how genetically rare to have a vo2max higher than 80?

Either you are a terrible liar, or you are primarily a cyclist who doesn't run enough. No chance in hell a runner with that number of Vo2max couldn't break 15-minute 5k.

The execution of the test on Cam Levins must be faulty, how can he sustain 2:42/1k pace for 10k with such a low number, even if he is extraordinarily efficient. He just doesn't have the engine in the first place.

Nobody said that VO2 work was the best for developing efficiency but it's probably the best all around work a person can do.

Testing is a good way to tell a person with a 45 that won't budge that the Olympics are not going to happen. We have a lot of those dreamers on here.

Joe Vigil is all about the VO2.

............lol wrote:

The execution of the test on Cam Levins must be faulty, how can he sustain 2:42/1k pace for 10k with such a low number, even if he is extraordinarily efficient. He just doesn't have the engine in the first place.

imagine that he runs 20km/hr at a vo2max of 57.5 which is already extremely efficient, still he cant crack even sub29 10k with 90% LT

Fair enough but isn't that a lot like telling a guy with a 16:30 PR that won't budge that he won't make the Olympics? I'm sure Joe vigil has his uses for VO2max but I am still in the dark as to what they are.

Coming at this from the other direction, runningart2004 discovers he has an elite VO2max but his PR is just under 16min. The problem here too is that his times have plateaued. I really don't see the value add from the VO2max measurement.

test2 wrote:

Fair enough but isn't that a lot like telling a guy with a 16:30 PR that won't budge that he won't make the Olympics? I'm sure Joe vigil has his uses for VO2max but I am still in the dark as to what they are.

Coming at this from the other direction, runningart2004 discovers he has an elite VO2max but his PR is just under 16min. The problem here too is that his times have plateaued. I really don't see the value add from the VO2max measurement.

Sure but the 16:30 guy is more rational. V02 deniers never are.

Alan has said many times that he basically is a thoroughbred engine in a Shetland Pony body.

You still need to have the right body and mechanics to utilize a high number.

Safe to say you'll never see a perfect specimen with a 40 VO2 using efficiency to beat the high numbers that are also efficient or even modestly so.

I'm not denying that VO2max is useful and interesting to scientists, I just don't really get what an individual athlete is supposed to do with the information. You have to admit that a one off measurement of VO2max is pretty useless. Your handle is "measuring progress." Is that the answer: you measure VO2max under the same conditions periodically and use it to tune your training, detecting overtraining early etc? Maybe it doesn't give you much that a race time wouldn't but one can't run an all out 5k every week but probably can handle a treadmill test. It's a convenient stand in for performance. Is that it?

I've never had mine measured. I don't even run with a watch but I still understand the logic of data.

Elites obviously feel it's important and many of them get tested.

If you are doing VO2 max work and the number doesn't change on a re-test you can then decide if there is a more appropriate stimulus rather than hammering away at something that's non-productive.

Why act like you know what you are talking about if the best you can do is say "I understand the logic of data?" I ask because you seem not know anything about how a coach would make use of VO2max data.

test2 wrote:

Why act like you know what you are talking about if the best you can do is say "I understand the logic of data?" I ask because you seem not know anything about how a coach would make use of VO2max data.

How so? I wouldn't be in a position to use data to any useful degree because my training isn't close to optimal.

A coach would make use of the data by telling which kids to find another sport and use it to gauge progress of others.

You can read up on Vigil's thoughts on the matter. I'm not going to do your homework and ask every coach.

If you want to go on a Jon Orange crusade about how it doesn't matter then giddy-up with that.

measuring progress wrote:

test2 wrote:

Why act like you know what you are talking about if the best you can do is say "I understand the logic of data?" I ask because you seem not know anything about how a coach would make use of VO2max data.

How so? I wouldn't be in a position to use data to any useful degree because my training isn't close to optimal.

A coach would make use of the data by telling which kids to find another sport and use it to gauge progress of others.

You can read up on Vigil's thoughts on the matter. I'm not going to do your homework and ask every coach.

If you want to go on a Jon Orange crusade about how it doesn't matter then giddy-up with that.

