Dr. Andy Galpin

We have our stroke volume and our AVO2 difference.

So there's a lot of ways we go about improving both of them.

I am of the opinion,

that you need to train across a wide spectrum of exercise intensities to optimize both factors.

If you, in fact, look at classic training logs of endurance athletes, going back to even what we know about Oscars training, they are typically going to spend something like 70% or so of their time at a low intensity.

What's that mean exactly?

Depends on the athlete, but you're probably talking about something like between 60 to 80, maybe up to 82% of their heart rate peak.

most of their time is there.

I'll explain why in a second.

Then you've got another additional, maybe 20 to 25% of your time being spent at a moderate intensity, typically something like, again, 82 to 90 or so percent of your heart rate peak.

And then three to maybe 6% of the time at the remaining higher heart rate.

So this is 92, 93% or so plus.

The reason I'm giving you kind of rough guidelines there is every scientific paper has those zones, if you will, a little bit differently.

All kinds of different endurance coaches historically have set different landmarks, and so there's no exact numbers there.

And so as a very rough guideline, I think it is very safe to assume some split like that should be highly effective at improving your VO2 max.

What's that mean in terms of exercises?

Well, actually, it's entirely up to you.

VO2 max is, remember, dependent upon how many milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of muscle per minute, which means the more muscles you utilize, the higher the VO2 max is.

If you were to go to get a VO2 max test done, and let's say you were not specifically trained on like a bike.

If you were to get that same exact test done on a bicycle versus a treadmill where you're running versus cycling, right?