How ‘Trainable’ Is VO2 Max Really? – A Case Study (2019) | Hacker News Reader

How ‘Trainable’ Is VO2 Max Really? – A Case Study (2019)

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98 pointsdsnr39 comments

I raced as a Category 1 USCF racer and worked on increasing a lot of thresholds as I climbed up the ranks. I would get my VO2 max tested every year and saw some improvements based on training, but I hit a limit. Other teammates also hit limits, but their initial test values were just higher than mine and I wasn't going to train myself into those higher levels.

Improving my lactate threshold, losing as much weight not related to cycling muscle mass and periodization kept me competitive. Training smart, sticking to a game plan, avoiding fast paced group rides, good sleep and nutrition was also vital.

The reality is that you can build upon your genetic platform, but you are going to get to level where you simply can't compete against someone who is doing everything you are doing, but just have better genetics. Sadly, this is why a lot of elite athletes turn to doping, even in the amateur ranks. They are training just as hard as you in addition to the EPO, steroids, HGH and who knows what else.

It's pretty obvious when you look at amateur endurance races that a lot of those age group guys are heavily geared. There's no testing out of competition at all, and hardly any in competition either.

How is it obvious when you look at them? I mean, it is obvious that people cheat, because people cheat everywhere, but what does looking at them have to do with anything?

In bodybuilding heavily rounded shoulders is usually a sure sign of steroid use, as an example.

We can "look at" a variety of factors and I am pretty sure that is what the poster meant. Not so much their physical appearance, but the overall visibility of their results. Cycling, for example, is an endurance sport, and gains usually take several years to manifest. Yes, you have some gifted juniors who get to Cat. 1 very quickly. In the masters levels, if a competitor has performed very poorly for several seasons and then is on fire all of a sudden, we tend to be suspicious. There were several masters level racers who did get tested at state and national level events and they got caught. All of this just for an amateur state champions jersey! We have also had older cyclists die as a result of doping. I have no compulsion to pack my blood with cells to boost my hematocrit percentage to 60% and have a heart attack, but it has happened several times to other cyclists.

> The reality is that you can build upon your genetic platform, but you are going to get to level where you simply can't compete against someone who is doing everything you are doing, but just have better genetics.

This is the hardest thing for us to admit, culturally, even though there are some glaringly obvious examples, like height.

That said, I think most people can generally train themselves to compete at high levels, just not not elite levels. For example, you see a good variety of people competing on decent college teams in all sorts of sports. It's just at the elite college level and above that you see people's shapes become more uniform.

It's also overstated, culturally, especially in online circles. Most people will never be elite in anything in their lives, so these genetic limits don't impact most people. They're sometimes used as a crutch to justify not working harder.

> This is the hardest thing for us to admit, culturally

Is it? It seems pretty obvious. And unless you're aiming to be an elite in whatever field, it's pretty much irrelevant. Barring serious defects, most people can do reasonably well in most disciplines (physical & mental) if they apply themselves. Of course, if everyone were to apply themselves equally, the genetic lottery would still win out, but that's not something that seems to happen?

Sure but you could argue that the ability to "apply oneself" is fundamentally just another neurological character trait also rooted in one's physiological characteristics which stem from your environment (family, socioeconomic background, etc) and your genetics... neither of which you had any control over.

> Is it?

John McEnroe got in trouble for suggesting Serena Williams couldn't compete in the top men's circuit.

If we can't even discuss the biological differences at elite level between men and women without controversy, then yes I'd say so.

> John McEnroe got in trouble for suggesting Serena Williams couldn't compete in the top men's circuit.

There is no need (well, outside the student-union) to speculate about this. Serena lost in 2017 to the number 203 ranked man.

And then he beat her sister.

[1] https://www.tennisnow.com/Blogs/NET-POSTS/November-2017-(1)/...

Please don't mistake POCO behaviour from a loud minority with what is (or isn't) actually acceptable. Loud outrage is not a good benchmark for, well, anything at all really.

Does chess really require high max V02?

I'd recommend reading Joe Friel's stuff for anyone that's interested in this and wants to improve. Executing a periodization schedule for the stress of an event is something that anyone can do.

I love stuff like this: https://joefrielsblog.com/polarized-training-update/

Nice write up and confirms what I’ve personally experienced by trying different methods (running/climbing) over the years

I love Joel. I have read the The Cyclist's Training Bible 5 or 6 times and I haven't owned a bike in about 25 years.

