I Recorded a VO2 Max Masterclass
Daren (from 'The 1% Better Runner') and I break down the science of one of health's most popular metrics.
Greetings!
Several months ago, Daren Lake (from the YouTube channel ‘The 1% Better Runner’ approached me with the idea of recording a “masterclass” on VO2 max. I said yes without hesitation. Below, you can find the video and show notes (both of which were published to Daren’s blog and YouTube channel).
Enjoy! And give Daren a follow… he creates some incredible running-related content.
Key Things To Know
VO2 max is your aerobic ceiling, but it is not the whole story. It measures the maximum rate your body can use oxygen to create energy, but running economy, threshold, durability, and training history all shape how fast you actually run.
The longevity angle might matter even more than the performance angle. VO2 max naturally trends downward with age, so the goal is to build a high enough ceiling now that daily life does not become physically hard later.
You improve VO2 max by touching hard efforts intelligently. Easy running helps, but the biggest return usually comes from structured intervals like 4x4s, 400m repeats, hill work, 5K racing, and smart progressive training.
What VO2 max actually is (the simple version)
VO2 max is the most oxygen your body can use when you’re going all out. Your lungs grab the air, your heart pumps the oxygen-rich blood out to your muscles, and your muscles use it to make energy. The faster you can do all of that, the higher your VO2 max.
Think of it as your engine size. A big engine has more power on tap.
Here’s something kinda dope that took me a few years to really get: A big engine doesn’t win the race by itself. You can drop a Ferrari engine into a beat-up Honda Civic and it’s still gonna drive like a Honda Civic. The tires, the suspension, the weight of the car, aerodynamics, all of that matters too. In running, we call that stuff running economy (aka how efficient your body is at using said oxygen to propel yourself forward). So VO2 max is the engine, sure, but it’s not the whole car.
That’s the reframe of this whole conversation, TBH. VO2 max matters. It just isn’t the only thing that matters, and the number itself isn’t even the point.
Your watch is guessing (and that’s dope)
When you do a real VO2 max test, you’re on a treadmill with a mask strapped to your face, breathing into a tube while they run you to exhaustion (or your oxygen levels flatten or drop). That test measures your oxygen use directly and it’s very VERY accurate with the number that it spits out.
Your watch doesn’t do any of that. It takes your heart rate at a certain pace/intensity/power (for cyclist), mixes in your age and weight and sex, runs it through an algorithm built on a big database of other people, and spits out an estimate. It’s a prediction, not a measurement.
So don’t stress when your Garmin says your VO2 max dropped two points overnight. You didn’t get unfit while you slept.
Quick story: I got a proper lab test done eight years ago and scored around 56. Trained hard for the following 8 years after I got said test and I got way fitter! I raced way faster, then got tested again last year. The number was 55.
I was kinda mad and said “How am I a much better runner with basically the same number?”
Brady’s answer made it make sense. If your VO2 max stayed the same but you got faster, that just proves the number isn’t the whole story. I improved my running economy, my threshold, and my durability. All the other stuff that makes you fast. The engine stayed the same size, but the rest of the car got way better.
Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful for your running journey, please share it with another runner who might benefit.
Threshold vs VO2 max (so you stop mixing them up)
You hear “threshold” and “VO2 max” thrown around and you either are confused or think they’re the same thing. They’re not.
Threshold is the pace you can hold for a long time (about 1 hour) before things fall apart. For most people that’s somewhere around high zone 3 or low zone 4 heart rate on a five zone heart rate scale.
VO2 max is higher. It’s very much in zone 4 and even zone 5 for some people. It’s your proper top end (this is why it’s MAX, because it’s the maximum volume of oxygen that you can take in and use). VO2 max intervals are short (kinda!) and brutal (very), and are usually around four to five minutes because that’s what the studies say and coaches. Anything more might improve Vo2 max, but increases the risk of burnout, injury, etc.
Here’s another dope thing: The fitter you get, the closer your threshold creeps up toward your VO2 max. Look at the guys running sub- and low-two-hour marathons. They can hold around 85 to 90% of their max for the entire marathon. Their threshold and their ceiling are almost touching. That’s elite level stuff.
The part that actually got me: longevity
Okay, this is the bit that I think matters more than the running stuff (And I say that as a dude who loves the running stuff)
Your VO2 max naturally drops as you age. That’s just biology doing it’s thing and it happens to everybody. But how high you build it now decides how high it stays later when it’s naturally falling.
Brady talked about the frailty threshold. There’s a point, way down low, where everyday life starts to become a max effort.
Carrying groceries up the stairs.
Getting out of bed.
Making your toast and grabbing a banana.
When your VO2 max drops low enough, even those normal little tasks start to feel like a workout. Below a certain point you literally can’t take care of yourself anymore.
That number is about 15 for a Vo2 Max.
That’s why a fit 60-year-old is often healthier than a sedentary 30-year-old. The fit older person built a high ceiling, so even after years of natural decline they’ve still got a bunch of room left. The young couch potato never built anything, so they’ve got nowhere to fall.
And it gets a bit scarier. Brady brought up the catabolic crisis.
Say you’re older, you fall, you break a hip, you spend three or four weeks in a hospital bed. The amount of fitness you lose in those few weeks of lying around can be worse than decades of normal aging. You can age yourself a crazy amount just by being stuck in bed.
So the goal isn’t to chase a flashy number for your watch. The goal is to bring up your floor. Build a high enough ceiling now so that you stay strong, mobile, and independent for as long as humanly possible. Be the grandparent who can still get down on the floor and play, then actually get back up without throwing their back.
Slow down the slowing down.
How you actually improve it
You don’t need anything fancy.
Easy running builds your base and you need that base. This base also indirectly improves VO2 Max, slowly, but gives you the jumping-off point to then do harder workouts. But if you’re time-poor and you want the biggest bang for your buck, the magic happens at higher intensity. The research shows higher intensity work can be way more effective than easy stuff for raising VO2 max, like nine times more effective per minute spent.
If you’ve never done a real VO2 max workout, the Norwegian 4×4 is your friend. Four minutes hard, three minutes easy jog, repeated four times. That’s it. Simple, brutal, proven.
Scared of going that hard? Start smaller. Do 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy, and build up from there. Your body adapts to the discomfort way faster than your brain thinks it will. Promise.
And don’t tell yourself you’re just “not built for this.” Brady busted the whole non-responder myth, which is a claim that some people just don’t improve their fitness, no matter what. What actually happens is that those people just weren’t training hard enough or often enough. When researchers cranked up the intensity or added more sessions, everybody responded.
You also don’t need to wonder if it’s working forever. People say VO2 max stops improving after six weeks, which isn’t fully accurate. A lot of the studies only ran six weeks, so that’s all they measured. You can keep building well beyond that, but the more fit you are, the harder it is to build, as you need more stimulus, aka more intensity/volume, which then becomes a risk for burnout.
Test it yourself for free
To test your VO2 Max, you don’t need a lab. Just go run as hard as you can (7 to 8 out of 10 effort) for 12 minutes and measure how far you got. Or run for 2.4km (1.5 miles) and use your time.
That’s the Cooper test, and you can plug the distance into a calculator to get a solid estimate. Or just race a hard 5K every 4-8 weeks on the same course (Park Runs are great for this) and watch the time. Faster time means higher Vo2 Max, higher threshold, more efficient running economy, and a much fitter you.
Find your age, find your target number on a VO2 max chart and see where you land. If you’re below “good” for your age, this whole thing just got really important for you.
VO2 max still matters, as it always will. Just stop staring at the number on your wrist like it’s the absolute gospel, and start building the engine that keeps you fast NOW so you can live a full life LATER.