Background: When assessing population adherence to physical activity (PA) recommendation using accelerometers, absolute intensity threshold definition is applied despite having limited validity in those with low cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), who are unable to reach them (e.g older adults). Thus, PA thresholds relative to CRF may be an alternative approach. We compared the proportion of the older adults meeting the PA recommendation when PA is assessed using absolute versus sex-and-CRF-adjusted (relative) accelerometer thresholds and determined the association between relative versus absolute moderate PA (MPA), vigorous PA (VPA) and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and metabolic syndrome (MetS).