3 Benefits of VO2Max Testing
By Chris Newport, Nutritionist and Head Coach
Imagine this:
You want to achieve a specific time goal in an endurance event like a triathlon, running race, or cycling event. Or, you’re brand new to endurance events and don’t know where to start.
In 3-6 months, how will you know if your training program was a success?
Perhaps you’ll achieve your time goal. Or finish your first event. Or feel better. Or look better.
On the other hand, what if you got injured, burned out, or overtrained?
One way or the other, cardiorespiratory fitness testing (or VO2Max) is one of the best ways to objectively measure fitness and look for markers of overtraining.
What Is Cardiorespiratory Fitness and VO2Max?
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), cardiorespiratory fitness is the ability to perform dynamic, moderate- to high-intensity exercise involving large-muscle groups for prolonged periods of time (aka running, rowing, cycling, swimming, etc). One of the most important measures of it is VO2Max or maximal oxygen consumption. It is a measure of how well the heart and lungs work to deliver oxygen and ATP (aka energy) to working muscles. Your gender, genetics, volume of training, and quality of training contribute to this number. The more undertrained you are, the more opportunity you have for it to rise.
What happens in a VO2Max test?
First of all, there’s no “training” for a VO2Max test. The whole point of it is to give you a picture of where you currently are in order to improve your fitness and substrate use efficiency (in other words, how effectively you burn calories from fat and carbohydrates) based on your goals.
After getting your weight, you’ll put on a mask (or nose plug and mouthpiece) and heart rate monitor strap. Sure, it’s a little awkward at first, but there’s nothing constricting your air.
Then you’ll complete a graded exercise test, starting very slowly and gradually increasing your speed and/or grade. Everyone’s protocol is slightly different based on their current fitness level. If you’re doing lactate, we’ll take a small sample of blood from your ear (most people don’t even feel it) after each stage.
Once you’ve gotten to your maximum capacity (VO2Max in most cases), you’ll grab the bars, straddle the belt and cool down very slowly. This gives us raw data, which we interpret into your heart rate and pace training zones as well as your fat burning capacity and recommendations for fueling during exercise.
If you use the results correctly, YOU’LL IMPROVE (aka GET FASTER and FITTER). Here’s how:
Get Objective Measurements (Be a Data Head!)
Generally speaking, most endurance athletes are data heads. The more data they have, the better. And as a coach, it makes my job easier. The treadmill at the gym uses an equation to measure your fitness. So does a heart rate monitor. But those are just estimations.
VO2Max testing is the most scientific way to measure your fitness right now. You can also compare yourself to a population of people in your age range and gender to see where you stack up and how much you might be able to improve. And when (and if) you get tested down the road, you (and your coach) can monitor the degree of change.
There are field tests to measure VO2Max (and lactate threshold), which may or may not be useful to you. But there’s no replacement for a metabolic cart in determining calories burned from carbs and fat. This is important for optimizing endurance performance and even for weight loss.
Information is power!
Create an Efficient Workout Plan
Information is power, so use it effectively. Use your custom training zones from the testing data (ie lactate, heart rate, volume of oxygen) to train efficiently (darnit, don’t we all wish we had all day to train?!?) without getting injured or overtrained. It’s certainly possible to do this on your own.
But if you want to do it right, get a professional coach whom you communicate well with. Ideally, this doesn’t involve a lot of long, slow distance work. Instead, research suggests higher intensity intervals workouts are the most effective for improving speed and fitness (mostly this is zone 4, where you lactate threshold occurs).
Using your custom zones, you’ll know exactly how hard to work and to separate your training days effectively. Does that mean work only in zone 4? Not at all. It’s all about training in the right zones at the right time in order to appropriately recover.
Using those custom zones for optimal recovery means that you can build fitness…faster.
Create a Nutrition Plan
Again, the treadmill doesn’t know how many calories your burned. It’s just a built-in formula.
By getting tested, you’ll know how many calories, carbohydrates and fat you burn at each stage. With this, you’ll get personal recommendations for how much you can consume at every intensity to optimize performance, avoid GI distress, and prevent cramping. You’ll also see how efficiently you burn fat, which is important (and free!) fuel source for endurance athletes AND for someone who might want to lose body fat.
Again, information is power. And that information translates into creating an optimal fueling plan based on your goals. A well oiled machine operates smoothly just like a well nourished body runs well. A good nutritionist or coach can help you translate that into what should be on your plate for the best quality energy.
So why not test yourself? The only think you have to lose is a little sweat (and a few drops of blood). We think it’s important enough to incorporate it into our running program as well as with all our coached athletes.
Reaching your goals is worth it, right?
