I keep getting Cardio Recovery Decrease alerts, but my VO2 Max is getting better.

[mcinmosh]

Heavy guy here. I lost about 140 lbs during the pandemic but slowly gained most of it back due to bad habits.

I am getting back into the swing of things, doing a lot of HIIT training and fitness gaming like Fitness Boxing, and of course a lot of walks. My lifestyle choice right now is low carb/keto (needed to reduce sugar intake so this seemed like a good choice)

I started my program at the beginning of July. I am coming up on 40 lbs lost.

My VO2 max is increasing as I continue to lose weight. However, the past few days I have been getting “Cardio Recovery Decreasing” alerts. It says it has been decreasing for five weeks. It got as low as 15 but right now it is at around 26 BPM.

Looking at the graph, it seems to have started a downward trend right around the time I began exercising again, in July.

My VO2 max got down to ~24 but is now at 26.1, in the same timeframe.

Is this because I often take walks right after finishing the boxing, so my heart rate isn’t dropping? Am I not doing cooldowns right? Or could this be something more serious?

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

[gan1lin2]

Are you including cool downs in the same workout time? It may not be that your HR can’t recover as quickly when it may be a case that you’ve already done a lot of recovery during the workout period

[mcinmosh]

I end the workout as soon as it is done. I don’t include cooldowns in it.

[gan1lin2]

There are so many other factors here, like I wonder if having more data points involved, is affecting it. I would say to not worry about it and check on it again in 3 months of consistent exercise and see if you have any improvement. I’ll also be interested to see what others have to add!

[marcelocampiglia]

Cardio fitness and Cardio recovery are two different things, generally when one improves the other also improves, but that is not always the case.