Whoop Can Now Estimate Your VO2 Max
Whoop, the screen-less watchband-like wearable that beat Oura in my watch-less fitness tracker challenge, has just added a VO2 max feature to its app. Now, like Garmin, Apple Watch and others, they can measure your cardio fitness and tell you how it’s changing over time.
What is VO2 max?
VO2 max is a measure of cardiovascular (or aerobic) fitness. There are other types of measurements that can give you an idea of how fit you are, but VO2 max is one of the easiest metrics to follow. This is a double-digit number, and the higher it is, the better shape you are. A sedentary person may have a VO2 max of around 20; an athlete may have one over 50 years of age.
The technical definition is that it is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use per minute during exercise, divided by your body weight. The higher this number, the better your heart and lungs are at delivering oxygen to your muscles and the better your muscles are at using energy for exercise.
How is VO2 max measured?
To get a true VO2 max value, you need to take an exercise lab test with your VO2 max, which measures the amount of oxygen you inhale. Obviously, a wearable device cannot provide this on its own. But wearables like Whoop, Garmin watches and Apple Watches can assess your cardio fitness in other ways.
Most often they compare your heart rate to how fast you can run or walk. If you can jog fairly quickly while your heart rate is low, you are probably in good shape and have a high VO2 max. On the other hand, if your heart rate skyrockets when you’re just trying to go for an easy walk, you’re probably having a poor cardio workout and therefore a low VO2 max. Anyway, that’s the general idea – the exact calculation will vary from one device to another.
How Whoop uses VO2 max
I expected Whoop to use the same type of walking/running-based computing as other wearables I’m familiar with, but the company’s description sounds like there’s something more complex (and harder to verify) going on.
“Whoop estimates your VO2 Max using a proprietary algorithm trained on gold standard lab data collected from various Whoop members,” the post reads . It’s not very useful. He continues, “To calculate your score, the algorithm takes into account your continuous physiological data (including resting heart rate and heart rate variability), your exercise patterns, and GPS-tracked performance metrics (if enabled). It also explains how VO2 Max naturally changes with age and takes into account physical factors that influence oxygen use, such as height, weight and biological sex.”
Thus, activities tracked by GPS could be included in the calculations, but obviously this is not necessary. This makes me wonder what the Whoop range actually measures to determine your VO2 max, or is it just some kind of AI-based guess at what people with your numbers typically have as their VO2 max? I have contacted the company and will let you know if they can provide me with more information.
My Whoop app doesn’t currently have VO2 max data because it takes 14 recoveries (essentially nights of sleep) to give you that information, and I haven’t been wearing Whoop lately.
Where to Find Your VO2 Max in the Whoop App
According to Whoop Support , you can find this feature under the Strain tab. By clicking “VO2 max” you can view monthly or six-month trends. Reddit users reported that it began rolling out over the past few days, and that Whoop told them everyone should receive it by March 13th (today).