VO2 max?

VO2 max is one of the most measured, intensely studied and most often cited and presented value when assessing health in humans. Why is that?

What is VO2 max?

From a science perspective VO2 max is the amount of oxygen (in milliliters, mL) per kilogram bodyweight a human consumes per minute during maximum power generation during exercise. Or more easily readable VO2 max = mL oxygen / kilogram / minute.

Why is VO2 max so popular?

The popularity of VO2 max has three main reasons:

  1. It is a good indicator of overall health and a good predictor of longevity.
  2. It is often used to measure training progress, especially in elite athletes.
  3. To obtain a high VO2 max, you need to be in good shape, it is hard to fake a high VO2 max.

How do you measure VO2 max?

The idea is to increase the workload during an exercise (often running or riding a stationary bike) and graph VO2 uptake vs workload. The value where the VO2 uptake does not increase with workload, is the VO2 max. There are two main methods of measuring VO2 max.

  1. In a laboratory with measuring equipment, often on a treadmill or stationary cycle.
  2. VO2 max can be assessed using approximation methods. For example you can perform a Cooper test and calculate VO2 with the following formulae: VO2 max (mL/kg/min) = (22.351 × distance covered in kilometers) − 11.288 (Redondo-Flórez et al., 2022). You could also perform a 3.000 meter running test (Tsai et al., 2024).

Why is it important to know my VO2 max?

In our day and age, the one disease that will cost you a substantial amount of years of life lost is Metabolic Syndrome. Metabolic Syndrome is a collection of diseases including central obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia and elevated blood glucose. Turns out VO2 max is a good predictor of how high your risk of developing Metabolic syndrome is(Tsai et al., 2024). On top, a higher VO2 max is associated with better academic achievements (Redondo-Flórez et al., 2022).

What are good VO2 max values?

You could divide yourself into one of three groups:

  1. low (33 (male), 27(female))
  2. intermediate (35 (male), 29 (female)) and
  3. high >35 (male), >29(female). When you are in the high group your risk of developing metabolic syndrome is nearly half as high as compared to the low group (Tsai et. al., 2024). The highest ever measured VO2 max score is 97.5 ml / kg / minute, Oskar Svendsen, a 18 year old cyclist from Lillehammer, Norway (“VO2 max World Records,” n.d.).

References

  1. Redondo-Flórez, L., Ramos-Campo, D.J., Clemente-Suárez, V.J., 2022. Relationship between Physical Fitness and Academic Performance in University Students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public. Health 19, 14750. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192214750

  2. Tsai, K.-Z., Chu, C.-C., Huang, W.-C., Sui, X., Lavie, C.J., Lin, G.-M., 2024. The combined effect of cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness on the incidence of metabolic syndrome before midlife. J. Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle 15, 1483. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcsm.13503

  3. VO2 max World Records [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm (accessed 10.24.24).