VO2 Max Explained: How to Boost Your Endurance and Longevity

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast, where we navigate training, fitness, and health for everyday athletes. Today, we tackle a series of listener questions. We love receiving questions from you, from the Athletica forum, or from our Athletica social media pages. Ask us anything. So here's our first question from English Phil. What is the difference between developing maximal O2 uptake and maximal power or pace at VO2 max?

Yeah.

We actually have a series.

on the other.

Here's the question for me.

okay. So let's maybe just start with a little bit of a basic definition of VO2 max or maximal oxygen uptake, just so everyone's on page. But VO2 max or your maximal oxygen uptake, cardiorespiratory fitness is the maximal amount of oxygen you can pull from the environment into your cells, right? And it's measured in a minute.

We usually measure these using something called a metabolic cart in the laboratory. Of course, now they were moving where we can actually measure this in the field, believe it or not. The VO2 Master is a group that's a business that's actually creating a portable VO2 max unit that you can actually, you can have in your home for relatively cheap. I think it's about around eight grand US or thereabouts.

in the lab.

Thanks for watching.

Anyways, the difference between VO2 max and VO2 max power is that VO2 max is just that absolute number. It's like, much oxygen can I pull in? But how much power or pace that you're actually pushing when VO2 max is maximal is dependent on a whole bunch of other things like neuromuscular kind of qualities, right? How efficient you are with actually moving forward or pushing power.

relates a lot to something that we measure in Athletica that we'll get to in another time, which is

something that we never.

profile,

quite a twitchy individual, you might have more, say for example, power output at that VO2 max number.

And, you know, it might be like the actual power might be a lot higher, but, and, then conversely, if you're more of a diesel engine, you know, the, the two, the power and the actual VO two number might be a little bit kind of closer together. So, both are interesting and important. and I think probably at the end of the day that the power is the most important kind of unit or, or, or pace.

Because what do we care about? We care about how efficient we're moving, right? So yeah, but they're yeah, they're kind of just like two different things. But I guess to Phil's point, you need to be clear on what you're talking about when we look to that number. The other thing I'll say about that number is, especially if we look to books like Peter Attia's Outlive,

We know that cardiorespiratory fitness and that is your VO2 max number. Just having a large VO2 max cardiorespiratory fitness is well correlated, well associated with longevity and being healthy. And I think we've spoken about this before, but you can think of lots of reasons why having a VO2 max, like a high ability for your engine to deliver oxygen is important for so many factors in your body.

think and the very basic one is when you get ill. If you are sick, you want to have a very strong engine to be able to drive your immune system, which requires energy as well, aerobically to be able to fight that. And again, I was listening to Olav Aleksander Bu the coach of the Norwegian, the great Norwegian triathletes. And he was saying how when Kristian Blummenfelt who has like a

So, yeah.

you

you

a VO2 max of like 95 or something. When he gets sick, he hardly kind of feels it, right? Like he has sort of a low grade sickness, but there's just like, there's no problem there at all for the guy. Like it's just, and he can still probably get out there and do easy, you know, L2 kind of work. But so, having that, possessing a high VO2 max is something we all should sort of strive for trying to, to have for our overall.

Mm.

wellbeing, health, wellness, longevity.

major part of our users are runners, triathletes that do endurance events more than two, let's say two hours plus. So pace or power at VO2 max is the most important thing, not just the big number, right?

to get to high VO2 max at a certain pace or power level, like running economy plays a huge part, right?

do we get there?

get there through, like if we're gonna talk about running, you might look at things like, you know, running efficiency or running economy. So that's basically it's, know, every imagine every stride length, how efficient can that stride length that foot strike and push off.

you know, what are the things that are going to make you move longer in your stride length at a given oxygen uptake? And for this, we might look at things like the gym, right? Like, you know, actually looking at the stretch shortening cycle, you might actually look at plyometric work, right? So how, you know, snappy or punchy can you be poppy ultimately? Can you be off the, off the ground, right? So athletes that are more poppy.

with their running, they're springing up. They have ultimately, muscle tendon bone units that are very conducive to moving in the forward direction. They're gonna be a lot faster at moving at that given VO2. So yeah, all the things like downhill running can improve it.

you

Yes, sir.

