define endurance capacity improving vo2max

Once it is reached, only turning on an additional engine (the anaerobic system) can allow further power increases, but as we’ve already discussed the anaerobic system can only fuel brief and fatiguing efforts. It marks the upper limit of what your aerobic system can achieve, and just like in the steam engine metaphor it’s not very sustainable. This is essentially what happens when your body reaches VO2 max. Additionally, running the engine at this maximum capacity takes a lot of work, and can only be done for short periods of time. At a certain point, no matter how large the available supply of coal and how fast the workers shovel it in, the engine simply won’t be able to fit any more fuel or burn any hotter. In this case, the supply of coal represents the oxygen you breathe in, the workers are your circulatory system, and the engine represents your muscles.

This amount of oxygen can be measured in a lab and is known as maximal aerobic capacity or VO2 Max- The Maximum Volume of Oxygen ( O2) your body can consume (sports scientists prefer the word uptake) during exercise.Īs an analogy, imagine workers shoveling coal into a steam engine.

But no matter how much you breathe in, there’s a limit to how much oxygen your muscles can actually utilize. The harder you work, the more oxygen your muscles require to power aerobic metabolism-you breathe harder and your heart rate increases during exercise for just this reason. With a fitter and more capable aerobic system, you can power more efforts with sustainable aerobic metabolism, and save your limited anaerobic resources for when you really need them. For short bursts of high power, the anaerobic and neuromuscular/phosphocreatine energy systems take over to quickly generate energy without using oxygen, but these energy systems are rapidly depleted. The downside of the aerobic system is that it can’t power very high-intensity efforts. This process is called aerobic metabolism and is highly sustainable, capable of powering your muscles at low intensity almost indefinitely with ample fuel. The aerobic energy system generates energy (in the form of ATP) from fat and glycogen, in the presence of oxygen. VO2 max and FTP both reflect aspects of aerobic fitness, so it’s helpful to begin by considering what this means and how it affects your cycling. So what’s the link between VO2 max and FTP, and what role do they play in determining your fitness? These metrics are related but distinct, and the connection between them is easy to misunderstand. There are many ways to quantify performance in cycling, but two of the most commonly-cited data points are VO2 max and FTP.

Define endurance capacity improving vo2max