VO2 max measures the amount of oxygen used in your body while you’re exercising. It is a specific tool to measure the physical fitness level of your body. An increase in the inhaled oxygen shows more energy is available for your body’s needs. Higher VO2 max indicates better physical health. The maximum amount of oxygen you use during a strenuous workout is VO2 max.
A vo2 max test measures how much oxygen you breathe during physical activity. Higher levels of oxygen in your body make it hard for your muscles to work efficiently because oxygen is aaa critical part of your respiratory system that takes part in your breathing. During your breathing process your lungs absorb oxygen to convert it into energy, known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This is the energy currency of your body that is used to perform different functions in different organ systems of the body. ATP helps your body cells to release carbon dioxide from your body that is produced as a surplus product during your breathing. This is proof that your body has been designed to handle aerobic fitness activities in a better way that needs a lot of oxygen intake, including, cardio, swimming, or running.
What is VO2 Max?
It is defined as the maximum amount of oxygen your lungs and body cells absorb during strenuous physical activities. It is the best technique to measure your physical fitness level. Maximizing your VO2 levels can help you improve your aerobic fitness. This is simply known as your oxygen uptake.
This article will help you learn about what VO2 max is, how it’s measured, and how you can increase it.
How Does Your Body Use Oxygen?
During breathing, your blood absorbs oxygen in it and then carries this oxygen to all cells of your body. The heart helps your blood to reach all cells of the body through its pumping function. Oxygen activates the chemical reaction in your muscle cells that converts this oxygen into the energy packets called ATP. The ATP molecules work as fuel for your body cells and organs. Your muscles use these ATP molecules as energy sources during exercise. Higher Levels of oxygen used during exercise means your muscles have a higher amount of energy available.
Types of VO2 Max
VO2 max has two distinct types:
- Absolute VO2 max.
- Relative VO2 max.
Absolute VO2 max: This is the total amount of oxygen you inhale. It is measured in liters per minute. Your age, weight, height, and gender cannot affect the amount of oxygen you inhale.
Relative VO2 max: This is the amount of oxygen that you inhale during exercise relative to your weight. It is measured in millimeters per kilogram.
These Two techniques are considered effective for measuring your physical fitness level accurately. However, physical healthcare providers claim that relative VO2 max is more helpful in measuring your results in comparison to other people’s.
Heritability of VO2 Max
Genetic factors also count for measuring the average values for vo2 max. According to recent research, the repeatability of vo2 max ranges from 0.40 to 0.70, which indicates that there is a difference in the vo2 max values between individuals. This is due to an a genetic factor.
Studies show that VO2 max has a genetic component that is directly affected by your aging processes. However, you can improve it at any age by incorporating an endurance training session into your fitness regimen. The same study claimed that a trained 60-year-old individual can exhibit the biological age of an untrained 40-year-old individual based on the VO2 max. This range can decline to around 10% in men and 8% in women after every ten years. A normal untrained person can feel this change from 207 years of age while for an endurance-trained individual, it starts from above 30s.
Athletes are the best examples to understand the elite endurance level for vo2 max. A VO2 has a high cardiac output due to a large compliant cardiac chamber that primarily includes your pericardium endocardium. It fills with fluid and oxygen quickly to a large end-diastolic volume and then relaxes quickly. The mechanism and magnitude of such changes involve certain genetic factors such as the age of starting the training, intensity, type, duration, and length of endurance training,
How Does VO2 Affect Your Longevity?
Vo2 max helps predict your quality of life. Vo2 max can do this booth for a healthy and cardio-respiratory-diseased individual. This also predicts your fitness in future life with the aging process.
Regular exercise helps adapt age-related physiological adaptations within your main organs including, skeletal muscles, lungs, and heart. This means excuse training can help improve life expectancy. Although it is impossible to extend the genetically fixed life span with regular physical activity, it is possible to improve the quality of life during these years with the help of improved VO2 max.
Ways to Improve Your VO2 Max
With the increase in age, your vo2 max levels automatically decrease. There are several ways to keep your VO2 max level at its highest according to your needs and desired fitness level. A study claimed that simple occasional workouts also help improve the vo2 max level. Some Of these are:
Cardio Activities: As the intensity of your workout influences the vo2 max level, cardio exercises are best for this purpose. But they can help improve your cardio respiratory fitness as well as the vo2 max level in physically inactive individuals.
Maximize your Heart Rate: This is the most effective way to improve your VO2 max. Increase your heart pump rate by doing any aerobic exercise. The more vigorous your exercise, the better will be the results. If you’re an inactive individual and are not involved in a regular exercise routine, start with a walk that may be vigorous enough to trigger improvements in your VO2 max score.
Incorporate Interval Exercise: If you are living an active life with a regular workout routine, add sessions of high-intensity interval training to your exercise regimen. Studies show that HIIT is the fastest way to improve vo2 max, even if you’re already doing exercises regularly. Prefer doing interval training exercises several times a week instead of slower longer-duration activities.
Switch Up Your Exercise Regimen: Try switching to different types of cardio or aerobic exercises. For example, if you are a runner, switch to swimming. Your body is always ready to adapt, therefore, keep it in motion by switching your workout types. If you’re a slow trainer, switch to a fast pace and ramp things up. If you always exercise for 20 minutes a day, try to increase it for 10 more minutes to enhance your power. All these things may help you to adapt to a hard workout.
