Polar "Ownindex" Replaced by Fastbeat!

My 02Max has fallen from 41 to 29!

41 was Polar's answer, over many years, to the 02Max question. There were schedules showing the best there is. Mine was excellent. It has fallen to "fair," so this is an occasion for "research." The company which does Garmin (which got me) is Firstbeat. I immediately downloaded the "white paper" that Firstbeat had done, and read it. Very Impressive!

I looked for some examples where I could actually do an 02Max test. One possibility was to walk 1 mile on a track. I went to my regular track; 4 times around it and I'd have my answers. I was 160 pounds. Now I needed my heart rate and time.

I estimated that I would come in at 120 bpm and that my time would be 15 minutes. In fact, I came in at 20 minutes, but my heart rate was 98! What could this extra 5 minutes do? The second time through I came in at 19, the third 17:23. The third time, I actually ran about half of the 1 mile. Let's look at the 19. Firstbeat was actually giving me 10 (19+10)!

It was actually 19, not 29 that I got. Add 10 and you have 29. What Firstbeat did was figure and average amount of 02Max and I got it. This really reflected the averages. What I got was 29, even though I scored 19 on the test.

I then considered the "jogging" file on Brian Mac website. I was at 160 pounds. I jogged on the track 4 times in a row. My overall time was 16 minutes. My blood pressure was 148 bpm. There is some loss because of my age, but even so, I came out 45 plus! That's a good score, much better than the 29 given that day by Firstbeat.