VO₂max: The Fifth Vital Sign

VO₂max is the most important metric of your overall cardiorespiratory fitness. It’s a measure of the maximal ability of your body to take in and use oxygen. But what does the number actually mean for your health and longevity? Why is it important to know your VO₂max? What’s the most effective way to improve your VO₂max, whether you’re an athlete or just someone seeking to improve your health? And what does this all have to do with beer-league hockey, and everybody’s favourite Sudbury Blueberry Bulldog, Shoresy?

In this episode, Stuart Phillips asks Martin Gibala to break down VO₂max in plain English: what it is, why it matters, and how it shapes everything from your risk of dying to how fast you can run a 10K. And just to get the kin grad students among us even more excited, this episode namedrops the Hickson Protocol, plus legends of kinesiology like Robert Ross, Ulrik Wisløff and Carsten Lundby. Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er!

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EPISODE LINKS

A Case for Fitness as a Clinical Vital Sign: The academic paper Marty references, that argues that MDs should assess VO₂max during each patient visit.

Biology of VO2 max: looking under the physiology lamp by Carsten Lundby and Mike Joyner. Here’s the 2015 review by Lundby that references a top VO₂max reading of 90.6. And then here’s a 2019 case study from Lundby and Joyner that references the physiological profile of Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen, who recorded a staggering 96.7 mL/kg/min in a laboratory.

The Hickson protocol is described here, featuring six sessions per week, including three sessions of continuous vigorous in which the athletes ran as far as they could in 40 minutes, interspersed with three interval training bouts per week. The interval training amounted to six sessions of five-minute-long intervals during which the athletes tried to achieve VO₂max in each interval, interspersed with two minutes of easier cycling. Pretty intense!

Protocols to test VO₂max by proxy: YMCA fitness test is described in this academic paper. Plus here’s a better description of the 3-min step test.

A survey-based non-exercise predictor of VO₂max is found at worldfitnesslevel.org.

VO₂max test footage from McMaster University

Wisløff Hunt Study one high-intensity bout of week v. cardiac risk