What does a high VO2 Max give you as a distance runner?

It means nothing. Unless you're at a 22 or something, in which case you would know you can't do much physical.

Anything 50 or above is good enough. It's everything else you have to worry about.

vo2max only helps if ur running efficiently isnt bad. if u r a 4'10" gremlin with short legs, wide hips, huge feet, etc. with a 90 vo2max, u will still suck at running

What if it's a 5'7 24 yo runner with normal body proportions

I am the poster child for the limitations of a high VO2 max. I am a former 15:10/31:20 Big Ten runner. My VO2 max was tested at 75.6 in 1995 at Penn State as part of a Exercise Science graduate research study. They tested the VO2 max and 400m speed of a current and former PSU runners as well as other top runners in the area. I had the highest VO2 max and the slowest 400m time of the cohort (57 seconds). My 1500/5000/10000 track times were among the slowest in the cohort. So while I had a great motor I didn't have great wheels. The lead author of the study called me the "dump truck". I tried the marathon but I never ran a good one. I did several where I was at 2:35 pace through 20 miles and my legs would always cramp up. And I always got hurt above 80 miles/week.

The only benefit of my high VO2 max is that I am never out of shape. Even into my mid 40s I could still break 5:00 in the mile off just 6 weeks of training. I didn't run the rest of the year. I just did six weeks of a gradual buildup in the spring until I could break 5:00 to continue my sub 5:00 streak and then I was done for the year.

Hey my sister studies at PSU! Well at least that gives me some confidence. Now i'm not too worried if i skip a few workouts over the next month and losing a lot of fitness. I certainly improved quick when i picked up running. I am starting to break up at 55 mpw and i don't think i'm ramping up too soon maybe i should just start adding workouts and settle in for another year at this mileage before going higher. How lobg did it take you to train for the marathon?

I did the standard buildup from the Daniels book. I usually ran about 60-70 year round and then tried to get into the 80-90 range in my 12 week marathon buildup but I had a hard time staying healthy.

I’m no doctor but it really means that your cardiovascular system is capable of delivering a lot of oxygen to working muscles. As noted by others, this high value doesn’t address the condition or limitations of the muscles receiving the oxygen. Rarely will you complete an event or competition where VO2 max will be the decisive factor

I've been working with a strength trainer twice a week since i started running so do you think that should continue to help me run? I definitely think it helps my speed endurance. Do you think that has something to do with the VO2 Max?

bestes@emerson.com

wrote:

I’m no doctor but it really means that your cardiovascular system is capable of delivering a lot of oxygen to working muscles. As noted by others, this high value doesn’t address the condition or limitations of the muscles receiving the oxygen. Rarely will you complete an event or competition where VO2 max will be the decisive factor

This is incorrect. VO2Max is exactly the maximum oxygen your entire body uses and can be limited on both sides - by how much is supplied by cardiovascular system and by how much muscles (and other organs) can use.

It has been shown that high VO2Max is often in inverse relation with running efficiency, so a very likely scenario is that elite runners with relatively low VO2Max simply cannot achieve their potential in VO2Max, because they are so good at running they don't need that much oxygen on the muscular side of it.

A high VO2 max is one of several factors involved in being fast. It is the aerobic engine.

As the dump truck says, it is not the be-all end-all. And I would wager if he had 52 speed he would've been knocking on the door of sub-14 for 5k.

Charles Martel wrote:

A high VO2 max is one of several factors involved in being fast. It is the aerobic engine.

As the dump truck says, it is not the be-all end-all. And I would wager if he had 52 speed he would've been knocking on the door of sub-14 for 5k.

You don't need to have 52s 400m speed to run sub 14 if you are an aerobic monster. Salazar never ran faster than 57s (pure slow-twitch, easily got outkicked in slow races), and ran substantially faster over any aerobic distance. Salazar had no speed, but a VO2MAX at 80-82, and was able to run marathons at an extremely high % of his VO2MAX.

A high VO2max test result, as I understand it, indicates that you are capable of taking in and using lots of oxygen in an increasingly difficult test situation.

