The Importance of Vo2 Max and What Does Yours Really Mean

It is a common physiological reaction for the human body to breathe harder, after running fast for a certain distance. The more you run, the harder and heavier your breathing gets. You can experience physical strain draining your body down after sustaining a reckless running speed for quite an amount of time. The sports scientists have conceived a special term for this consecutive series of physiological reactions: namely Vo2 Max.

What is Vo2 Max?

Vo2 Max can be defined as the maximum rate in which an athlete’s body can consume volumes of oxygen while performing specific activities. It’s measurement unit is milliliters per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).

Measurement of Vo2 Max while running:

For runners, this mechanism is determined using a procedure called incremental exercise test. In this, the athlete is asked to breathe into a tube, for collecting and then measuring the gases exhaled while he/she runs on treadmill. The belt speed of the treadmill keeps increasing gradually till the point the athlete reaches the level of exhaustion. The maximum rate of the oxygen consumption determined in the test is then recorded to be current Vo2 max of the athlete.

What are the benefits of having high Vo2 Max?

Having a high Vo2 Max is considered important as it is closely connected to the distance running of an athlete. Various research studies have concluded that Vo2 Max contributes to about 70 per cent of the fluctuations in performances among the individual runners. Henceforth, your ability to run a distance of 5k faster than me is affected by the fact that your Vo2 Max is in evidently higher than mine. It is directly higher by the amount that entails to that difference of one minute in time.

Factors affecting Vo2 Max

There are mainly two factors that can decrease or increase Vo2 Max. Those are:

1. A strong support system for the oxygen flow
2. Speed

A strong transport or support system for oxygen flow comprises of blood packed with hemoglobin, a healthy heart, high muscular capillary density, muscle cells with high level of mitochondrial density and a high volume of blood inflow.

The other one is speed or rather the full capacity of compressing a high amount of muscle fibers harmoniously. This is vital because the more the muscle tissues are worked upon, the more oxygen is demanded by those muscles at any given moment.

Both of these factors are largely affected not only by the genetic makeup but also by training. The training that is regarded to quite effectively increase the Vo2 Max is that of an intensity level, meaning it gets you breathing as harder and heavier as it can get. There are various interval workout formats through which you can increase your Vo2 Max levels. Those specifically are:

1. 60/60 and 30/30 Intervals
2. Hills Intervals
3. Lactate Intervals

30/30 and 60/60 Intervals

A good way to introduce VO2max training into your program is with 30/30 and 60/60 intervals. Created by French exercise physiologist Veronique Billat, these workouts are effective fitness builders that are well tolerated by runners at a modest fitness level.

Start with 30/30 intervals. After warming up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging, run 30 seconds hard, at the fastest pace you could hold for about six minutes in a race. Then slow to an easy jog for 30 seconds. Continue alternating fast and slow 30-second segments until you have completed at least 12 and as many as 20 of each.

Increase the number of 30/30 intervals you complete each time you do this workout, and then switch to 60/60 intervals. Start with at least six of these and build up to as many as 10.

Hill Intervals

Shorter hill intervals of 20 to 90 seconds are great for developing power, strength and speed. Slightly longer intervals of two to three minutes are great for VO2max development. To do a hill intervals workout, warm up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging. Then run hard uphill for two to three minutes (choose your duration before you start), jog back down to your starting point and repeat.

If your fitness level is modest, start with a set of 4 x 2:00 or 3 x 3:00. Very fit runners can do as much as 10 x 2:00 or 7 x 3:00. Pace yourself so that you neither slow down through the workout due to early fatigue nor finish the workout feeling you could do more.

Lactate Intervals

Lactate intervals are the toughest kind of VO2max training. Make sure you build up a fairly high level of fitness with 30/30, 60/60 and hill intervals before you move on to lactate intervals.

It is best to do this type of workout on the track. Warm up with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging and then run hard for 800 (two laps on a full-size running track) to 1200 meters (three laps on a full-size running track) around the track. Now reduce your pace to an easy jog for 400 meters.

Run shorter intervals (800m) in your first lactate intervals workout of a given training cycle and then move upward. Do a total of about 5000m of fast running in these workouts (6-7 x 800m, 5 x 1000m, 4 x 1200m). Again, try to run the fastest pace that you can sustain through the last interval without slowing down.

