VO2 Max Study

Not a very meaningful study. The biggest problem is that they did the 4 weeks of OT (3 interval sessions a week) after 1 week of NT (one interval session a week). It is not clear that the reason they did not improve any further on 4 weeks of OT was because it was in the red zone, or because they were simply maxed out already after 4 weeks of NT.

Another issue - I looked at their numbers and realized there is a big problem judging fitness by vVO2 max and time/distance to exhaustion at vVO2 max measurements. Both are difficult to measure precisely enough. Even assuming no mental issues during the measurements (this mask is killing me, I want it off, I'll call it quits early), once you hit your vVO2, it is possible to go a bit faster using purely anaerobic resources. And VO2 is always fluctuating - you are on a treadmill, they up the speed, you hurt at first, then the pain makes you figure out how to cheat to run more efficiently, the speed stays the same, VO2 goes down, you feel better.

Also - nobody in the study was able to run for more than 1.5 miles at their vVO2 Max. With that in mind, even if you found a perfect way to measure your vVO2 Max and time to exhaustion at that speed, the numbers are still meaningless unless you found a change greater than 5%. Otherwise, even in a race as short as a 5 K the issue of being able to hold a decent percentage of your vVO2 Max comes into play enough to where you would increase your vVO2 Max, and maybe even time to exhaustion at it, but the percentage of it you hold in a 5 K would decrease enough to make you run slower.

Aside from that, I do believe that 3 VO2 Max sessions a week is excessive. I've tried it before in hopes of improving my 5 K, and got no results. For a 5 K, I got the best results in my entire running career from the following combination: reasonably high mileage ( 90-100/week), one 3x1 mile with 200 meter rest, one threshold session - 2x4 miles, and one long run with a 12 mile tempo in the middle.