Why Your VO2 Max Matters And How To Improve It.

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IN TODAY’S ISSUE
Why Your VO₂ Max Matters & How To Improve It.

Often an overlooked aspect and fitness metric when it comes to improving your performance in the gym, and with improved performance in the gym, comes better results.

Everyone will ask you what your squat or bench is, but never what your VO₂ Max is… which is odd when you think about the fact that your VO₂ Max is the single best indicator of your overall fitness and health.

So, what exactly is your VO₂ Max? How can increasing it help improve your gym performance and how can you train to increase your VO₂ Max.

What You'll Find Out

• 🤓 What Is Your VO2 Max & Why It's Important.

• 👉 How Does This Help My Training?

• ✅ How To Improve Your VO2 Max & The 4x4 Method.

• ✍️ TL:DR - Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

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WHAT’S UP
What Is Your VO₂ Max & Why It’s Important.

In simple terms, “VO₂ Max“ refers to the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during exercise. The “V”, stands for Volume, “O₂” stands for oxygen and “Max” stands for maximum. It is a measure of your cardiovascular fitness and endurance capacity.

Your body needs to supply oxygen to your muscles to produce energy. When you breathe, your lungs transfer oxygen to your red blood cells, delivering it to your muscles. Your muscle cells require oxygen to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the primary energy source for muscle activity. The more oxygen you can inhale, the more ATP your muscles can generate.

Simply put: The greater your VO₂ Max, the more oxygen your body can consume, and the more effectively your body can use that oxygen to generate the maximum amount of ATP energy. Individuals with a higher VO₂ Max are able to sustain intense exercise for longer and recover quicker between sets or intervals due to improved oxygen supply.

Your Overall Health

Aside from your strength, performance and aesthetic goals, your overall health matters. Studies have shown that your VO₂ Max is a prime indicator when it comes to this.

A study by (Kang & Ko, 2019) which included 707 South Korean males between the ages of 40-50, looked at whether your VO₂ Max is associated with cardiovascular events. Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) was measured in the study.

The studies findings showed that the groups with higher and middle ground VO₂ Max groups had significantly lower CIMT measurements and that the low VO₂ Max group showed 3.56-fold higher relative risk of Carotid artery stenosis than the high VO₂ Max group.

ME?
How Does This Help With My Training?

Well aside from the HUGE BENEFIT of a lower risk of death from a stroke… Improving your VO₂ Max can also improve your performance in the gym, resulting in improved results and shorter training times.

In terms of direct strength specific improvements, it will be minimal as strength training in the lower repetition ranges of 1-5 are largely an anaerobic activity. You may find you recover faster between sets however.

Your strength gains may be improved through an increase in hypertrophy training performance and results, as we know there is a disassociation between muscle size and strength, however a larger muscle has the potential for more strength due to increase muscle fibre recruitment. We have dived into this in a previous issue.

Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy sets last longer, typically in the 6-30 repetition range, leading your body and muscles to require more oxygen.

Have you ever tried to perform high volume squats? Or even hack squats? Your breathing begins to get quite heavy and it sucks, you may even have to stop before muscular failure due to breathing and your fitness levels. Well, improving your VO₂ Max can help you remove that (maybe not eliminate) as a limiting factor.

Improving your VO₂ Max can also help you recover quicker between sets reducing time spent in the gym, or increasing performance when set rest period time is matched.

You Should Also Know.

Two factors which directly influence your VO₂ Max levels which are improved through the type of training required to improve your VO₂ Max are your Capillary Density and Blood Volume:

Increased Capillary Density - This results in better oxygen and nutrient supply to the muscle and more proficient extraction of metabolic waste (lactate & CO2) due to the greater surface area of capillaries next to the muscle. Resulting in improved work rate and increase muscle time to failure. (Ross et al., 2023).

Increased Blood Volume - This results in larger heart expansions and contractions meaning the heart doesn’t need to work as hard. Resulting in lower heart rates during exercise. Allowing us to recover more between sets 💡 (Convertino, 2007).

