While endurance athletes love to measure their performance against race times to determine their fitness and capabilities, knowing and tracking your VO2 max can also offer important insights into your progress and potential.

Your VO2 max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can effectively use during intense exercise and represents your aerobic capacity1. The V denotes volume while the O2 represents oxygen.

VO2 max is typically measured as millilitres of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute of exercise (ml/kg/minute).

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Understanding VO2 max

A higher VO2 max generally indicates better endurance1 and overall cardiovascular health and has also been linked to increased longevity2.

When you breathe, your body absorbs oxygen from the lungs and transports it in red blood cells to your organs and muscles.

Your muscle cells need oxygen to produce energy, and the more oxygen you can supply, the more energy your muscles produce.

A higher VO2 max essentially means that your heart and lungs work more effectively to supply oxygen-rich blood to your muscles and that your muscles are efficiently extracting and using oxygen from your blood.

Genes and trainability

Genetics play a significant role in determining our base VO2 max. While VO2 max is not the ultimate predictor of cardiovascular capabilities, it offers a key indication of genetic potential in untrained test subjects.

However, scientists have now identified almost 100 genes specifically related to VO2 max trainability3, which indicates your genetic potential to improve your cardiorespiratory capacity with the right training.

The ability to improve your VO2 max makes it a key measure to benchmark improvements in cardiovascular fitness over time to track and measure your progress and the effectiveness of your training plan.

Age-related decline

Science also tells us that after the age of 354, there is a general age-related decline in basic physiological determinants of endurance at a rate of roughly 5% per decade5.

The most important of these is a gradual reduction in VO2 max6 – a factor of heart, lung and vascular system efficiency. While your VO2 max tends to decrease as you age, it’s possible to slow its decline by remaining active.

Improving your VO2 max

The best way to improve your VO2 max is to engage in a properly periodised and varied training programme that combines sustained aerobic exercise at a low to moderate intensity to build your cardiorespiratory base with bouts of high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

HIIT sessions can include interval training, hill sessions, fartlek workouts or track sessions, which alternate between short bursts of intense efforts followed by short periods of rest or active recovery.

HIIT is the most effective way to increase your VO2 max due to the demands it places on the cardiovascular system.

Building muscle mass with regular weight training can also improve overall fitness and indirectly benefit VO2 max, with research showing that kettlebell training was a particularly effective option to improve cardiorespiratory function and efficiency.

For instance, a small study7 published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that female football players who engaged in 20 minutes of kettlebell training three times a week improved VO2 max by 6% in one month.

In another study8 , researchers found that participants who performed yoga “had statistically significantly higher VO2 max per minute and better PFI (physical fitness index), BHT (breath holding time), and 40 mm Hg endurance values”.

Get a supplement boost

Certain supplements may also provide a boost to your fitness and endurance, with a study9 published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology showing that a 10nmol/L increase in vitamin D was associated with a 0.78mL/kg/min increase in VO2 max.

This finding effectively means you could derive a boost in your endurance performance by supplementing with this important vitamin or getting more sun.

Supplement manufacturers also develop formulations that may help to enhance your endurance performance, like Biogen Peak VO2, a multivitamin and mineral supplement with added RedNite® for enhanced resistance to fatigue, Oxyjun® that supports cardiovascular health and increases maximum oxygen consumption (VO2 max), and Panax ginseng that supports physical endurance and vitality.

USN VO2 Max also contains ingredients like Oxyjun® and Siberian ginseng to potentially increase oxygen uptake and storage and assist muscles to work harder for longer through enhanced cardiovascular function and oxygen absorption.

References:

  1. Rankovic G, Mutavdzic V, Toskic D, Preljevic A, Kocic M, Nedin Rankovic G, Damjanovic N. Aerobic capacity as an indicator in different kinds of sports. Bosn J Basic Med Sci. 2010 Feb;10(1):44-8. doi: 10.17305/bjbms.2010.2734. PMID: 20192930; PMCID: PMC5596610.
  2. Strasser B, Burtscher M. Survival of the fittest: VO2max, a key predictor of longevity? Front Biosci (Landmark Ed). 2018 Mar 1;23(8):1505-1516. doi: 10.2741/4657. PMID: 29293447.
  3. Williams CJ, Williams MG, Eynon N, Ashton KJ, Little JP, Wisloff U, Coombes JS. Genes to predict VO2max trainability: a systematic review. BMC Genomics. 2017 Nov 14;18(Suppl 8):831. doi: 10.1186/s12864-017-4192-6. PMID: 29143670; PMCID: PMC5688475.
  4. Tanaka H, Seals DR. Endurance exercise performance in Masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms. J Physiol. 2008 Jan 1;586(1):55-63. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.141879. Epub 2007 Aug 23. PMID: 17717011; PMCID: PMC2375571.
  5. Lepers R, Cattagni T. Age-related decline in endurance running performance – an example of a multiple World records holder. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2018 Jan;43(1):98-100. doi: 10.1139/apnm-2017-0298. Epub 2017 Sep 20. PMID: 28930640.
  6. Reaburn, P., Dascombe, B. Endurance performance in masters athletes. Eur Rev Aging Phys Act 5, 31–42 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11556-008-0029-2.
  7. Falatic JA, Plato PA, Holder C, Finch D, Han K, Cisar CJ. Effects of Kettlebell Training on Aerobic Capacity. J Strength Cond Res. 2015 Jul;29(7):1943-7. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000845. PMID: 26102260.
  8. Kothari R, Mittal G, A P, et al. (April 29, 2023) Exploring the Effect of Yoga on Exercise Endurance As Assessed by Cardiorespiratory Efficiency Tests in Exercise Physiology Laboratory: A Pilot Study. Cureus 15(4): e38283. doi:10.7759/cureus.38283.
  9. Amr Marawan, Nargiza Kurbanova, Rehan Qayyum. Association between serum vitamin D levels and cardiorespiratory fitness in the adult population of the USA. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2018; 204748731880727 DOI: 10.1177/2047487318807279.