And in the meantime, a better V02 max can just make life, well, easier.
“Imagine you’re wildly unfit, you’ve never exercised, and you encounter a set of stairs,” says Danny King, director of performance and recovery at athletic club Life Time. “Going up that set of stairs is likely pushing you to 85 percent of your VO2 max. You’ll be working relatively hard.”
Now imagine you have a higher V02 max. “Going up that set of stairs, you’re at 15–20 percent. It’s easy for you,” King says. “[In the first scenario], everything you do in life is done at a higher percentage. But the higher you push your V02 max, the easier basically everything else you do in life is going to be. When you mow your lawn, when you play with your kids, when you go do all these things, if you have a larger tank and a larger capacity, everything is done at a lower percentage, thus making it that much easier for you.”
Increasing your V02 max frees up the mental capacity to focus on what matters most to you
While typically pigeon-holed as a physical fitness metric, V02 max could also play an important and holistic role in overall mental health, says IM8 ambassador and performance coach to 2025 US Open winner Aryna Sabalenka Jason Stacy..
“Most people are sitting in a sympathetic state a lot of the time, in this low-level stress, and that wears you out,” Stacy says “It can impact your ability to perform at your job, and it can impact your relationships with your family, friends, and loved ones.”
“[When you improve your V02 max], there’s less stress on your overall system. And when there’s less stress on your overall system, it’s much easier for you to manage your emotions. It’s much easier for you to step back and make better decisions and see things for how they are, rather than being caught up in all the day-to-day stresses.”