Fitbit Question - can anyone help?

[LunaNorth]

I’ve been using a Fitbit for years, and it’s really helped me turn my life around.

However, I’m getting a bit frustrated. I have a resting heart rate of 53, run 5k several times a week, do lots of other exercise, walk all my steps, etc etc - yet it puts my cardio fitness at 33 - good for my age.

That’s the same as my sister, who by her own admission, is pretty sedentary. She walks, but doesn’t work too hard at it.

DH, on the other hand, has had his Fitbit for a week and has the same RHR as me - and scores ‘Excellent’.

What am I doing wrong? Is it because I run too slowly? It all feels a bit futile, all this exercise, if a few gentle strolls a week would give me the same fitness level 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hopeful bump

I can’t help as to why, but my cardio fitness has also been stuck at 33 for ages. My rhr is around 58 and I run a couple of times a week. I’ve wondered if it’s because I’m a slow plodder, and it’s hilly around here so not much opportunity for building up fast sprints.

It’s not a medical device. 53 seems a low resting HR.

I used to have 35-39 I think, did 10k steps a day and one jog and several aerobics classes a week.

Now I jog for an hour six days a week, 9k ish, resting HR 65, and get ‘excellent’. So perhaps it’s to do with harder cardio?

I’m a slow plodder, but jogging gets HR much, much higher than my previous aerobics etc

Thanks for replying.

I did wonder if it was to do with my plodder tendencies. Just about to go out for a run, so I’ll try a bit harder.

I wish I didn’t find it so disheartening. That’s kind of the reverse effect I was hoping for.

I found that HIIT workouts improved my score much more than slow runs

I do lots of walking and around 3 gym classes a week. Even though I feel like I work pretty hard in classes my Fitbit often doesn't even recognise that I'm doing a workout! My resting hr is around 68 and my cardio fitness is 37 - almost at 'excellent'. It seems pretty random to me...

I wonder how much is due to your age? Is your dh older than you in which case you could have similar fitness but his would be better 'for his age'?

Your fitness score is an approximation of your VO2 Max, which it will only calculate when you run with GPS. Depending on your Fitbit, you'll need to bring your phone with you to get it to work. Other workouts may calculate it too, but it won't be affected by RHR etc, and speed of run in relation to HR is all it calculates. Don't worry about it as a score, as it's not very accurate. You'll have a better sense based on how you feel on workouts over time etc.

53 rhr is very good however I must say I would take these devices with a pinch of salt non are medical devices and each have their own algorithms so you won't get the same readings on different watches etc. I went from Fitbit to Apple and my stats are completely different

I can't make rhyme or reason of the Fitbit score. Mine is now 40-44 which, for my age, seems to put me at the very high end of 'excellent'. My score has improved pretty regularly. It improved a lot when I lost weight this (last) year, and the last jump was when my resting hr dropped to 54 (it now hovers between 54-58).
Whilst I walk 1-2hrs daily + exercise (cardio x3-4 pw), I am a very long way from being an athlete. I would also imagine that given my age (low 50s) I'm just holding back the tide and not actually getting substantially fitter. Fitbit does think I work out at peak HR for 30+ min at the time. As it uses a standard metric, that 'peak' doesn't feel that hard and is probably not my actual peak HR. Still, it credits me with extra fitness points it seems.

I would also feel disheartened if it clawed some of these points back, despite me finding them a bit arbitrary.

All this makes interesting reading, thank you for the replies.

DH is actually 15 years older than me, so maybe that does have a bearing.

I’ve just got back from a run, and I tried harder than usual and upped my pace. Hated every step, but my fitness score has gone up one whole point to 34. Whoop

Maybe that’s the message - if I’m enjoying myself, I’m doing exercise wrong!