Long duration running can improve it. Interval work can improve it. Hill reps, you know, and then of course gym work. So the combination of all these things, there's never one thing, but over time with a balanced program, like you do see in athletica, you will see an improvement in that running economy and then the pace or power at that via 2

So we often get critique for our strength program that it's a lot of jumping. And that's exactly the reason it's there, the plyometrics, right?

It's yeah, it's absolutely right. know, fair, fair comment. The, you know, the, the variation of the work needs to be improved and it will be in the future. But what we see in there are the bread and butter sessions that are going to improve your running economy. Right. And you'll see a bunch of kind of, squat and a single leg work and plyometric work. And it's all the purpose is really to, improve lower leg running economy, lower leg power.

you

for both cyclists and for runners. So that's why you see the sessions like you do. If there's anything you should do and you're healthy and

you

those are some great sessions to do that will enhance your performance.

Let's move on to question number two, which is from Paul G. My understanding is that focusing on blocks of VO2 max sessions over, four weeks can quickly increase VO2 max to a peak. However, following a longer term plan that combines both VO2 max and zone two training might lead to an even higher VO2 max peak. Is this a correct assumption? Additionally, in the plans, the VO2 max sessions consist of 30 30s.

you

so first, Paul G mentions that, know, typically we can get a really good, a good pop, good increase in our VO two number, after four weeks, like a block of that, right? Say we're doing two VO two sessions in, in a week. And he's absolutely right. That is kind of the traditional way that we, that we do see an increase train something that you get a response, right?

Thank you.

And there's lots of ways to go about that. He mentions you can use 30 30s, four by fours, an infinite number of other combinations of intervals in between. So it also mentions that when you combine zone two work with VO2 max work, it's probably the best of both worlds and you'll get an even higher bang for buck. And that's why you see this.

the program in Athletica laid out as you do. It does have a combination of, it is generally an 80 -20 kind of approach with 80 % of your work in that lower intensity zone two kind of work and 20 % of the VO2 high intensity work. And why is that? Well, it tends to be that when we see that base work, that low intensity long duration work,

we tend to be increasing VO2 from a metabolic response due to the effect that that training has on increasing your ability to burn fat as a fuel. All right, so this was a fascinating finding that I made with my colleague, Steven Seiler, long while ago. that's that VO2, or that, you know, there's this general direct link between fat oxidation, fat burning ability.

and your VO2 max. You don't always think of that. You usually you think high intensity work, you got to have, it's got to all be about carbs. And that was the strange finding in this one study that we'll link to in the podcast, but it was titled, you know, rethinking the role of fat oxidation. And we were looking at a comparison of recreationally trained runners, and we're comparing that with highly trained runners.

And the highly trained runners had very high fat oxidation rates at VO2 max. So they were actually, when they were pushing their VO2 max running speed during, I think they did, I think they were doing eight by five minutes at VO2 max, eight by four minutes, something like that. And we couldn't believe how much fat oxidation they were actually burning at their VO2 max.

Good.

Yes sir.

running speeds. So, and this was only in the high intensity, the well -trained individuals. In the recreationally trained individuals at their VO2 max, they're basically, the two groups had the exact same amount of carbon oxidation, same amount of sugar being burned, but the difference, the thing that was basically allowing the elite runners to run and produce that much more energy.

Thank you.

was fat oxidation. was all explained by the fat oxidation. So that's what you're doing when you actually do both, to Paul's point, when you actually do zone two training and VO2 max training, the combination of those two are creating this signal to allow for more fat to be burned in the mitochondria of the muscle cells. And of course, the heart's involved and all that sort of thing. But that's why you see the athletic sessions set up as they are. The science supports

to us today.

that that's the best way you can improve your VO2 max and your running speed at VO2 max back to the first question that we spoke on in the podcast here. Continuing on down, Paul G here is questioning the, am I seeing 30 30s and not as many four by fours? Well, it's because

Thank

Thank

And there's nothing wrong with doing four by fours. And I encourage you to use the workout wizard to switch that up from time to time and find out what works best for you. Remember the workout wizard is you'll see it at the bottom of nearly every single session. And it's where you can get different variety of sessions. You can get different durations of sessions, different intensities of sessions. And even there's an injury tab.

