What is VO2 max and why does it matter for heart health?
Dr Ravi Assomull explains why VO2 max is an important measure of cardiovascular fitness. In this video, he outlines how improving VO2 max through exercise can significantly reduce long-term health risks and support heart health.
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Transcript
Well, VO2max is an excellent measure of your cardiorespiratory fitness. So it's a way of assessing how your heart, lungs and muscle can use oxygen during exercise. And what we've learned is that for every small increase in your VO2max, something we refer to as 1MET, there's a 10 to 15% decrease in your mortality.
And we know that actually if you look at the people in the elite level versus those with the lowest levels of VO2max, there's a five-fold increase in mortality in those with the lowest levels of VO2max. The really good news is your VO2max is completely trainable. You're not stuck with your current VO2max.
There are exercise training protocols, utilising high-intensity interval training, where you can actually boost your VO2max and thereby increase your health span and lifespan.
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