What is your V02 max?

79.4

15:42

32:08

1:09:40

2:33:58

Vo2max is meaningless among trained populations. You can have two runners with the same Vo2max and the same lactate threshold and still produce very different results. Why? Effeciency, both mechanical and physiological. In the end it all comes down to stride length. The mechanically effecient will have a larger stride length because of better power productiion and forward movement with each foot strike. The physiologically effecient will take less ATP to produce that stride.

Alan

VO2 Max is ***crap! Run races. Run workouts based on your race times. Why even worry about VO2 Max figures? VO2 is only one factor of dozens, that determine your racing success/progress. As a matter of fact it's not the ability to comsume oxygen that is the weak link in the chain of endurance factors. The heart endurance is the weak link. Once it tires it pumps less oxygen and glycogen... and you slow down. You can monitor your heart while training. You cannot monitor your oxygen intake.

How do you determine if you are economical striding runner? Video tape yourself and have a knowledgeable coach watch you run. Do you sweat like a pig, compared to others? If you do you may be less economical than them. Economy is easy to improve. Work on it! Frank Shorter was very economical in technique. You can see this.

How did Frank Shorter run 12:50 for 3 miles with a 71 VO2 Max? This is why it is worthless to know this number. A 71 VO2 max normally would run about 14:00 for 3 miles. And of course Derek Clayton, even lower at 69.7... Could run 4:50 per mile forever and generate NO LACTIC ACID... This is why lactate tests are also worthless... Everybody is different... You're trying to improve your times. Concentrate on your times...

luv2run wrote:

The AIS has used VO2max tests as a talent ID tool.

What is the AIS?

Lets make this more interesting.... does anyone know their legitimate % body fat, preferably done around the time your V02 max was tested? I'll repost my info:

65.7 ml/kg/min.

female

14.5% body fat (DXA), 14.8% body fat (Bod Pod)

116 lb/5'9"

17:20/36:22/55:46/1:19:21

vo2max test several times. 75 lowest 83 highest

body fat(tested in water ) 3%

however weak pr's considering.

1500 3.48

5000 14.01

8000 24.10

1/2mara. 1.08

nice to know, but not the only thing to consider obviously

Daniels' VDOT - 59

I've never really done a V02 max test before but that's where my VDOT is according to the chart in Daniel's.

VO2 max- 66.3

800- 1:56.1

Mile- 4:16.55

3000- 8:28

5000- 15:08

VO2 max means squat as far as performance, as others have said.

oh and:

10k-30:58

Half-71:22

jaguar1 wrote:

luv2run wrote:

The AIS has used VO2max tests as a talent ID tool.

What is the AIS?

Australian Institute of Sport. You should really know that since you claim to be involved with ex phys.

akdfjkasdjf wrote:

Australian Institute of Sport. You should really know that since you claim to be involved with ex phys.

Oh yeah, I've heard of them-- just wasn't thinking 'Australia'!

Would you have any clue what undisclosed values they go by?

82.? (tested long time ago at Environmental Stress Inst., UC Santa Barbara, standard treadmill protocol)

14:36 (track)

30:20 (road)

2:34

Must have had lousy efficiency.

28

Ht 5"8

Wt 141

Vo2 Max 65

Tested at Athlete Performance Center

Irvine CA

800m 1:53

Mile 4:12

5k 14:43

10k 30:20

Max HR 191

Lactate Threshold 179

vo2: 92 ml/kg

http://www.fasterskier.com/training2589.html

Vo2 max is not that important, anything 70+ is good enough for a elite endurance runner. "It's all about lactate threshold baby, yeah." (K.Bekele, 2005.)

I can't resist any longer so will get back to this soon.

79.0 ml/kg/min

male

6'2" 142 lbs.

5km 14:56

10km 30:48

1500m track 4:00

3000m track 8:36

Not the only factor determining performance for sure. Training to race and being able to move it up a notch in competetion is huge. I've known really fast runners that have a sixth sense in terms of knowing what they have to do to and how fast they will race as opposed to most of us who train hard then have no real idea until the gun goes off.

VO2 max has nothing to do with it. You could have the world's highest VO2 but your LACTATE THRESHHOLD may be super low. It's all based on how well you body can buffer the lactic acid, which is what pain and burning you feel in your muscles when you run above it. Thats why your body naturally slows down in a race sometimes, you will slowly slip below it and maintain that pace so it doesn't ever burn.

