Whoop VO2max – an explainer

More: Detailed Whoop Review

Whoop has just introduced one of its most requested updates – VO2max. This brief explainer article describes where to find VO2max on Whoop and how to improve it.

VO2max is one of the best predictors of your health span and one of the key metrics we all should look to improve over the long term to enjoy our older years.

As a whoop owner, you are presumably more interested and concerned about your overall fitness and well-being than the average population. You should aim for a VO2max over 40; for most of you,  a value over 50 will be straightforward. If you are a good endurance athlete, you’ll aim for over 60 and values over 70 are rare.

VO2max looks at how efficiently an average bit of your body can process oxygen. So if you lose fat, your VO2max will increase. If you gain muscle, your VO2max should increase. It should increase even more if you gain the right slow twitch/endurance muscle. All of that must sound familiar, right? Lose weight and get fit.

Level: Non-technical

what does the science say?

The science supports what I say above

• VO2max is a good predictor of long-term health – many studies show that.
• VO2max is a good predictor of athletic performance, but it has caveats.

Cyclists, runners and cross-country skiers record some of the highest ever VO2max scores. You could imagine with the latter group that these athletes recruit almost every muscle in their body; anecdotally, you might expect them to process more oxygen.

The highest recorded VO2 max for a human is 97.5 mL/(kg·min), set by Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen in 2012. The highest VO2 max for a woman is 78.6 mL/(kg·min), set by Joan Benoit, the 1984 Olympic marathon champion.

VO2max naturally declines as we age. (science link)

Some octogenarian endurance athletes have a VO2max  between 34 and 42 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹, about twice the average [Sacchetti]

what exactly is a good VO2max?

Your muscle mass and its type are among the key components of the calculation. Thus, young men have an advantage over the rest of us as men have more muscle than women on average, and muscle mass declines with age, as shown in the two tables from Firstbeat.

You need to consider what you are comparing yourself to. Many of the average VO2 stats include people unlike you – the mass ranks of people with little interest in their performance. As a good VO2max for YOU, look at the charts above for someone 20 years younger than you…aim for that. You can do it. I have, and virtually everyone I regularly train with has done it, too.

Many people compare VO2max scores with friends. Be ready to find that a person training half as much as you with a much better VO2max; there is also a genetic component that naturally makes some people good at processing oxygen (or their sports data is wrong).

How does Whoop calculate V02max?

Whoop has new, proprietary algorithms to estimate VO2max, which the company claims to validate against lab-based calculations.

In a lab, the calculation is easy. You wear a mask that measures the oxygen going into your lungs and coming out; the difference is the amount you use. Other inputs, like your weight, are easy to measure. The biggest difference between oxygen in and oxygen out occurs close to exhaustion…that is where the lab finds your VO2max.

However, for regular people, Whoop has a tricky job determining VO2max. Other sports companies use GPS and other factors to determine how much work you’ve done – i.e., moving your weighed body from A to B. Whoop doesn’t have GPS unless measured with the Whoop app as you run and doesn’t know the distance from A to B. It’s also unlikely that you will regularly exercise to exhaustion.

Other ways to calculate VO2max for cyclists include using power meter information from devices found on many bikes. Again, Whoop doesn’t have access to that.

Essentially, no one knows precisely how Whoop calculates VO2max, but the company has officially said this:

These include physiological metrics, activity data, and demographic information. The result is a highly personalized estimate that is tailored to your unique physiology and lifestyle. WHOOP estimates  your VO2 Max by combining thousands of data points when you’re active, and while you’re at rest. Every week, you get an updated VO2 Max estimate… alongside WHOOP recovery metrics, HR training zone time, and GPS-enabled running data…percent error of less than 8%. [Whoop]

If you have a lab-tested VO₂ Max score, you can manually enter it from the Trends screen by tapping “Add manual measurement.” If you correctly date the test result, Whoop will incorporate and update its algorithm using that as a calibration factor.

Keeping Whoop accurate: For continually meaningful results, complete a 15+ minute GPS-tracked run with “track route” enabled in the activity settings, and regularly update your weight by tapping “+ Update Weight” in the VO₂max Trend view.

Where can I access my VO₂ Max?

Got Strain Tab > Scroll down to Strain Stats/HR Zones > It should appear beneath that and before the charts

To receive a VO₂ Max estimate, you need at least 14 recoveries within the last 21 days. If you don’t meet this requirement, the VO₂ Max Trend view will display how many recoveries you need before an estimate becomes available.

You can customise your Whoop home screen and show your VO₂ Max estimate by customising the dashboard. However, it only updates weekly as VO2max is a slow-changing metric – ignore your friends who have Garmin’s who look at their VO2max after each workout to say how much it’s increased. It doesn’t work like that.

For deeper insights, tap the data description in your VO₂max Trends to discuss with the WHOOP Coach and see how your score compares to others based on age and sex.

How do I increase VO₂ Max?

Answer: Lose fat and get fit.

While that answer is true, I’ll try to be more helpful than a statement of the obvious.

Diet: You should be careful when dieting. Anyone can lose weight by calorie restriction. However, your body will tend to burn fat from the carbs you eat, the carbs you have stored and muscle before burning fat. i.e. you do not want to diet and lose a kilo of muscle mass. Most likely, this will make your VO2max worse.

Build muscle: go to the gym and lift weights. Raise your maximum performance.

Regular cardiovascular exercise, such as running, cycling, swimming, or similar, will improve your muscles’ processing of oxygen. Have two goals – spend 80% of your cardio time doing long, easy workouts where you can hold a conversation and then 20% performing maximal intervals – the best targeting VO2max are 3-5 repeats of about 4-5 minutes. Handily, that is 1km reps for many committed runners.

Why Am I slower Than My Friend who has a lower VO2max?

Let’s assume your data is correct, although it probably isn’t

Your VO2max capability will be translated into performance by your body. If your body uses inefficient movement, then this could be a factor that makes you slower than your friend. Your running friend could have a much more efficient running gait, or your cycling friend could have a superior bike kit or tactics (s/he’s faster but possibly with lower w/kg)

Measured VO2max is sport-specific. So, if you have a high VO2max from cycling, this will not necessarily translate to a high VO2max when swimming as different muscle groups are recruited and swimming is not a weight-bearing exercise (so ‘easier’). For most people, running VO2max will be the highest.

Is Garmin’s VO2max better than Whoop?

Garmin’s VO2max calculation should be more straightforward and accurate as Garmin Connect typically has access to power or pace data, unlike Whoop. Garmin’s algorithm has been developed over many years and should have had time to be fine-tuned and more accurate. That said, I’ve had different VO2max scores on two Garmin watches running side by side for a few weeks, so who knows how accurate Garmin really is?

How Accurate Is Whoop’s VO2max

My Whoop VO2max is 2 points higher than the one suggested by Garmin and higher still than the one indicated by Apple. I had a lab test several years ago (66), and what Whoop suggests now is where I hope it has declined since!

@TheQuantifiedScientist has his recent VO2max comparisons as shown in the chart; I suspect his Whoop VO2max is a tad on the high side.

Take Out

Hopefully, that VO2max article was slightly different from many of the typical ones you read, which get overly technical and introduce too many caveats.

Do understand the critical importance of VO2max to the quality of your time on this planet, but don’t worry about it every day. It takes a long time to change.

The ideal VO2max-targetted workout for most runners will approximate 4x 1km reps (not Tabata).

Get fit. Get a good weight. Have good genes. Avoid pollution—some of those you can control…others, less so. Live long and prosper!