It cannot be denied: VO2max training is hard. That's why most runners do very little of it. But you're not like most runners, are you? Take advantage of your superior mental toughness and make a commitment to VO2max training. You will find the rewards to be well worth a little heavy breathing.

Vo2 Max in Non Athletes and Athletes

Vo2 Max differs invariably between non athletes and even between the elite ones playing the same sport. Let’s take a look at the table below that lists the normative data of Vo2 Max among the various age groups:

Heredity and Genetics can account for about 25-50% of the deviations show here. The highest level of Vo2 Max in men and women ever recorded is 94 ml/kg/min and 77 ml/kg/min. Both of them were famous skiers (16).  

Cashless Economy for Millennials: What does it look like?

Up until this campaign of going cashless, India was an extremely cash-centric economy. Cash accounted for most of the transactions, vendors were not equipped with card readers or means of accepting cash electronically, more than ninety percent of the workers in the economy are paid in cash, more than half of the population did not even own bank accounts. Even Uber accepted cash in India, the only economy in the whole world, where this particular option was enabled. The “Cash on Delivery” option was regarded as the preferred choice of more than seventy percent of online shoppers.

Through the turn of events, the government turned off these mediums that ran this cash economy with the hope that more and more people of India would become familiar with using the trackable and taxable digital payment mediums, like e-wallets and credit cards. This demonetization scheme was something that was planned in secret, in the backroom of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home. Whether the fact that India is ready or not for this step is something that will invite a sumptuous amount of opinions.

If we take a survey, among the millennials on how the cashless scheme will reflect upon an economy like India, we will come across some positive feedback. Back in time in 2012, Visa released a survey report. It was entitled “Connecting with the Millennials”. In the report, it was found that the majority of these people believed in the future of a cashless economy. Every eight among the ten voiced their wishes of a someday in the future when they will be able to pay all of their bills online. 70% stated doing this process through mobile phones.

The reservations regarding this big cashless move in India is gradually fading from the demography of the millennials. Opening of new bank accounts has been going on at a heightened rate, the option of cash on delivery has been crashing down at the e-commerce sites, and sectors focused on the digital financing such as the online grocery business has entered into a booming phase. The era of the cashless economy has put the various digitally-focused sectors in the limelight, and the millennials are getting the best use out of them to make their complex and competitive lives easier. Some of the most commonly used digital mediums are Mobile Banking, internet banking, Freecharge, Google Wallet, PayPal, etc. To use these, all you need is a smartphone with internet connectivity, and with just a click of a button, you will be able to transact money for various uses. Vodafone M-Pesa and Airtel Money are some other digital transactions means that act as a mobile wallet. One does not need any internet connectivity or smartphone, to use them. Through these channels, anyone can sell or purchase anything and can do that using any phone they have. One does not essentially need a smartphone to use these channels. All one needs is to top up their wallets, like one does their phone recharges and they are all set to go.

“Even the vegetable vendors on the streets have opened up Paytm accounts and they have a machine outside their shop where someone can scan the bar code and make the payment,” a college student explained.

A 27-year-old working professional in the IT sector, when posed with the question of the prospects of the cashless scheme in an economy like India, replied, “A lot more retail outlets are accepting e-wallets, including my laundry provider and my dabbawala. This is revolutionary, and survival of the fittest.”

When everyone in the country has been abuzz with the Modi’s demonetization announcement, the millennials have found ways to cope with the situation using the various e-payment providers. Usage channels such as Paytm increased, that the CEO of this company reported a surge of three times among the new users. Since the announcement of the demonetization program, a spike has been noticed both in the merchant registrations and app downloads. This spike has been noticeable among all of the cities, towns, big or small, not only within the big merchants but also among the small merchants like shopkeepers, street vendors, vegetable vendors, taxi and rickshaw drivers, and largely across the college students, working professionals in the public and private sectors, etc.

The recent move of the government cannot make the economy a perfectly cashless one, as this needs to be supported by well built, detailed & improved infrastructure, especially the internet banking services. The biggest advantage that the masses of a cashless economy can bank upon is to not get anxious about carrying the wallet or safeguarding huge amounts of cash or getting change for small purchases. All they need to do is click a button or swipe and they are good to go.