Terrible VO2Max, any suggestions?

[J.R.]

There seems to be a lot of confusion, so here is my big picture understanding.

There are 2 big things going on regarding aerobic performance.

1) Vo2max, or the maximum volume of oxygen that the body can consume during intense, whole-body exercise, while breathing air at sea level. Its more or less how much oxygen your heart can deliver to your body. We know that as a whole, the capacity of the body's skeletal muscles to use oxygen is greater than the body's ability to deliver oxygen to its skeletal muscles, so a limiting factor in aerobic ('with oxygen") exercise is how much oxygen the body can deliver to the muscles.

Recent studies focusing on the genetics of exercise adaptation have also demonstrated that not only is our starting point genetically determined, but our adaptability to training (how much we improve) is also quite variable and genetically influenced. While the typical person will show a substantial increasing in VO2 max with 6 months of exercise, carefully controlled research studies have shown that a small percentage of people will hardly show an increase in VO2 max at all.

Good linky


2) Lactate threshold: Is the intensity lactic acid accumulates in the blood stream. It is a measure of how long you can sustain performance at a given level of VO2 max performance. If the rate of uptake, or disappearance, of lactate equals the rate of production, or appearance, in the blood, then blood lactate concentration stays constant (or nearly so). But, when the rate of lactate production exceeds the rate of uptake, lactic acid accumulates in the blood volume, then we see the ONSET of BLOOD LACTATE ACCUMULATION (OBLA). This is the traditional "Lactate Threshold" (LT), and once you pass you find fatigue on its way. Its sounds like the OP knows about this, as evidenced by his comment that:

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It looks like my heart and lungs are essentially OK, and anaerobic work is fine, but aerobic exercise doesn't happen. It matches how I feel when I run: within 2 minutes my legs get heavy and it becomes very uncomfortable (in a lactic acid way that feels more like high reps lifting) well before I get out of breath.

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I focused on your title at first but this comment is insightful as to your situation.

A big VO2 max sets the ceiling for our sustainable work rate. It is a measure of the size of our performance engine. However, the Lactate Threshold greatly influences the actual percentage of that engine power that can be used continuously.

Training results in a decrease in lactate production at any given exercise intensity. Untrained individuals usually reach the LT at about 60% of VO2 max. With training, LT can increase from 60% to above 70% or even higher. Elite endurance athletes and top masters athletes typically have LTs at or above 80% of VO2 max. Values approaching 90% have been reported. The lactate threshold (or thresholds) is/are both responsive to training and influenced by genetics.
good linky


Steady state is better for lactate threshold. In most individuals, lactate threshold is the limiting factor in endurance activities. It is also the one that is most susceptible to adaptation from exercise and is more genetically susceptible to manipulation through exercise than VO2 max.

Alex-db, while increasing your VO2 max as your body will allow will be a boost to your performance, it is your lactate threshold that should be your focus, both because it seems to be the limiting factor in your performance and it is more susceptible to manipulation through exercise.

[Alex-db]

Good article, thanks, it feels like a very intuitive explanation of how the exercise felt. (I hadn't heard of lactate threshold before.)

It does look (and feel) like the specific problem is a really low LT2.

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The bottom line is that exercise intensities above the LT2 point can only be sustained for a few minutes...

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[cbloom]

Hey JR, great stuff. That guy has a whole great page, I found this thing page that directly compares the effects of intervals vs. lactate training for aerobic capacity :

http://home.hia.no/~stephens/interval.htm

This jives with what I anecdotally knew of pro cycling training, which is basically that they try very hard to stay under lactate threshold, and will just do a little interval once in a while. In fact they think that training above lactate is harmful to endurance (I have yet to find the science behind why that might be true).

Basically, VO2Max adapts very quickly, and almost any kind of exercise can boost it (even weight lifting), and in fact intervals are great for it. If you're a fit person who just took a break for a while, VO2Max will come back up very quickly.

Lactate Threshold is much harder to change and takes years of steady state training, and is the limiting factor for endurance athletes. The way that pros train is mainly for LT, not VO2max.

[qdmcg]

I like to think of VO2Max as the ultimate determiner of whether or not a runner, rower, cyclist, etc. could ever be world class.