WHERE NOW?
How To Improve Your VO₂ Max & The 4×4 Method.

Resistance training in the hypertrophy range (6-30 repetitions) has been shown to increase your VO₂ Max, (Ozaki et al., 2013), just not to the optimal extent other forms of exercise do.

Then there is a whole debate whether high intensity interval training (HIIT) or lower intensity steady state (LISS) cardio is best?

HIIT VS LISS

Firstly we have a relatively new large systematic review with meta regression involving 5973 participants including over 50 years of data research by (Mølmen et al., 2024) comparing the effects of continuous endurance training (ET), high intensity interval training (HIIT) or sprint training (ST) on improvement in mitochondrial content, capillarization, and VO₂ Max.

The results showed that the participants VO₂ Max increased similarly with ET, HIIT, and SIT, although HIIT showed a tendency for greater improvement compared with ET and SIT training. The authors also state that “SIT was particularly effective in improving mitochondrial content and VO₂ Max in the early stages of training, while ET and HIIT showed slower but steady improvements over a greater number of training weeks”

Mitochondrial content increase similarly between groups, however the authors do note that Per Hour of exercise, SIT was a more effective training strategy than ET or HIIT and that HIIT was more effective than ET.

Capillary density increased similarly between groups with slight favour to ET & HIIT over ST.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials by (Milanović et al., 2015) including 28 studies and 723 participants compared HIIT to continuous endurance training and their effects on VO₂ Max improvements.

The results showed large improvements in VO₂ Max from both groups, with gains being greater in the HIIT group than the continuous endurance (LISS) group.

A review of systematic reviews 🤯 by (Crowley et al., 2022) gathered data from 11 reviews, all with moderate-to-very strong methodological quality. From the 11 systematic reviews, reviewed…. 179 studies were included for data points. From all the data points three meta-analysis compared HIIT vs LISS with regards to improving VO₂ Max. The results showed a small to moderate benefit towards HIIT vs LISS.

The Norwegian 4×4 Method?

Lastly we have a randomized controlled trial by (Helgerud et al., 2007), which compared four different training modalities against each other at improving VO₂ Max. All training programs were equated and matched for total work, frequency and total oxygen consumption, 3 days per week for 8 weeks.

1. Long slow distance @ 70% HRmax (maximal heart rate)

2. Lactate threshold @ 85% HRmax

3. 15/15 interval running (15s @ 90-95% HRmax followed by 15 s of active resting at 70% HRmax)

4. 4 x 4 min of interval running

The Results? The 4×4 group saw the largest increase in their VO₂ Max, followed by the 15/15 group.

TL:DR
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

• VO₂ Max is the amount of oxygen your body can consume, and the more effectively your body can use that oxygen to generate the maximum amount of ATP energy.

• Individuals with a higher VO₂ Max are able to sustain intense exercise for longer and recover quicker between sets or intervals.

• Your VO₂ Max is directly linked to negative cardiovascular events, the higher your VO2 Max the risk decreases.

• For Hypertrophy benefits, improving your VO₂ Max can help you increase your time to exhaustion during sets, as it can improve your fitness levels and remove heavy breathing as a potential limiting factor.

• Improved Recovery… Decreased recovery time needed between sets and intervals, potentially increasing performance when rest times are matched or decreasing time spent in the gym.

• Sprint Training, HIIT and LISS all improve your VO₂ Max, with slightly more immediate results from Sprint Training, however more sustained results from HIIT.

• Sprint Training & HIIT from a time standpoint are much more effective than LISS with results vs hours spent training for similar results.

• We know the negative interference effect disappears, when aerobic work and strength / hypertrophy is done in separate sessions, so if your schedule allows try and separate them.

That’s it for today ✌️

If you have any questions you’d like answered, topics you would like discussed, or perhaps some feedback, email them over to me at: [email protected]

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