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VO2 Max facts and fiction
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: July 2, 2018
I need a little reader participation to start this off. So If you could, please fill in the blank below with your aerobic sport of choice and just play along for a second. Okay, so your ________ is really coming along great. You’re stoked cuz your training and racing is spot on, you’re recovering properly, you’re making great gains, month in and month out, and you just had a VO2max test that revealed a really great score - a score worth crowing about.
Now if that could indeed be you I’m describing above, then you just might be wondering if that high max score is as awesome as most people believe it to be. Which brings me to today’s column: Is VO2max the end-all-be-all in predetermining one’s racing success?
First, what is VO2max? It’s a measure of your body’s maximal oxygen uptake ability. In layman’s terms it measures the maximal amount of oxygen your body can process when you’re pushing yourself to an all-out effort during an aerobic exercise. The score, which has come to be seen as an aerobic status symbol, is measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute - ml/min/kg.
VO2max scores have long been used as a good indicator of an individual’s cardiovascular endurance and aerobic performance, and if administered properly the test can also be utilized to track progress over time. But do those scores tell you that someone with a higher score is faster than someone with a lower score?
Actually, simply having the highest VO2 Max score among your peer does not mean you’ll be the fastest. VO2max is a fairly poor indicator of race times among fit people. It’s more complicated because a host of additional variables are involved - form and efficiency, cardiac output, psychological abilities to push one's self, carbohydrate storage, fat utilization, etc, etc, etc. All those variables collectively influence two very important things: The minimal velocity which produces VO2max (causes your muscular system to utilize oxygen at its highest possible rate), referred to as vVO2max, and the maximal amount of time an individual can keep going at vVO2max, referred to as tlimvVO2max.
These rather odd, algebraic-looking creations are more important when it comes to speed and endurance than good old VO2max. Remember, VO2max is a physiological measurement that’s based on your maximal oxygen uptake and your body weight. vVO2max and tlimvVO2max, on the other hand, are not based on your weight nor how much oxygen you can take in.
Finally, to get at the heart of this issue, the best predictor of tlimvVO2max is lactate threshold speed. Thus, the higher your lactate threshold speed the longer your tlimvVO2max.
Lactate threshold (LT) is the maximal intensity an athlete can maintain for an extended period of time with little or no increase in blood lactate levels. And LT can be expressed as a percentage of VO2max.
This is the real status symbol number, the true vanity score - LT as a percentage of VO2max.
Untrained individuals usually posses an LT which is approximately 50-60 percent of VO2max. Trained athletes on the other hand, can possess LT’s that range from 60-80 percent or more of VO2 max. Elites can have LT”s that are a staggering 90-plus percent of VO2max - scores that are definitely worth crowing about.
Now with all that being said, I’m not implying that an unfit person with a VO2max of 40 and a high LT as a percentage of VO2max, is going to be faster than a fit person with a VO2max of 60 and a lower LT as a percentage of VO2max. I’m talking about comparing fit athletes - comparing apples to apples.
Frank Shorter’s a great example of this. He had a VO2max of 72, kind of pedestrian for a world-class runner, while Bill Rodgers had a VO2max of 78. Despite being 8 percent lower than Rodgers’ score, Shorter usually won head-to-head races, and became one of the world’s top marathon runners.
Yup, most exercise physiologists agree there’s limited value in using max scores to predict a person’s success in an aerobic sport. But, VO2max scores can give coaches like me a good indication of an athlete’s current condition and the general direction with which to begin a training program…plus, max tests provide feedback as to the effectiveness of the training program.
That is the fact and fiction of VO2max scores.