What is the oxygen doing? It is used in oxydative phosphorylation, making ATP out of NADH and succinate which derive from the Krebs cycle in your mitochondria. The Krebs cycle is mostly fed from the products of your anaerobic glycolysis - pyruvate and lactate. It doesn't necessarily indicate that you have relatively more capillary development, tendon springiness, diaphram stamina, mitochondrial proliferation, muscle cell myoglobin (maybe), neuromuscular coordination for the speed you run at, glycogen storage, etc. It does indicates that your lung capacity, heart, and red blood cells can transfer oxygen to your muscle mass well. If you use lots of muscle mass, with perhaps lots of intermediate twitch fibers, then you can dispose of that oxygen better than others, by distributing it among all those intermediate twitch muscle cells for oxidative phosphorylation. So, you last longer in the VO2max test, making use of oxygen at a faster top speed. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you can better your long distance running or sprinting without a ton of training. It could merely mean that you have lots of intermediate fibers that give you easy speed and some stamina, as they help your slow twitch fibers go the distance, or help your fast twitch fibers last long enough in a short run.

I was also tested at 75.6, three different times, at two different labs in the mid-80s.

I was pack-filler at my D1. VO2 max is maybe 25 percent of the big picture, at most.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Charles Martel wrote:

A high VO2 max is one of several factors involved in being fast. It is the aerobic engine.

As the dump truck says, it is not the be-all end-all. And I would wager if he had 52 speed he would've been knocking on the door of sub-14 for 5k.

You don't need to have 52s 400m speed to run sub 14 if you are an aerobic monster. Salazar never ran faster than 57s (pure slow-twitch, easily got outkicked in slow races), and ran substantially faster over any aerobic distance. Salazar had no speed, but a VO2MAX at 80-82, and was able to run marathons at an extremely high % of his VO2MAX.

You realize he ran 13:11 for 5000? The odds of him never running faster than 57-400 pace are zero.

mathmania wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

You don't need to have 52s 400m speed to run sub 14 if you are an aerobic monster. Salazar never ran faster than 57s (pure slow-twitch, easily got outkicked in slow races), and ran substantially faster over any aerobic distance. Salazar had no speed, but a VO2MAX at 80-82, and was able to run marathons at an extremely high % of his VO2MAX.

You realize he ran 13:11 for 5000? The odds of him never running faster than 57-400 pace are zero.

He said himself many times he never ran a 400 faster than 57. He obviously never raced a 400m, so maybe he could have gone a second or so faster. He averaged 62s for a 3k, so he can run a 3k at 91% of his all-out speed.

Salazar definitely is an exception tho, he was extremely high % slow-twitch (marathon specialist) and his long legs, body and running form were also unique. In all his races, he would always be the guy with the slowest speed.

But again, his VO2MAX was 80-82, so it definitely matters way more for performances in 3k+ than 400m speed. I'd happily trade some secs off my 400m speed for a higher VO2MAX.

And probably doped

you really believe anything Salazar says? You know how many high school XC boys I’ve coached that were supposedly faster than him? Too many to count. It’s impossible to have that sort of endurance. Never broke 57 but was the American Record holder for 5000....sure buddy.

The faster your all out speed is, the faster your easy pace is. The faster you can run one mile, the faster you can run 3, etc.

mathmania wrote:

you really believe anything Salazar says? You know how many high school XC boys I’ve coached that were supposedly faster than him? Too many to count. It’s impossible to have that sort of endurance. Never broke 57 but was the American Record holder for 5000....sure buddy.

These sub 57 XC HS kids most likely have more intermediate and fast-twitch fibers than Salazar. So they are better at shorter stuff, worse at longer stuff.

You don't know if Salazar was on something that would increase his endurance at a given level of natural/base speed. Watching him run, and see him get destroyed in some finishes makes me not doubt that his 400m was very weak compared to his ability as a runner.

He is not the only slow-twitch dominant long-distance runner - the Portuguese 10k gods, Mamede and Lopez both ran 27 low 10k's. Mamede had 47s 400m speed, Lopes 54s. Cabral and Hadd both talked a lot on these forums about them, when the quality of posts was still higher. Both had to train substantially different.