This isn't a crusade. If anyone cares to explain breifly what real world athletes do with VO2max info, I'm still honestly curious but if you were trying to helpful on that score you should have dropped Joe vigil's name and left it at that because that's the only worthwhile thing you've written.

if alan's a thoroughbred in a shetland pony (and I am trying very hard to stay on topic here), then what are geb and bekele? They're smaller than he is.

Has VO2 max ever been successfully used to predict that a non-runner has vast talent and then that be proven through actual running performance? Is there anyone out there doing lots of vo2 max tests and then encouraging the great performers to start training?

ClonedDuck wrote:

It's all about economy, not V02max. Just a fun number to brag about to your friends.

Ummmm, no.

Endurance performance involves a sufficiently high VO2max, good running economy and high lactate threshold.

jjjjjj wrote:

if alan's a thoroughbred in a shetland pony (and I am trying very hard to stay on topic here), then what are geb and bekele? They're smaller than he is.

Has VO2 max ever been successfully used to predict that a non-runner has vast talent and then that be proven through actual running performance? Is there anyone out there doing lots of vo2 max tests and then encouraging the great performers to start training?

They are just small racehorses or Greyhounds, which is fine. A Shetland Pony is like a Corgi.

A high VO2 still needs to be directed to the right endurance sport.

The East Germans were certainly testing like this.

1) I think there is a lot of skepticism about some of the older VO2max data. For instance, I know that the machine used to measure Matt Carpenter's was consistently high. How do I know? Well I worked at the USOC just after he was tested there and we always had trouble with that machine. I tried a variety of calibrations and it almost always read high. I had higher values on it than I had a few months earlier in grad school--at pretty close to sea level (1000 feet or so). We ended up mothballing the machine.

2) I think this is unfair. There can be some outliers but if you do not have a SUFFICIENTLY high VO2max, you just are not going to make it as an endurance athlete. An issue that comes up is that if you gather all the top endurance athletes, the VO2max values are actually pretty close which means they will not discriminate who might win (leaving aside tactics and mental aspects here for a moment). So we go to other measures like lactate threshold velocity and running economy to tease out these factors.

If VO2max or the ability to take in oxygen and use it does not matter than Usain Bolt should be the marathon WR holder.

Sure depends on what your sport focus is. I was measured in the low 70's in my early 20's and I couldn't come close to breaking 15 minutes in a 5k. I was a D1 wrestler at that time and wasn't focused on running at all though.

............lol wrote:

Either you are a terrible liar, or you are primarily a cyclist who doesn't run enough. No chance in hell a runner with that number of Vo2max couldn't break 15-minute 5k.

............lol wrote:

Either you are a terrible liar, or you are primarily a cyclist who doesn't run enough. No chance in hell a runner with that number of Vo2max couldn't break 15-minute 5k.

Measured on two seperate occasions. Once during off season and I was 5-10lb heavy. Once in season after some hard training. First one was 75 and change, second was 79.4....first one can mostly be attributed to the weight and you're always worse your first time taking the test. I was I think 23? 24? years old and in full marathon training mode.

I was also always heavy for a runner. I was 5'6, 143lb during the last test and was never below 140 in my running career despite running 100+ miles a week a lot.

Now had I been 120-130lbs then yes I surely would have run faster.

Alan

or maybe the method to measure vo2max was wrong.

talentspot wrote:

or maybe the method to measure vo2max was wrong.

The method is the measurement; all measurements are a standardized abstraction that can be useful or not.

Max VO2 is meaningless because it's not the real maximum. You don't reach maximum oxygen consumption after incrementally more difficult sustained exercise! You consume the most oxygen when your muscle pH is very low, which maximizes the rate of gas exchange between the blood and muscle. And when you are making the kind of maximum effort to drive that pH low. The fire that burns hottest uses the most fuel.

Somewhere between 400h and 1500m is where the real max VO2 is. Somewhere when the acid starts to hit but before it shuts you down. You never hit that zone in a more sustained or incrementally increasing effort because that's the reverse of how to get there - you need that big lactogenic push early on to generate the max pH gradient.