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So be sure that you're checking that out because those sessions are also appropriate for you. 30 30 may be the default, but there's lots of different ways to do VO2 sessions and you'll see them all there. It's, know, find out what works best for you. Now, when we, know, we're going to speak about this more in a subsequent podcast, but, we've, have chatted about it before, but there's different types of individuals out there in terms of what we call their phenotype.

you

So, thanks for watching, and have a

that we have fast Twitch dominant Twitchy individuals, call them. We have diesel based long duration, you know, they can plod away and go forever type individuals. And then we've got a hybrid individual and everyone else kind of in between. the 30 30 individual or the 30 30 sessions, they tend to be better tolerated by individuals that have kind of that more mixed.

you know, that group.

out of here.

of fibers in their person. they're like someone that's got a little bit of fast twitch muscle fibers, they're gonna recover better in that 30 second recovery after the 31. And they don't get as tired from the 30, 31 as they do. Imagine if you're a twitchy individual and you're doing four minutes hard, it's very, very, you don't recover well from that.

Thanks for watching.

It's a, there's a lot of lactate and when there's a lot of lactate, there is a lot of a sympathetic nervous system, subsequent response to it. Now that's the fight or flight system. And it's, you know, you're going to be stressed after ultimately, and you don't want that. You remember the overarching principle in athletic is training consistency. That's why it's set up as it is. We want you training day in day out, always getting that signal.

And we know that's why Athletica works. It's so pleasing for all of us at Athletica to be reading so many user comments and feedback now about their success. And they can't believe they've compared us with other platforms. And now they're training consistently day in, day out. they're winning. They're getting the most out of themselves.

Thank

Thank

day to day.

it's fun to try things out. Like you can find the original Tabata there too, like 20, 20 tens. did 40, 20s. I love my 40, 20s. They're brutal, but now like, so I started with 30, 30s. Then I got a little curious. I wanted to try 40, 20s and now we're doing back 30, 30s.

Thank

40, 20s, Marjaana.

And I swear like I can push more power on 30 30 now because I went and tried something else and then coming back. So try it out, try things out and hit that workout, serve button, underneath each workout.

All right, so this question is from Dan Neff who has sent in a question before and he listened to our article, our podcasts on fat adapted and adapting to a fat and high carb or low carb high fat diet. This question is about the ketone IQ and taking exogenous ketones. Fat adapted already in ketosis, so is it like a turbo charge as

or as a carb adapted athlete would it be like being in ketosis? Is there any benefit to taking it as a supplement on hard training days or race days? It's not a cheap supplement, but is it beyond marginal gains?

Just answered this offline with someone else the other day. So I'm kind of, kind of familiar with it. And, we had, there was, we'll link to it, but it's a training science podcast. I did with Chil Poffe, who is he basically, he did his whole PhD on this area of the supplements, the ketone supplements. And, you know, I've told this story before and I tell it in the, in the podcast, but ultimately I.

You know, this is the current the history of these ketone supplements is that these were developed by DARPA, which is like the US, you know, military research institute in collaboration with Kieran Clark and her her work in at Oxford. They formed ultimately the patent on this. And it's it's now labeled as a product that you can get the best one you can get is called Delta G.

So that is, if you want the one, it has like, it gives you the largest beta hydroxybutyrate response. All the other ones really don't give the same effect. So if you're gonna, in terms of spending your money and getting an effect, you want to go with the Delta G product, okay? They're the one that leverage the patent that is on this product.

Everything else is kind of, you're going to get, it's probably mostly marketing. So we'll link to the Delta G. We have, there's no affiliation for us with them. just know that through the work that I've done. Now here comes where, here come, you know, to Dan's point or Dan's question, when do you want to take that? Do you want to take it during your exercise? You know, and then to his point, I'm I'm a, you know, I'm already kind of in a semi ketosis state because I'm fat adapted.

