What Your VO2 Max Score Means for Your Training
This is Your Quick Training Tip, a chance to learn how to work smarter in just a few moments so you can get right to your workout.
If you’re an endurance athlete, you’re likely familiar with the term VO2 max. For those who don't spend their free time pounding pavement and aiming to best their PRs, however, the cardio buzzword sounds like the kind of molecular formulas that tormented them in high school chemistry. Thankfully, it's not all the complicated, just an overly technical shorthand for a very important training metric: the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during exercise.
When you inhale oxygen into your lungs, it’s transferred to your blood, and then pumped by your heart to all of your tissues and organs. Your VO2 max (measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of bodyweight per minute, or ml/kg/min) represents the peak capacity and efficiency of that process. In short, the measure signifies the size of your aerobic engine. The greater it is, the more energy you can produce, and the greater your overall capacity for athletic performance will be.
Much like strength and hypertrophy, the upper limit of your VO2 max is determined by your genes—some people are just born with a higher potential VO2 max than others. But if you’re between the ages of 20 and 50 and in decent shape, yours likely falls somewhere in the range of 40 to 50 ml/kg/min (the highest ever recorded is 97.5 ml/kg/min). No matter what your VO2 max is right now, there’s almost certainly room for improvement, and by making a few key adjustments to your training program, you can start reaping the rewards of increasing it, including greater aerobic endurance.
Your move:
Unfortunately, measuring your VO2 max score is a little more complicated than checking your pulse and plugging it into a formula. To do so accurately, you need a whole lab's worth of equipment and the willingness to push yourself to your limit. Some wearable devices, like Garmin fitness trackers, use biometric readings to estimate VO2 max, but remember, these are just estimates.
But that doesn't mean that you can't work to train your capacity that makes the measurement. If you’re new to aerobic exercise, the first step toward increasing your VO2 max is dialing up your training volume. For runners and cyclists, that means logging more miles each week. Once you have a strong aerobic foundation, you can then start to increase your exercise intensity (e.g., by doing more HIIT), which is an effective way to boost VO2 max. Need some inspiration? Here are 13 HIIT workouts to get you started.
You Might Also Like
