VO2 Max

[Joe Furse]

Hey, I was just wondering about this vo2 max that I hear people talking about.  I understand that it is when your oxygen uptake/respiration/heart rate are at their maximum level.  Is that true?  And how would I use this in training...for the marathon? for a 5k?  Anyway, just curious.  I have a basic working knowledge of physiology but I don't keep up with this kind of stuff much and just wanted to know. 

[James Winzenz]

VO₂ max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during exercise.  This could also be considered your aerobic threshold (AT).  There are a lot of factors that affect your VO₂ max - lung capacity, vascularization of muscles (the more you exercise aerobically, the better vascularized your muscles will be), muscular fitness and endurance, etc.  It is not necessarily a measure of your highest heart rate and respiration rate, more a number at which your body becomes the most efficient at taking up and using oxygen.  It is a number that increases through aerobic exercise, since all of the above are positively affected by aerobic exercise.  The higher your VO₂ max, the more intensely you can exercise without forcing your muscles to work anaerobically.  I believe there are some formulas that take certain values you plug in and can estimate your VO₂ max, but to truly measure the value, you would need to take a test that would scientifically measure your specific VO₂ max.  Some people also measure a value called the "Total Performance Value", which is a combination of the aerobic capacity (VO₂ max) and anaerobic capacity.  The nice thing about your aerobic capacity is that while your anaerobic capacity is finite and requires specific anaerobic training to maintain it (thus taking away from aerobic training), your aerobic capacity does not have a finite limit.  You can continue to develop it over years of consistent aerobic training.  By far and away the most important value for marathon training is your aerobic capacity.  In a marathon, you should not accumulate any oxygen debt, as your pace is above your aerobic threshold, even if by just a little bit.  I think that you really start to see the benefits of anaerobic capacity at distances shorter than 5K (yes, that's right, I don't even think that in a 5K you are going to deal with much anaerobic running - maybe a little).  I recently raced a 5K, and ended up setting a PR by almost a minute, only on base training.  Granted, my 5K time still has a ways to go, but that is a testament to me of the value of aerobic training.  For those in the medical profession, please feel free to make any corrections, but this is how I understand it to be.

[Joe Furse]

hey thanks for the info.  I was just curious about it.

[Michelle Lowry]

Running books do a much better job with a technical definition than I ever could, but from what I understand the pace equals what your current 3K pace would be. (As if I could pinpoint that accurately since I am a marathoner).

[Steve Morrin]

Your VO2 Max is not necessarily how fast you can go, the max just refers to the maximum point at which you are still doing aerobic exercise. A lot of people get VO2 max and max heart rate mixed up. You can go higher than 100% of your V02 max, but you can't go higher than 100% of your max heart rate.

[Shauna]

I might be in over my head here, but I have found that VO2 max and anaerobic threshold don't always coincide.  I had both tested about 3 weeks before my marathon PR in 2006 (it was a legit test-it cost a lot of money!).  My VO2 max was off the charts (literally), but my anaerobic threshold was only average to above-average.  The tester (an MS in some kind of exercise science) commented that it was rare to see VO2 max and anaerobic threshold so far apart and that I needed to run slower to increase my anaerobic threshold.   I don't remember the details: I should dig the papers out again.  According to him, the test indicated that I should be able to run a BQ (3:40 for me).  I hit the wall, had to walk a bit, and ran a 3:54, still a big PR for me.  I had been running only 3 days a week, but all at high-intensity, and spinning on two other days.  I also ran PRs in the 10k and half marathon in those few months.

On the other hand, I came very close to my half marathon PR this past winter with higher mileage of base training only.

Those are my two cents: might be more confusing than helpful!

[Steve Morrin]

Shauna:
When you say your vo2 max was off the charts, what sort of number are you talking about? 70's, 80's, 90's?

[Shauna]

OK, I dug out my chart.  I was 28 years old at the time, and the chart indicated that "good" vo2 max for my age range was 34-44, and excellent was 45+.  My vo2 max was 55.2.  I hit anaerobic threshold at 8:34 pace, and my anaerobic vo2 score was 35.2, which was in the "good" range of 29-37.  Those were the two numbers that were too far apart.  I guess it makes sense, because one would think with an excellent+ vo2 max, I would have been able to stay aerobic at a faster pace.  The numbers make sense with my performance in that marathon, though.  I wasn't quite ready for 8:24 pace yet (my BQ pace), and it showed at mile 20.  The test also measured my lactate threshold pace, which was 7:03 pace. 

There are some other numbers in the report that I don't understand.  It was a pretty accurate predictor of my performance, though, and showed me where my strengths and weaknesses were.  I wonder if these numbers vary with more or less training and what they would be now.  It was a $150 test, though, so it should be done sparingly (for me, anyway).

[Steve Morrin]

Wow. 55.2 is a pretty awesome V02 max. I have actually heard of a place where you can get all of this testing done for only $60 dollars at University of Utah.

