US-12623118-B2 - Method and apparatus for assessing acclimatization to environmental conditions and to assess fitness level taking into account the environmental conditions and the level of acclimatization

US12623118B2US 12623118 B2US12623118 B2US 12623118B2US-12623118-B2

Abstract

A system of estimating acclimatization to environmental conditions and providing a corrected fitness level estimates based on the acclimatization level. The environmental conditions are particularly related to heat and altitude. At first previous training history is provided including a plurality of day records, where each day record includes a date stamp and information regarding altitude and optionally temperature and humidity and training history including timestamp and training load data from executed exercises in stored records.

Inventors

Mikko Seppänen
Kaisa HÄMÄLÄINEN
Joonas Korhonen
Sami Saalasti
Aki Pulkkinen
Tero Myllymäki
Wille HUJANEN
Joonas KOSKINEN

Assignees

GARMIN JYVÄSKYLÄ OY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20240425
Priority Date: 20190219

Claims (7)

1 . A wearable electronic device operable to be worn by a user, the device comprising: a heart rate sensor configured to generate heart rate information for the user; a barometric pressure sensor; a memory configured to store training history data for the user; a display; and a processor coupled with the heart rate sensor, the display, the barometric pressure sensor, and the memory, the processor configured to: determine altitude information for a current day using the barometric pressure sensor, access the training history data for the user, determine a current acclimatization altitude based at least in part on the altitude information of the current day and an acclimatization altitude of a preceding day, calculate an altitude correction factor based at least in part on the current acclimatization altitude and the altitude information of the current day, calculate a corrected VO2max value based at least in part on the altitude correction factor, the acquired training history data, and the heart rate information for the user, and cause the display to present an indication corresponding to the corrected VO2max value.
2 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to cause the display to present a training readiness indication; wherein the training readiness indication indicates whether the user is ready to exercise at an altitude corresponding to the determined altitude information for the current day.
3 . The device of claim 1 , further including a GPS receiver configured to generate position and speed information for the user, wherein the processor is configured to calculate the corrected VO2max value utilizing the generated position and speed information, the altitude correction factor, the heart rate information, and the acquired training history data.
4 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to update the training history data stored in the memory utilizing the generated heart rate information and determined altitude information for the current day.
5 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the training history data indicates altitudes of the wearable electronic device over at least the previous seven days.
6 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the stored training history data includes VO2max information.
7 . A wearable electronic device operable to be worn by a user, the device comprising: a heart rate sensor configured to generate heart rate information for the user; a barometric pressure sensor; a memory configured to store training history data for the user, the training history data including VO2max information and per-day altitudes of the wearable electronic device over at least the previous seven days; a GPS receiver configured to generate position and speed information for the user; a display; and a processor coupled with the heart rate sensor, the display, the barometric pressure sensor, the GPS receiver, and the memory, the processor configured to: determine altitude information of a current day using the barometric pressure sensor, acquire the training history data for the user, determine a current acclimatization altitude based at least in part on the altitude information of the current day and an acclimatization altitude of a preceding day, calculate an altitude correction factor based at least in part on the current acclimatization altitude and the altitude information of the current day, calculate a corrected VO2max value based at least in part on the altitude correction factor, the acquired training history data, the speed information for the user, and the heart rate information for the user, update the training history data stored in the memory utilizing the corrected VO2max value, the current acclimatization altitude, and the determined altitude information of the current day, and cause the display to present the corrected VO2max value and an alert indicating whether the user is ready to exercise at an altitude corresponding to the altitude information of the current day.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application is a continuation of, and claims priority benefit to, co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/794,466, filed Feb. 19, 2020, which itself claims priority to Finish Application No. 20195128, filed Feb. 19, 2019. The contents of each application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety into the present application. BACKGROUND Extreme environmental conditions have been shown to have an impact on fitness performance, such as in conditions of high heat and humidity or higher altitude where oxygen levels are diminished. These extreme environments can negatively affect performance because the body has not sufficiently adjusted to the conditions. It is possible for a person to adjust to the conditions but this may take spending time in the environment or even exercising in the environment before being fully adjusted. Even then, the body may not fully adapt to the conditions and performance will always be somewhat compromised. In addition to lowered athletic performance, a person is also at risk of health problems if they are not fully acclimatized to the extreme conditions but commence training as they would normally. At higher altitudes, typical illness like colds can occur as the body is working much harder to achieve the same level of performance compared to lower altitudes, and in more extreme cases, altitude sickness can occur, which is a potentially life-threatening condition. Similarly, athletes trying to exercise in hot and humid conditions when they are not fully adjusted are at significantly higher risk of heat related illnesses compared to those who have already acclimatized. Therefore, it is important for any exerciser to be aware of how well they have acclimatized to the new conditions they are training in, what their actual fitness level is in the new conditions, how the acclimatization process is affecting their fitness, how long they have until they are fully acclimatized, and to have training recommendations during the acclimatization process to speed up the adjustment period or maintain training while staying safe from illness or injury. The document EP 3 340 248 A1 presents a method for determining training status and fitness level therein. It has referred to converting the calculated fitness level in hot condition to correspond normalized conditions. However, no specific method is disclosed. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention discloses a system of estimating acclimatization to environmental conditions, and providing a corrected fitness level estimates based on said acclimatization level. The environmental conditions are particularly related to heat and altitude. The current invention provides an assessment of the level acclimatization a user has achieved in environmental conditions. In this case, the extreme environmental conditions relate to extreme levels of heat and altitude. The environmental conditions may be actively monitored by a device or received before and after the exercise session. The method also takes into account a user's current physiological data and their previous training history data. This application presents correction primarily due to heat index and altitude is secondary factor. They may exist simultaneously. In other words, during a workout a correction factor is applied to instantaneous VO2max estimates if heat index is above 22 Celsius and/or altitude is above 800 m. Preferably correction factors decrease when the system detects that the user has acclimatized to hot conditions or high elevation, respectively. Said values 22 Celsius and 800 m are typical values and not essential values for this invention. While this application presents a heat dose as a primary factor and an altitude secondary factor, they could be interchanged (not part of this invention), keeping the overall process quite similar. They may also exist simultaneously. The method can be implemented in an embedded device having limited CPU and memory resources and having a host system. In one embodiment the host system uses ETE library, where the ETE is a real-time heart rate analysis library. ETE has several software modules herein, which are called and executed temporarily to calculate additional values. In a preferable embodiment the selection of key variables minimizes the demand of resources, particularly RAM memory, and more specifically dynamic memory. The demand of resident memory is very limited, when only characteristics of each exercise and daily environmental conditions are stored. The acclimatization calculations utilize training history data including all kinds of exercise type data. The calculation analyzes training load peaks to calculate the training data, and also takes into consideration training temperature and humidity, training altitude or living altitude. In order to optimize memory usage, there may be a 14 to 18-day training history available when calculating heat acclimatization, and a