You're too late.

Thank

Am I gonna get any even more benefit? And during, acutely during an event or an exercise, Dan, no, that is what the research is suggesting. And you listen to to Chil Puffy's podcast, that's kind of what he saw, at least for anything that's sort of high intensity. In fact, you can even potentially dampen your performance. And I learned this the hard way too.

Kyle Buckingham, I'm so sorry buddy, but I ruined one of his races because we were experimenting. you know, yeah, so it's like really be careful because it can really, it can push out an insulin response. And insulin is the last hormone that you want present when you're actually exercising because that's a anabolic hormone, not a catabolic hormone, right? You want to break things down and give energy. You don't want to be building up, right?

Not a

That's so you can just imagine you all of sudden get this insulin, big insulin response during an exercise. You don't want that. so where, you know, there is a little bit of evidence again, to chills podcasts that, a little bit during a very long ultra endurance exercise. And this would be like something that requires a lot of mental fortitude, you know, like, if you are a range in your, like your.

Thank

You're basically, you're trying to map and find your way around things. might be some improved mental ability during like 24 hour kind of races, but anything that's, you know, in the athletic realm, you don't want to be having this kind of during. When do you want to be having it? You want to be having it after it's a recovery tool that has, is, is what has been discovered. You use this in the post exercise period.

And all of a sudden this, there's all this energy that's available and there is added recovery. There's you can basically, and I've used this with some of my athletes as well. High level athletes that are training a lot and they just, they, they become bulletproof. They don't, they recover so well and that, you know, training just doesn't, doesn't hurt them. and then the final place you have this, you have one after your last exercise of the day training session.

and thank

And then you have the last one before you go to bed. Now that's a very expensive way to go about things, but if you're looking for a, you know, an edge, then you know, it is, that is a pretty solid marginal gain and you've got resources where money, you know, money isn't so much an object for you because, know, I think the price on these is something like a hundred bucks for three shots, you know, so you think about.

you

Whoa.

And I don't know if that's the exact price, but it was something like that last I was looking at. It's super expensive, right? Like that'll add up pretty quick, right? If you're doing two shots a day, let's call it 60 bucks a day just on your recovery ketones. Yeah, maybe it's, I'm not sure how much more you're going to get, yeah, improved sleep quality, improved recovery. Don't take it during, generally.

I'll use my hundred dollars on a massage.

Hahaha!

you

Fourth question for today. have Sarah

Why doesn't my nutrition strategy at sea level work at altitude? I use the combination of fig bites called Figgy Pops from an organic online grocery store. Shared the nutrition label with my coach and looked legit and great to throw in my top two bags so I didn't have to unpackage anything for lead will.

Is it 100 miles or 100k mountain bike? The plan was to use that and never second gels. I was able to do 60 to 80 grams carbs per hour, even in the heat and during spot intervals with that food. During the first few hours of the race, it was obvious that the wheels were coming off. Terrible stomach cramping. It truly felt like I was allergic to the food.

100 mile mountain bike race, Leadville, yeah.

Thanks

Even the gels were hard to get down but easier than the fig bites. The effort I put in from a heart rate standpoint, I didn't even run my power meter during the race, was not very different from what I had done in training a hundred times with the same products. Let's talk about that.

Yeah. that's such a good one. yeah. This is really where, you know, being fat adapted is just so beneficial because is, is when it's, in your, a stressful environment back to, back to the DARPA product, product, the Delta G that's, that's why it was initially developed for military.

working in extreme environments, military working at altitude, military working in the heat, because they needed to not have happen what Sarah experienced when lives were on the line. When you look into the military work, you realize how serious their work is.

And that that's unacceptable to go through what Sarah went through, right? If you're, if lives are on the line and that's why, so in that, in that kind of scenario, they need to be fat adapted. need fat to be taking up more of the energy. and in those extreme environments, because when you're fat adapted, you just, again, almost like the whole podcast. So we went back to the high VO two max remember.