Former professional racer here (USSR), former world champion (junior TTT).

The article describes a methodology (high volume, low intensity) commonly practiced by many teams in the USSR, especially my team who took it to the next level supported by a group of scientists and researchers.

Prior to hiring, every candidate (I'm talking about my team) went through intensive testing. A lot of guys (but not all) were sent home based on low VO2Max numbers.

I was 17 when I got a call and tested at low 60 VO2Max on my first test and was offered a ride. I came from a completely different training methodology based around short, high intensity intervals. Within a year, my VO2max moved to high 70 and eventually settled around 80- mid-80 depending on various factors during the season. I've seen this growth in others, sometimes even more dramatic.

To give you an idea, we clocked around 40,000 km per year of mostly low intensity training. A typical training day was made up of 3 rides: 40 km in the morning before breakfast, 3-5 hour ride (depending on the cycle) after breakfast, and another 40 km ride in the late afternoon. We lived on the bikes 11 months a year.

We were often told to pull out of dog fights on the climbs during a race to keep that low intensity in check and just ride tempo far away from threshold (although we used heart rate monitors in training, crude, early version of them, this wasn't possible in a race because the signal was sent to a team car, nothing was displayed on a bike). Not knowing your exact heart rate, we had to go by feel and to this day I can quite accurately tell what my heart rate is at different level of intensity.

For high intensity work, we practiced 20-25 km intervals at race or somewhat higher than race pace intensity, usually 4 or 5 of them per session, pretty much mimicking a 100 km TTT which is what our specialty was at the time (Olympic gold was important for propaganda).

In 8 years of its existence, that team went from an unknown startup to delivering several world champions. When the Soviet Union collapsed, those who survived the crash managed to make it to the west and raced in pro peloton. One guy in particular, my former teammate, did well in the Giro and the Tour. Others, who went through the similar system, went on to win Grand Tours and major Classics.

That is to say - the methodology has merit even though a lot of literature suggests a different kind of training.

This is a good article and aligns well with empirical results from polarized training plans. But focusing on VO2 Max as a single metric isn't necessarily a good approach. Race directors don't give out prizes for the highest VO2 Max and it's only a mediocre predictor of finishing times. A lot of athletes benefit more from training to hold a higher percentage of VO2 Max for a longer period.

VO2 max is good in that its easily tested. As such: its a microbenchmark (much like how Linpack FLOPs is touted as the supercomputer benchmark, even though dense matrix multiplications are probably in the minority of tasks)

Since there's a consistent test available that "microbenchmarks" an athlete's measure of endurance across athletic fields (bicyclists, cross country skiers, runners, etc. etc.), we can now compare athletes of different styles against each other and learn from all of them.

VO2 Max isn't a measure of endurance. It's a measure of maximum aerobic output.

Edit: Athletes with high endurance as measured by how much output they can sustain over longer periods will also tend to have high VO2 Max scores, but that's mostly a correlation thing and not a direct causal relationship.

I'm not sure there's any point in comparing VO2 Max scores across sports. It's an interesting factoid but not really actionable.

It's not, but it does correlate with the highest performers in endurance sports.

And Linpack FLOPs aren't a measure of 64-bit integer performance. And yet, we use Linpack FLOPs to compare supercomputers against each other, even if they're going to run 64-bit math on them.

No microbenchmark is perfect. But maybe some microbenchmarks are useful.

From Wikipedia:

"The measurement of V̇O2 max in the laboratory provides a quantitative value of endurance fitness for comparison of individual training effects and between people in endurance training. Maximal oxygen consumption reflects cardiorespiratory fitness and endurance capacity in exercise performance. Elite athletes, such as competitive distance runners, racing cyclists or Olympic cross-country skiers, can achieve V̇O2 max values exceeding 90 mL/(kg·min), while some endurance animals, such as Alaskan huskies, have V̇O2 max values exceeding 200 mL/(kg·min)."

So maybe it is a measurement of "endurance capacity"...

[edited for clarity]

No it's not a direct measurement of endurance capacity. It is, as the units imply, a measurement of your maximum rate of oxygen metabolism over a very short period, as normalized by body mass.

There is some correlation with endurance capacity. But that relationship gets progressively weaker as you go out to longer efforts.

Wikipedia's entry is overly simplistic. It is true that many people use VO2 in this way, but many of us feel it is silly. Some people are able to get more power to their legs at a given metabolic consumption, for instance. Two athletes may run the same time because one is more efficient with a lower VO2 Max, and the other has a higher VO2 Max but is less efficient. Interestingly no elite athlete has both things maxed out, perhaps because it is impossible, they are at odds with each other.

