You Ran Through a VO2 Max Test, Now What?
For those of you who already took the plunge and completed a VO2 max test, I applaud your efforts, I know it’s not easy. For those of you who haven’t yet completed a test, I encourage you to do so soon. I assure you that knowing where you stand, even if you have hesitations about your performance, will be beneficial. Having access to this data allows us to help guide you towards making better decisions when it comes to training your cardiovascular system.
Let’s start from the beginning. What is a VO2 Max test? It is an exercise test that reveals one component of your fitness, more specifically your Cardiorespiratory Endurance. Cardiorespiratory Endurance is essentially how well your heart and lungs work. The more blood and oxygen this system can consume and circulate throughout your body, the better your score. The test quantifies your Cardiorespiratory fitness based on gas exchange analysis, more simply, how much oxygen you can consume and how much carbon dioxide you can expire during exercise. We can capture this data by having our participants wear a mask while performing the VO2Max protocol.
Upon completing a VO2 max test, you will receive a printout showing all the data we collected. At the top of the page, you’ll see three columns, Heart Rate, VO2 and Kcals/HR. Assuming you gave your maximal effort during the test, we will be able to get an accurate measurement of your heart rate max (HR max). Essentially, how many times your heart can beat each minute while exerting maximal effort.
*Please refer to image below for a better understanding of Heart Rate Zones
Without this data, we are left estimating your HR max based on your age. This estimation leaves us prone to errors in accuracy. For instance, a very fit individual may have a lower HR max than what is predicted based on their age. The reason for this is that their heart has become more efficient, so each beat of the heart is able to move more blood and thus more oxygen.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of cardiorespiratory training each week.
* Heart Rate Training Zones
Of those 150 minutes, assuming you’re training for general health and not a specific endurance event, you should aim for 10-20 minutes in zone 5. To be clear, it is not expected, or even feasible for most people, to complete 10-20 continuous minutes at this high intensity. To achieve this goal of 10-20 minutes in Zone 5, we would suggest VO2 Max intervals, which is typically 4 minutes at this high intensity followed by 3-4 minutes of rest, repeated for 4 rounds. This will put you around 16 total minutes in zone 5, which covers your requirement for the week.
Next, I mentioned earlier that most of your training time should be in zone 2. We would suggest that you complete at least 2 weekly training sessions of at least 40-50 minutes each, in zone 2. A good gauge for determining zone 2, if you don’t have a heart rate monitor, is the talk test. If you’re training in zone 2, you should still be able to speak. However, the person you’re speaking to should clearly hear that your breathing is labored, it should be obvious that you’re exercising.
If you’re keeping score, so far we’ve accounted for about 108 to 128 minutes of your weekly cardiovascular exercise (28 total minutes of the VO2 max intervals + two zone 2 days of 40-50 minutes each.) Feel free to spend your remaining 22-42 minutes in zone 3 or 4.
Lastly, to help you understand why we recommend different training zones, these zones train different aspects of fitness. Zone 2 is largely associated with increasing mitochondrial density. You can think of the mitochondria (part of a cell) as the powerhouse of the cell. This is your base. Without a strong base, it is difficult to build power on top of it. Next, you can think of the higher intensity exercise as focusing on improving your maximal output. Essentially, VO2 max intervals help improve or maintain your VO2 max. This is crucial because a low VO2 max is correlated with all cause mortality. Essentially, the higher your VO2 max, the less likely you are to die from just about any disease. There is value in both methods of training, we recommend you cover all of your bases and include them all in your weekly training.