Fat burning is really important for your VO2 max, your overall cardiospiratory capacity. Basically the ability of your body to take in oxygen simply use fat as a fuel to produce energy. That is critical for driving everything that's in your body. And then we look, let's look at some of the symptoms that Sarah experienced when she was doing Leadville. And she started, you know, she started to get, like she felt the wheels coming off early.

Yeah.

stomach cramping, right? So probably a lot of blood flow going away from the gut and working and probably directly to the muscles, directly to the, probably the periphery as well to cool her. you know, and then now she's got like less resources ultimately available to do what she's, you know, she wants to do out there. So what can she do in the future?

because of the

become probably if she was my athlete, we'd be working on becoming more fat adapted. we would probably so that ultimately, mean, 60 to 80 carbs, that's not too bad, but I'd probably lower that a little bit more to where around, I know you're kind of sitting, Marjaana, where you're kind of more in the, probably 45 to 65 is kind of your sweet spot right now, as you've become more fat adapted.

And, you know, life is a little bit easier as a result of that, less reliant on any of those exogenous carbohydrates. If you've got less reliant there in the gut, then, you know, your gut is more free and freeing to be able to exercise. And maybe I'll hand it over to you, Marjaana and I'd like you to maybe describe

and I'll

any similarities to how you felt two years ago, three years ago, to maybe now in the process that you've gone, whether, know, am I, I'm not a crazy person here when I'm talking, right, with suggesting this.

Bye.

No, you're not crazy. I thought it was crazy like a few years ago because you know, I was in the same boat. I need to get more carbs in. You know, half Ironman, you got to get 90 grams at least. And I always struggled like I didn't like the gels. So I was eating like candy, chocolate bars, like just garbage trying to get that carbs in.

But then when we started working with the fat adaptation, I've noticed I have hard time getting anything in because I'm not hungry. I know that I need to get something in, I, I rather have like this weekend, I was practicing my race day nutrition for the worlds and I'm making sandwiches because that's what I can, like that makes me want to eat.

So, I hope you'll continue to do that.

food that makes me feel good. And I don't have any stomach issues, no cramping, no nausea. I used to like be burping like all the time when I was eating, you know, gummy bears and all that. so yeah,

Thank

Yeah, and Paul, maybe you can tell us what, you know, like what type of duration are we talking about here likely for, like what's the range of durations that Sarah's probably doing here for Leadville 100, or 100K mile mountain bike race?

you

Thank you.

anywhere from you know 10 to 14 15 hours I think the cutoff is 16 so are you saying Paul that her stomach issues were more likely the stress of the race

Yeah, that's the very first thing. So, you know, I don't know Sarah's history, whether how acclimated she would be. You know, we need more context, right? Like, I don't know if she's coming from Colorado where she's already at altitude or whatever, but more likely she's probably arrived at Leadville, non -altitude acclimated.

Okay.

Yeah.

And again, we always know that, like this is the one key thing that we always notice in our experience when athletes become fat adapted, well fat adapted with all the signs and then they arrive at altitude, they're just like, I can't believe the difference. Like it's just, not, it's hardly affecting me. And it's just, again, when fat's able to kind of do the majority of the work,

Viotimax is usually a higher and like, again, all the things we've already said in the podcast. And then you can reduce that amount of exogenous carbohydrates that we have to take on board kind of to Marjaana's point. let's, if we can move that 60 to 80 gram reliance down to, you know, sort of 40 to 50 and still feeling the same, then we have

So, you think the same, we have a general...

generally a better system, Like fat is taking the substitution, it's taking the place of that exogenous carbohydrate. And it's just kind of like, there's less work on the, less demand on the gut. Everything else kind of feels better. And yeah, it's, in our experience, it tends to be a better

That is all for this week. Thank you for listening and join us next week for the Athletes Compass podcast. Ask these training questions. We love them and we love getting them in your, in our comments and in our social media. Thank you for taking a moment to give us a five -star review as well. Paul, Marjaana and I are professional endurance sports coaches with limited availability. Contact us to set up an appointment.

For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I am Paul Warloski, and this has been the Athletes Compass Podcast. Thanks for listening.