Aerobic output matters more for endurance sports (which are limited in part by how much energy your body can keep supplying) than for power sports (which involve anaerobic activity and ample recovery periods).

Although the article mentions "polarization", when I look at the intensity distribution graph, is that not more an example of "pyramidal" - ie with a substantial amount of work between easy and hardest (VO2) intensities (see the bars for aerobic, tempo, threshold), rather than just being divvied up between Easy/VO2 with no-mans land in the middle. (see for instance, the definitions in this paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2015.0029...)

There are hundreds of definitions floating around. I think most people when talking about polarization isn't talking about the original definition, but merely the concept of having more volume and not always as much intensity.

It's a big shift, though. As someone mainly cycling I often get it a bit for "free", since it's natural to have rides being a couple of hours long and thus intensity is naturally lower. But when running, it can often feel like a run either needs to be long or fast.

Yeah, many more metrics to look at as well. Like lactate threshold (often measured relative to pace in running, or wattage in cycling (FTP)). And while they correlate, even they cannot even predict performance.

For instance I measured my ftp, did a training plan and measured again. No change, but still got better results on my rides. Real world cycling is "punchy" with accelerations and hills etc. So my steady state performance hadn't increased, but my ability to endure going over lactate threshold and come back had.

And also the other way. When my friend started cycling, he was already an insane runner with good vo2max (70+). But his ftp on cycling was comparably low, since his muscles couldn't handle that lactate build up from this unknown moving pattern. Of course he quickly improved, but it's another point showing that vo2max doesn't necessarily translate to performance in an event. (One could argue him redoing the vo2max test on a bike would have yielded a different score, though)

Yes VO2 Max tests for the same athlete will usually yield scores that differ by a few points for cycling versus running. I know at least one pro cycling team tried to identify potential new riders from outside the sport by recruiting athletes from other sports who had exceptionally high VO2 Max scores. Race results were disappointing.

I wanna say speed skating is the only dependably crossover sport so far? Not just from the Heidens 40 years ago, lots of other examples here: https://www.google.com/search?q=speed+skating+cycling

I think besides great endurance and ability to recover, being able to turn down the self-preservation knob is important in cycling. This is also true in speed skating moreso than the other endurance sports. Being able to relax on the downhills or in a fast moving peloton is essential to save energy

I'm from a small place in Norway, known for its speed skaters. And my impression is they actually bike a lot as part of their off season training.

> In fact, when I model the average response to training across the entire group that I have VO2 and long-term training data for, I see an average shift from 54 to 67 ml/kg/min (a change of 24%) when a long-term, high-volume training plan is undertaken. > > Conversely, when a short-term, high-intensity training plan is undertaken, the model shows a maximal increase (in 4-6 weeks) to only 63 ml/kg/min (16%). > > So, while a 40% increase in VO2 max may not be considered “typical,” after my experience testing and observing athletes over the past 10+ years, I would have to consider a ~25% increase in VO2 max to be very typical given the right training over a sufficient period of time (the two items missing from those initial studies that suggested high genetic limitations).

Bait and switch. He starts out talking about averages over ordinary people suggesting 10-15% average improveability, and then presents a 25% estimate... from an extremely selected group of athletes after lots of attrition from those getting worse results (just what percent of the population even has VO2max numbers from a "long-term high-volume training plan"?). I would suggest that his end result strongly reinforces the original claim, rather than debunking it.

"is the total amount of oxygen that your muscles can extract from your blood per minute"

genuine question, but wouldn't this also correlate with muscle mass? you can put on a LOT of muscle, so doesn't more muscle mean more oxygen being extracted from your blood?

Yes. But the unit is ml/kg/min, so increasing your mass with muscles increases the ml extracted, but also the division by kg.

Reminded me of the Colorado experiment https://baye.com/colorado-experiment/

I wonder if VO2 max is equivalent to more O2 diffused to cells.. what if capillaries are too narrow or too twisted, you get a lot of O2 circulating but very few reaching the cells.

VO2 Max tests directly measure how much O2 you metabolize into CO2. If you have some kind of vascular disease then yes, that could reduce the amount of O2 reaching your cells and thus impact VO2 Max.

It's normal for capillaries to be narrow. Some only allow a single blood cell at a time.

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