 12 minutes, VO2max can be estimated.
This number is also used for estimated marathon time.

Garmin Device can estimate VO2max

As I introduce a couple times in my blog before, the recent Garmin Running devices have a feature to estimate this VO2max number based on activities.   I think this is very good factor to see the progress of your training.

Actually, I have never measure my VO2max in lab before.  Therefore, I do not know the estimation by Garmin device is accurate or not.  But it seems that the number is close to the cooper test result based on my past data.  At least the absolute value of VO2max is probably not very important for most of people.   I think just having a relative comparison would be very useful.  As long as people using that way, the feature is really useful.  Even if we have some gap between the estimated value and the real value.

Benefit of the estimation by a device

For Cooper testing, people need to run really push to their limit, basically it should be "all-out".  This really high intensity training is probably really tough for many people except some serious athlete.   A good thing estimate by Garmin device does not requires really high intensity activity to get the number.  It requires to see the maximum heart rate and some accumulated activity data to get a reasonable numbers.  However after accumulating some activity data including some high intensity activities, even if an easy activities, we still can get some estimated number and it seems to be a reasonable.   I think this is a good benefit to get the number for each activities and understand the fitness situation.

This is one of features I really like in Garmin fenix 3 HR.