Smartwatch Vo2max

📊⌚ Can you trust your smartwatch’s VO₂max?

VO₂max is the gold standard of aerobic fitness.
Lab testing is precise, but costly and impractical for routine use.
Smartwatches promise an easy alternative. The question is accuracy.

🔬 What we did

  • 🏃‍♂️ 35 trained endurance athletes

  • 🧪 Lab-based VO₂max test vs smartwatch estimation

  • ⌚ Device: Garmin Forerunner 245

  • 📊 Comparison by fitness level

📈 Key result
Accuracy is fitness-level dependent:

  • ✅ Moderately trained athletes (VO₂max < 60): low error ~2.8%

  • ⚠️ Highly trained athletes (VO₂max > 60): large error ~9.4%, systematic underestimation

🎯 Take-home
Smartwatches are useful for trend monitoring, not for precise VO₂max quantification in highly trained individuals.
For high-performance contexts, laboratory testing remains indispensable.

📄 Data summarized from a recent study in European Journal of Applied Physiology

Smartwatch_VO2_Max_Accuracy

#Wearables #VO2max #ExercisePhysiology #SportsScience #DigitalHealth #EvidenceBased #PerformanceMonitoring

Article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40770433/