VO2max, earlier referred to as max VO2, has been used to describe an individual’s aerobic capacity or aerobic power for many years. There is no doubt that it is one of the variables that provides insight into an endurance athlete’s ability, but by no means is it the only thing that counts. I started my career (1960) as an exercise physiologist measuring VO2max among many different populations -- school kids, air-traffic control personnel, swimmers, runners, paddlers and modern pentathletes, to name some. I have always used a Lloyd Gallenkamp CO2/O2 chemical/volumetric analyzer in my research. I still use the Gallenkamp and bought the final two ever sold by the company that sold them in England. They are very dependable, accurate (acceptable range for ambient air is .2091-.2095 for O2 and .0003-.0006 for CO2) and portable, and take about 5-10 minutes to analyze each sample of air. I used to be able to take mine with me on the airplane, but it must remain upright or the mercury and chemicals will spill out, and now you can’t do that (nor can I carry my pistol on the plane any more as we used to do when going to pentathlon competitions). Anyway, the main benefit of measuring VO2max is for comparison with yourself over time or at different times in a season – to see what a particular type of training may have done for you. To use it to compare with other individuals is not very useful, because people with high max tend to be not so economical. In addition, different labs use different equipment (and protocols) to measure VO2max, and some of these labs are just plain bogus (or lack proper care and calibration of equipment) in terms of accuracy. Just this past week I reviewed two female runners’ lab results (from different labs) and the slower runner was told her max is 78, the faster runner (about 20 seconds better over 5k) had a 67 max. Fair enough, but consider the economy (VO2submax when running at 6:00 mile pace) values for the two – 62 ml/kg for the 78 max and 49 ml/kg for the 67 max. That 62/78 means she runs at 79% of her max when at 6:00 pace, whereas the lower-max runner is only at 73% of her max (49/67) when running at a 6:00 pace. Same relative result at 5:00 pace, so naturally the lower-max (better-economy) runner will do better in a 5k race, but if you just look at max you may tell that 67 girl to take up another sport. I once tested an Olympic Gold medalist in women’s 400 freestyle who had a max of 46, but talk about great economy, she was the best. Unfortunately, some labs don’t calibrate their equipment that well (and the more high-tech the equipment gets, the more you have to understand what is going on to keep tabs on possible errors), and values can come out quite far from the truth. Fortunately, if a particular lab is producing very high values in max tests (a good trait if accurate), they will also usually produce high values in sub-max tests (a poor trait if accurate). What often happens is that if you get tested and have a high max, the same lab tends to not tell you what your economy (sub-max) values are, because that may do 1 of 2 things – indicate you are not very economical or expose a poorly-calibrated device in the lab. Even if you get tested over time in the same lab, there is often no guarantee that the equipment is equally functional for both tests. It was for this very reason that I invented the term “vVO2max.” (believe it or not I was the one who came up with that term, but it’s definition has sometimes been abused over the years). My original (and still in my mind, accurate) definition is that vVO2max is arrived at by extrapolating your economy curve out to your VO2max and, using your economy regression equation, calculate the speed that coincides with your VO2max. Jimmy Gilbert and I then decided to apply a representative economy regression equation to runners in general, which (along with the equation that equates duration of a race to fraction of VO2max that is typically used to race at that respective intensity), allowed us to come up with a pseudo VO2max, which we decided to cal VDOT (the proper way to express VO2max is “vdot O2 max,” because putting a dot over the “V” indicates that this volume of oxygen is a 1-minute value – without the dot, it could be a volume that was measured over more or less than 1 minute).

If your VDOT (determined form our tables) is lower than your lab-measured VO2max, it simply means your economy is not as good as we have given you credit for and if your VDOT is higher than your measured max, then you are more economical than we gave you credit for. In any case VDOT is representative of how well you race and considers max, economy, lactate threshold and tolerance and any other physiological or psychological values that determine how fast you run any particular race – which is another way of saying the best measure of how great you are as a runner is how fast you can run a race (race tactics aside for this particular argument – I did say “how fast” not how well you run a race). Over the years, numerous individuals have generated their own performance tables, often taking VDOT data to determine their own formulas, which they consider (and I guess are) original. So, if you trust the lab where you get tested, then VO2max, when measured over time, can help determine what any particular type of training is doing for you in terms of changing aerobic power. If you don’t trust the lab, or maybe use different labs, then it is probably better to let your performances in races tell you how your training is going.

jtupper:

Thank You! Your responses -- very appreciated...

I do have a question? Comparing VO2 Max values over time is a tool, for sure.

But... What about the elite marathoner that concentrates on 1 to 2 hour continous runs? Even though a period of this training will improve the Marathon Time, isn't it true that the VO2 Max value will not increase as dramatically in relation to the Marathon Performance?

Is it not true that even the Lactate Tests will not improve that much, in this situation?

I guess my question is: What is the best test use for the elite marathoner, over a number of years?

JTUPPER: Where can one find some of the "Tough of the Track" stories, from years ago?

No doubt that VO2max may not improve and yet performance will. In fact after some years of experience, max is probably the least likely parameter to change. In effect, each 1% improvement in any of the various factors that improve marathon performance lead to about 1 minute better marathon time (more than a minute for slower runners), and when you are in the elite category, 1% (1 minute)can be big. In max that may be going from 80.0 to 80.8, a change that probably can't be relied on to be that accurate. Same for a change in economy -- 1% there can change a 2:05:45 runner to 2:04:53, and that is big also. Again, it is hard to really rely on a test result that says you are 1% better in this or that parameter, because maybe the very next day the same test may not show that same 1%. So, you just keep plugging away and work on economy, work on max and certainly work on threshold and confidence in your ability to hold marathon pace (confidence often affects economy, which affects threshold,etc)