[Mark Olson]

I might be in over my head here, but I have found that VO2 max and anaerobic threshold don't always coincide.  I had both tested about 3 weeks before my marathon PR in 2006 (it was a legit test-it cost a lot of money!).  My VO2 max was off the charts (literally), but my anaerobic threshold was only average to above-average.  The tester (an MS in some kind of exercise science) commented that it was rare to see VO2 max and anaerobic threshold so far apart and that I needed to run slower to increase my anaerobic threshold.   I don't remember the details: I should dig the papers out again.  According to him, the test indicated that I should be able to run a BQ (3:40 for me).  I hit the wall, had to walk a bit, and ran a 3:54, still a big PR for me.  I had been running only 3 days a week, but all at high-intensity, and spinning on two other days.  I also ran PRs in the 10k and half marathon in those few months.

On the other hand, I came very close to my half marathon PR this past winter with higher mileage of base training only.

Those are my two cents: might be more confusing than helpful!

This is a classic example of why VO2max is a very poor predictor of performance.  A much better predictor is vVO2max (velocity at VO2max), which represents the speed at which you hit your VO2max.  Look at it this way, if you take two guys, one with a VO2max of 70 and another guy with a VO2max of 50, hands down the guy with the huge VO2max of 70 would be faster, right?  Not necessarily.  Not if the 70 guy hits his VO2max at a 6min/mi pace while the 50 guy hits his VO2max at a pace of 5:30min/mi.  The good news if you weren't blessed with a Lance Armstrong-esque VO2max is that vVO2max responds to training much more readily than does VO2max.

One thing that has me scratching my head about your test is the anaerobic threshold figure.  I wonder what they mean by "anaerobic threshold"?  I'm no expert, but I know that that term "anaerobic threshold" is somewhat archaic and when you see it used nowadays it is typically used as a synonym for lactate threshold.  However, you have a separate velocity at lactate threshold listed.  I might suspect the term represents your vVO2max, but if I remember correctly, one's vVO2max is normally faster than one's vLT....

[Steve Morrin]

I have actually heard of a place where you can get all of this testing done for only $60 dollars at University of Utah.

Just adding on to my previous comment. The fee is actually 65 dollars.
http://uuhsc.utah.edu/peak/testing.html

[Sirenesque]

VO2 can be just an indicator of athletic potential, but is by no means an accurate assesment of ability.  The assessment posed earlier is correct, two people with the same VO2 may have vastly different perforamances.  Many factors may effect this, namely biomechanics and effciency.  Anaerobic Threshold is highly misunderstood, at its simplest it is simply when the body Starts to accumulate more lactic acid than it can process.  Running at AT generally will result in a need to slow down about 60-90 min into a run.  15k and half marathon times are often used to simulate true AT work.  The more you work past your AT the quicker you reach failure.

[Steve Morrin]

Just to give some examples here. Bill Rodgers had a V02 max in the low 60's, but he could still go out and dominate these athletes with much higher v02 maxes than him.

[Sasha Pachev]

I think Bill Rogers had 78, while Frank Shorter had 71. Derek Clayton had something like 69. Of the three Derek Clayton was the fastest. Interestingly enough, he was also the tallest and the heaviest. I read an article recently that suggested VO2 Max should be measured as O2_consumed/(body_mass^0.75) instead of the traditional O2_consumed/body_mass due to the fact that lighter individuals tend to get a higher VO2 max just for being lighter and not for their true ability to use oxygen to move forward. That would normalize Derek Clayton's results. But again, we are just playing with numbers here - measuring something we can measure, and then try to fudge it so it correlates with how fast you run.

In any case, VO2 Max is a number that indicates something but in truth we do not quite know exactly what. Of course, by definition it is the maximum amount of inhaled oxygen your body retains prorated for your body weight, but what does it really mean for running performance? You cannot even say as little as that if two individuals have the same VO2 Max, but one is faster than the other, that the faster one is necessarily more biomechanically efficient. The slower one could just be wasting oxygen in a way not entirely understood by science (jk, inhaling in into the stomach and then letting it out without being captured by the oxygen sensors? :-) )

I do think, though, that VO2 values are useful to watch and analyze when you know the runner, and when you can connect a certain VO2, HR and RER (respiratory exchange ratio) with the way that runner feels.

On the subject of PhD in exercise physiology - I think it is as helpful to have a PhD in that area for understanding the results of a VO2 Max tests as having a PhD in physics when you are wiring your house or doing a plumbing job. You need to understand running, know the runner, have seen a large number of VO2 test results of the runners you've run with, and have a good memory for numbers + statistical intuition. Which many PhDs in exercise physiology happen to not have, but many places will trust the degree, and so will many customers. They would not if the consequences of broken running were as serious as a broken toilet.

And also, one time Steve Hooper had a VO2 Max test done, and it read 86. It was likely an error. So always take those numbers with a grain of salt even if you've paid $150 for them.

Having said that, if you have the files from that test, it would be interesting to look at them.

[Nick Miller]

I believe Greg Lemond had a VO2 max of 92 - one of the highest ever recorded (not that this is terribly relevant to the conversation )