I would compare this to genetically being tall, athletic, quick for a sport like basketball.

While clearly oversimplified, is this close to accurate?

[BreakfastBurrito]

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It does look (and feel) like the specific problem is a really low LT2.

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Keep in mind that LT2 is a % of VO2max, so of course a poor VO2max is going to mean that you also have a low lactate threshold.

For your intended training plan, you'd be much better served to increase distance rather than intensity once you build up to 5k.

[SmileyEH]

JR do you agree with me that's it's much more likely the OP just had his test screwed up?

[Alex-db]

Maybe it was screwed up, or innacurate, but I am clearly very unfit.

It didn't seem like such an accurate process and was calculated with rulers on graphs rather than anything more advanced.

It was also done on a bike, which I haven't used much, so it sounds from the article like if the test had been done on a rowing machine instead, the result might have been more reasonable (still poor though) due to a higher LT2 in that exercise.

[ottsville]

I'm not certain, but from what you said about blowing into a "fan thingy" I would guess that your test was not VO2Max, but a "submaximal" VO2 test.

For submaximal determinations, an athlete's max VO2 is predicted while their lactate threshold is determined based on physiological tests which do not take the athlete to his or her absolute fatigue point. For maximal VO2 tests, on the other hand, the athlete is taken to their absolute breaking point of muscular and anaerobic fatigue. During the max VO2 test, the athlete's max heart rate will also be gleaned.(from this site)

This page tells how a VO2max test is administered. From the above quote, it could be extrapolated that your low LT may affect your results.

[J.R.]

Yeah, you pretty much got it.

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This jives with what I anecdotally knew of pro cycling training, which is basically that they try very hard to stay under lactate threshold, and will just do a little interval once in a while. In fact they think that training above lactate is harmful to endurance (I have yet to find the science behind why that might be true).

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Intense interval training *is not* harmful to endurance. In and of itself it will help a person's endurance.

The issue is recovery. Training above the lactate level, as occurs with intense intervals, results in amongst other things, lots of lactic acid. Its harder to recover from, and that presents an issues for *elite endurance athletes* who are looking to train every day.

Basically their is a trade-off they have to make and the preference is to focus on lactate threshold.

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Basically, VO2Max adapts very quickly, and almost any kind of exercise can boost it (even weight lifting), and in fact intervals are great for it. If you're a fit person who just took a break for a while, VO2Max will come back up very quickly.

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Steady state will boost VO2 max, more so the higher the intensity. Intense intervals will boost VO2 max max much better, but the issue is it is easier to get to your VO2 max ceiling than your max lactate threshold, so diminishing marginal returns are abrupt as one approaches the ceiling of their Vo2 max.

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Lactate Threshold is much harder to change and takes years of steady state training, and is the limiting factor for endurance athletes. The way that pros train is mainly for LT, not VO2max.

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This is why they try to limit intense intervals, because they get more return out of focusing their training on their lactate levels. Intense intervals limit the ability to do lactate training by presenting greater recovery issues.

That all said, it still speaks volumes that elite endurance athletes who have been training for years are still incorporating intense interval training, albeit at a lesser frequency than steady state.

I would think anyone looking to improve their aerobic capacity would incorporate intense intervals, especially those well below elite levels.

[ImsaKidd]

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Started today; decided to do 30 mins on a treadmill, as far as I could without making myself too uncomfortable.

A mixture of walking at 7kph and jogging at 8kph and I covered about 3.75km.

Allowing myself to walk was a big deal, previously when I tried to start cardio I'd consider myself too useless if I didn't keep jogging, so I could never do a proper session.

I checked heart rate whenever I started walking and found I generally got uncomfortable jogging when it reached about 165, and I started jogging again when it was down to 145. I think I have read that that is a reasonable range to exercise in.

Plan now is to work my way up to doing 4k at a continuous 8kph, then to gradually up the speed for the whole thing until running 30 mins at a proper pace. (I don't like the idea of being on a treadmill any length of time approaching an hour, hence 30 mins but with increasing speed.

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I think it would be pretty difficult to do HIIT on a treadmill. I just dislike them in general so take that FWIW.