When doing aerobic exercises, we use a lot of oxygen in the activities. See below, what VO2 Max is and how important this unit value is within human capacities for exercise. Smartwatches and smart bracelets have begun to show the ability to measure VO2 Max, to help the user better understand their body during their physical exercises.
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What is VO2 Max (Image: Fitsim Admasu / Unsplash)
What is VO2 Max?
Maximum VO2 is the amount of oxygen the user can use during training. A higher score is linked with greater aerobic fitness, more energy, faster recovery and better overall health.
What it stands for
The VO2 Max value represents the amount of oxygen you can consume in one minute per kilogram of body weight (mL / kg / min).
Because it’s important?
The higher VO2 Max value means greater oxygen delivery to the muscles during exercise. This depends on several different factors: the amount of oxygen that is taken in each breath, the arteriovenous difference in oxygen (the amount of oxygen taken from the blood by the tissues), the number of red blood cells and your maximum cardiac factor (Qmax).
What are the benefits of the high VO2 Max value?
Maximum VO2 serves as a projection of aerobic performance: long distance running and other activities. These activities depend on the aerobic energy system.
In simple language, when reaching this value, the user has exhausted all available energy stores in the muscles and bloodstream and must start burning the fat stores to obtain more energy.
How long can I keep the pace?
You can continue to do this indefinitely, as long as you keep a steady pace. This is what we mean by “fat burning zone”, so sought after by people with the goal of weight loss.
Where do I find these values?
Fitness devices or smartwatches have used the VO2 Max value as an indication for their users. The wearables are automatically calculations, taking into account various measurement factors present in the device.
Where does the result come from?
These calculations are made by many methods, including being able to be reproduced by manual means by interested parties. The great advantage of wearables is that they offer the result of the estimate automatically.
Are the numbers reliable?
Both calculations made manually and those made by applications are estimates because they are imperfect and do not take into account all factors.
There is no way for a fitness device to have all the information it needs to accurately measure oxygen consumption. Not most trackers consider all relevant individual data, such as smoking history, health conditions, which directly influence the outcome.