Lose Weight: As relative VO2 max is more accurate and feasible to measure, and this is measured relative to your weight, you should focus on your weight management. Weight loss is the best technique to boost your VO2 max.
When Do You Need to Improve Your VO2 Max?
As an athlete, the improved VO2 max is an essential factor for your efficient performance. If You are a swimmer or cycling expert, a high vo2 max may predict your athletic performance. Whenever you try to improve your athletic abilities, VO2 max can help you as a benchmark to track your progress. Keeping your vo2 max level at a certain level is an indicator of your better performance.
Athletes use oxygen more frequently as compared to normal individuals. But the frequent use of oxygen is not only necessary for athletes, it is crucial for every individual to inhale more and more oxygen. Increased level of inhaled oxygen determines your cardio respiratory fitness. Most healthcare providers use this technique to determine your lung and heart health. Besides the level of your physical activity routine, everyone needs to increase their cardio respiratory endurance. Research revealed that increasing VO2 Max is associated with lower death risks.
Measurement of VO2 Max
Vo2 max measuring tests need a medical lab, a doctor, a fitness specialist, and a cardiologist for accurate conduction.
Maximal Exercise Test: Typically, doctors use maximal exercise tests to measure VO2 max while you’re exercising at your maximum level. In a testing center, you are asked to breathe into a mask while you run on a treadmill or ride a stationary bicycle. They increase the intensity of activity until your maximum effort is used. The mask is attached to a specific machine that is designed to measure your breathing rate with the amount of oxygen you’re inhaling and the amount of carbon dioxide you are exhaling. A heart rate monitor is also attached to you to measure your heart rate. This test is done within 15 to 20 minutes.
Submaximal Exercise Text: Some certified fitness instructors and personal trainers also conduct VO2 max tests. These are submaximal tests because these are performed below the max exhaustion level and below the max heart level. These are also useful techniques to measure your VO2 max levels along with measurement of your heart and lung endurance during a strenuous workout.
Your doctor evaluates which is the best VO2 max test for you. It usually depends on your fitness level. Commission tests conducted to measure vo2 max whether you’re a trained athlete or an inactive individual are:
- Multistage bleep test.
- 3.5 km run test.
- Astrand treadmill test.
As a beginner, you are asked to walk or run on a treadmill simply. Other tests include:
- Rock-port 1-mile walk test.
- Cooper 1.5-mile walk-run test.
- Treadmill test.
Comparison between your speed or time to average results from others for similar physical activities.
What is the Best VO2 Max?
These factors help identify the level of VO2 max:
- Physical fitness level.
- Elevation.
- Age.
- Gender.
From all these, two factors age and gender are uncontrolled factors. However, your fitness level is the most important and the majority of your oxygen uptake depends on your fitness level. Which is a controllable factor.
Why Do You Need to Increase VO2 Max?
Several research findings about the benefits of VO2 max have appeared last decade. These findings have explained the importance of increased VO2 max in a pretty simple way. They claim increased VO2 max helps you line linger and also improves the use and delivery of oxygen in your body. It also maintains your physical fitness and overall health in your old age. In addition, several benefits are linked with vo2 max that you may notice within days of starting an exercise to improve your VO2 max, these include:
- Boost your immune system and get sick less than often.
- Being less winded during strenuous physical activities like climbing stairs.
- Reduce your stress levels.
Limitations for VO2 Max Testing
Although VO2 max is a good way to figure out your physical fitness level, it cannot depict the whole scenario. Its measurement is not feeble. It’s An expensive technique. You need to go to a lab or use a digital fitness tool. Both are costly ways. However, some measurement strategies can still help you get similar information at a low cost. Such as:
Tracking your Progress: Use a tracker of speed when you swim, run, or bike to determine the speed and distance average. Considering tracking the number of sit-ups or push-ups may also help you measure your exertion level. These practices also help you achieve your goal and improve your fitness level.
Measuring the Pulse: Your pulse is the number of your heartbeats in a minute. It is actually your heart rate. Measuring your heartbeats can help you measure your heart rate during a workout. Keep a tracker and evaluate how your heart rate changes while you excuse. Keep a record of all observations for a few months, you will surely notice that your heart rate decreases even when you work at the same effort.
Conclusion
Vo2 max is a modern and effective technique to measure your physical fitness level by tracking the use of oxygen in your breathing while you exercise. This can also be done in a lab or hospital under the supervision of certified doctors, or fitness trainers. But you can simply measure it by walking on a treadmill test or measuring your pulse during a workout at home.
Tracking changes in your VO2 max during and after exercise can help evaluate your fitness improvement. You can also check how effective your training program is effective. VO2 max is a useful technician as it tells you how much oxygen you are using. This means you can track your aerobic fitness level with the help of VO2 max testing. Athletes and, swimmers, runners, or people who are gym trainers use VO2 max as a special way to assess their fitness and measure their progress over time, if they are trying to improve their performance. Even if anyone is not an athlete, they can consider going to a local gym to conduct a submaximal exercise test.
VO2 max also indicates your cardiovascular health. And help stay healthy and active even in your old age.
