VO2 max

pbt150

I've had my VO2 Max measured a couple of times over the past six months, and was given two figures both times - one absolute (l/min) and one in terms of body weight (ml/min/kg). In October I was 71.7 kg with 12.5% body fat, and I weighed in at 67.5 kg yesterday afternoon (and am starting to look/feel quite skinny!). The absolute figure increased a bit between the two sessions, but obviously the body weight figure improved quite a lot because of the weight loss.

So what I want to know is how accurate are the figures for VO2 max that get quoted around the forums, if losing a bit of weight (eg before an important race) can give you quite a significant improvement? And if this is the case is it worth giving more credence to the absolute figures rather than the body weight adjusted ones?

thiscocks

What were your VO2 max figures? I guess how accurate they are depends entirely on the equpment/set up of the test...

Just loosing weight wont improve your VO2 max I wouldn't have thought. Only worth specificaly tring to loose weight if you are certain your are already at your absolute fitness peak and need less weight for a long hilly stage race.

pbt150

I'll come clean - they were actually taken on a rowing machine in a university sports science lab, and the BFP was taken by me standing on a metal plate and holding two electrodes with my arms outstretched (I know different sports give different values too). I got an absolute value of around 4.37 l/min in October, and 4.46 last month. This worked out as 61 ml/kg/min from from October, and 66 with my current data and weight.

Clearly this is quite a large (8.2%) increase over a few months, and given that there was only a modest increase in the raw VO2 max, the reason it went up so much is because I've lost over half a stone since the first test.

So essentially what I'm asking is 'is the weight-adjusted figure for VO2 max an accurate representation of your fitness, bearing in mind the effect that weight loss has on the figures'.

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ride_whenever

pt, do you know if alex_simmons is simmo?

Presumably VO2 max when adjusted is as useful as weight adjusted erg scores, IIRC you skinny boys have better weight adjusted 2k times but can't really compete on the water. I'd imagine it's a fairly similar case.

Alex_Simmons/RST

While the occasional friend calls me "simmo" I don't go by that handle on forums.

If your VO2 Max absolute has increased, then you have the ability to produce more power at the shorter end of the aerobic time scale (several minutes). Whether that also translates into sustainable power over longer time frames is a little harder to tell (you'd need to test blood lactate levels for that or use a power meter). Nevertheless, it would be unusual to not see some improvement in both.

Given you have also lost significant mass without a decline in absolute VO2, then your performance will more than likely have improved across the aerobic spectrum. Especially shorter duration climbs of up to 10-mins.

pbt150

Thanks Alex.

About the 'simmo' tag - ride_whenever and I both know someone called Alex Simmons whose nickname (inevitably) is Simmo, he was asking if you were one and the same.