To state the obvious when we breathe in, we fill our lungs with air (~21% of this is oxygen at sea level), this oxygen then transfers from our lungs across an extremely thin barrier into our blood. This all sounds a little complicated however the concept becomes easier to understand if we consider the path of oxygen from the outside air through to our working muscles. It is determined by both cardiovascular and respiratory parameters, more specifically it is cardiac output times the arteriovenous oxygen difference.

VO 2max refers to the maximum rate at which an individual can use oxygen during exercise. Is it a measure of intensity? Fitness? Is it useful? Can I measure it? VO 2max, VO 2peak, physical work capacity just some of the terms you may have heard being thrown around, but what do they really mean? Firstly, they all refer to broadly the same concept and are only differentiated by differences in testing procedure, as such, we shall use “VO 2max ” to refer to this concept for the rest of this article.

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