Something to watch out for Garmin VO2 Max….mine kept climbing recently, which as much as I would like it to be true seemed exceptionally high without a lot of explanation. Then I noticed how Garmin kept saying I needed more “high aerobic” work, right after I did a killer VO2 max session….weird.
So turns out that I had toggled on the auto max heart rate detection on my 530, and at some point it got an anomalous 220 max reading and changed it in my profile. My actual max is 183. So it decided when I was at 175 bpm in a VO2 max interval, that I still had 45 bpm to go and set my VO2 max well into the 70’s.
Moral of the story, I’d suggest toggling off the max heart rate auto detect in Garmin.
I’m not arguing either way but would like to add that I’ve recently carried out 4 lab tests spreadover 18 months and each time my VO2 max has been within 1 or 2 of what my Garmin was giving me at the time
picking the high and low, that is only a 2.9% difference between estimates in WKO5 (?) and Intervals (5-min effort). Same same. And Garmin uses another method (Firstbeat) to estimate VO2max.
Due to age declines and relatively low number of years training, my focus is on absolute estimated vo2max (WKO5) as it is independent of weight fluctuations.
With “enough” near maximal long-ish efforts, I’ve seen Garmin and WKO5 almost perfectly align. Right now I’ve only got a single ~20 minute near max effort.
I don’t even get intensity minutes from my Tacx smart turbo rides in Garmin. An hour of VO2 max work and not a single intensity minute in Garmin Connect
It gets sent to Strava as well, so don’t know if that’s the missing link. I’ve never done anything special in terms of settings and all the TR data seems to be incorporated into all the Garmin metrics.
I think you need a weekly VO2 session to make it work - otherwise it just seems to drop off with any other sort of effort: I take it with a huge handful of salt.
I’ve only started to get intensity minutes when I upgraded to an edge 530. Now it only works if I record on that device. The 520 still doesn’t give me the same metrics, even when it records the same powermeter and workout.
The problem is that the intensity minutes are calculated by device and not by Garmin Connect. It makes sense for Garmin as the load of all those calculations doesn’t hit their web servers. But it does mean it’s device (or app) specific. If you send data to Garmin from an app (such as Trainer Road) you’re not getting credit for the intensity minutes, even though all the data necessary to calculate them, is there. Which makes the weekly intensity minutes nonsense , if you don’t get them calculated from all your sessions.
