Don't Die: Test Your VO₂ Max
A simpler, cheaper VO₂ test and the truth about longevity and VO₂ max
Post Summary
Your VO₂ max, a fitness measurement, strongly predicts your athletic performance and longevity.
This is why many people are going to labs to get a VO₂ max test—but that might be unnecessary …
… the research around VO₂ max, longevity, and VO₂ testing is often misunderstood—and there are much simpler methods to learn your VO₂ max than a lab-based VO₂ test.
We’ll explain some issues with VO₂ max and a simple, free way to get your VO₂ max.
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The post
On Friday, we covered how there are simpler ways than a lab-based DEXA scan to measure your body fat percentage.
Today, we’re doing the same for VO₂ max.
A handful of years ago, I took a lab-based VO₂ test, an allegedly healthy thing I’ll never do again.
That’s because I’ve since learned there are better, more straightforward methods to measure your VO₂ max. No labs and fees involved.
What taking a VO₂ test is like
Section summary: It’s awkward, expensive, and awful.
To take the VO₂ test, I traveled to an exercise lab inside a concrete, Cold War-era building on a university campus.
Inside the lab, I stood on a treadmill as a probably hungover university lab tech sealed a gas mask contraption over my face. Long plastic tubes extended from the gas mask and connected to a computer.
Then the tech punched a few buttons, and the treadmill started turning. “Just so you know,” he said, “this won’t be the most comfortable thing you do today.”
The first four minutes were innocent enough: a brisk walk on a flat treadmill, with the speed slowly ramping up from two miles an hour to five. Then the tech began increasing the speed and the incline.
As I ran, the gas mask and computer analyzed my air. It calculated how many oxygen molecules I breathed in and out. The fewer oxygen molecules I exhaled relative to those I inhaled, the higher my VO₂.
Eventually, after 12 minutes, I found myself running 7.5 miles an hour on a 12 percent incline.
This is about the time the test felt like the exercise equivalent of being waterboarded.
To get good data, you must burn the ships. You have to scrape down to the very bottom of what you’re physically capable of. Not to mention, wearing a cumbersome, awkward gas mask across your face makes the experience that much more awful.
Just as I felt like I was about to touch the void and greet God, I found myself slamming the treadmill’s “Stop” button and the test was over.
Then I got my VO₂ max number.
Why VO₂ max is important
Section summary: VO₂ max is highly correlated with longevity. Hence, many people are getting their VO₂ measured in a lab—but that might be unnecessary.
VO₂ is a measurement of how much oxygen your muscles can pull from your blood to use for energy.
As you exercise, your body needs more and more oxygen. The more oxygen your body can use, the more fit you are.
VO₂ max has long been a number that elite athletes measure and test because it’s highly correlated with exercise performance.
But it’s also highly correlated with longevity. My friend Peter Attia put it this way:
Simply bringing your VO2 max from ‘low’ (bottom 25th percentile) to ‘below average’ (25th to 50th percentile) is associated with a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality. When you go from ‘low’ to ‘above average’ (50th to 75th percentile) the risk reduction is closer to 70%!
Various studies show time and time again that having a higher VO₂ max makes you less likely to keel over and die at any given moment.
In short: The higher your VO₂ max, the better your cardiovascular fitness and the farther you are from death.
Because of this new interest in VO₂, many people are getting lab-based VO₂ max tests because a test can tell you your exact VO₂ score.1
The truth about VO₂ max studies
Section summary: Many of the VO₂ max and longevity studies don’t actually measure VO₂ max. They measure a study participant’s fitness performance and use the results to estimate VO₂ max.
The writer and running guru Steve Magness recently wrote a smart piece about VO₂ max. He pointed out that many studies correlating VO₂ max to longevity didn’t actually look at VO₂ max. They used performance.
Steve wrote:
Vo2max matters. But it’s just one component of many that make up both performance and aerobic fitness. And that’s important because if we return to the original claims that Vo2max is the key indicator of longevity, we’ll find that the majority of the studies cited did NOT even use Vo2max as the main variable. They used performance! In the majority of research, peak speed and incline during the exhausting test was the main correlate to longevity.
For example, here’s a study the New York Times recently cited as showing that VO₂ max correlates with longevity.
But that study didn’t actually measure VO₂ max. It used what’s called the Astrand Bike Test. In it, you pedal a bike for six minutes while measuring heart rate. The researchers made estimations about VO2 max based on how the participants performed. I.e., “Because you scored X on the test, we estimate your VO₂ to be Y.”
And that makes sense. As I learned, taking a VO₂ test is a giant pain in the ass. It requires a lot of time, expensive equipment, and resources. And it may even be unsafe for some people.
This suggests that we probably don’t have to worry about taking an actual VO₂ Max test. It turns out there are free, simple, less-tortuous methods that work just as well.
My favorite VO₂ max test alternative
Section summary: Take this test. It’s free, and you can do it anywhere. Get your data, then use the calculator below to convert it to your VO₂ max.