The Most Important Metric (Almost) Nobody Measures

Why Your VO₂max Is Crucial for a Long, Healthy Life

There’s a metric that determines our lifespan and quality of life like few others—and yet it’s missing from most medical check-ups: maximal oxygen uptake, or VO₂max.

In sports medicine it’s been known for decades; in traditional medicine it’s often underestimated. But research is increasingly clear: VO₂max is one of the strongest predictors of healthy longevity—independent of body weight, cholesterol, or blood sugar.

What Is VO₂max—and Why Does It Matter?

VO₂max describes how much oxygen your body can take in and utilize under maximum exertion (Ross et al., 2016). It’s a measure of your cardiorespiratory fitness—the combined performance of lungs, heart, blood vessels, and muscles. The higher your VO₂max, the more efficiently your body works under stress.

That makes it an excellent indicator of resilience—not just athletically, but medically as well. People with higher VO₂max values have a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, and even certain cancers (Kokkinos et al., 2022). A large U.S. cohort study in 2018 found: people in the highest VO₂max quartile had up to an 80% lower relative risk of death over ten years compared with those in the lowest quartile (Mandsager et al., 2018).

And the best part: VO₂max is modifiable.

VO₂max Can Be Trained—But Not with Walks Alone

To improve your oxygen uptake, your body needs targeted stimuli. That means Zone 2 training (long, endurance-based sessions at roughly 60–70% of your max heart rate) and structured HIIT sessions (High Intensity Interval Training). Zone 2 improves your mitochondrial capacity—your cells’ ability to convert oxygen into energy—while HIIT places strong demands on your cardiovascular system and raises your maximum performance ceiling.

How We Measure Your VO₂peak at YEARS

VO₂max is the absolute maximum oxygen uptake at full exertion, while VO₂peak is the highest value measured during a test—even if the true maximum wasn’t fully reached. We usually measure VO₂peak instead of VO₂max, because in many tests it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact maximum. Practically speaking, the difference is negligible, since both describe maximum endurance capacity. VO₂peak is simply the most achievable value in testing and therefore easier and safer to assess.

While fitness watches and apps only provide rough estimates, YEARS measures your VO₂peak with medical accuracy—using ergospirometry, a cardiopulmonary exercise protocol with breath gas analysis. This method is the gold standard in sports medicine (Weber & Janicki, 1985). You cycle under professional supervision while your breathing volume, oxygen use, heart rate, and CO₂ output are recorded in real time.

The result isn’t just a general fitness score—it’s a data-driven, clinically validated performance index, paired with a tailored training plan designed to improve your individual capacity.

VO₂max Is More Than a Fitness Metric

In today’s world we measure everything—blood sugar, stress, steps, sleep—yet VO₂max is often ignored. But it’s one of the few metrics directly tied to prevention outcomes: higher VO₂max, longer life, better quality of life. Period.

It doesn’t just measure how fit you are. It measures how resilient you are (Clausen et al., 2018): how well your body handles stress, illness, and aging. It reflects how large your metabolic “safety net” is before symptoms even appear.

Conclusion

VO₂max isn’t the only health marker, but it’s one of the most honest. You can’t sugarcoat it. You can’t track it away. You can only improve it—through targeted, data-based training.

At YEARS, we don’t measure it for motivation, but for prevention. Because real longevity starts with a strong heart and a body that knows how to breathe, move, and live.

References

Clausen, J. S. R., Marott, J. L., Holtermann, A., Gyntelberg, F., & Jensen, M. T. (2018). Midlife cardiorespiratory fitness and the long-term risk of mortality: 46 years of follow-up. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 72(9), 987-995. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2018.06.045

Helgerud, J., Høydal, K., Wang, E., Karlsen, T., Berg, P., Bjerkaas, M., Simonsen, T., Helgesen, C., Hjorth, N., Bach, R., & Hoff, J. (2007). Aerobic high-intensity intervals improve VO₂max more than moderate training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(4), 665-671. https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e3180304570

Kokkinos, P., Faselis, C., Babu, A. S., Pittaras, A., Doumas, M., Murphy, R., Heimall, M. S., Sui, X., Zhang, J., & Myers, J. (2022). Cardiorespiratory fitness and mortality risk across the spectra of age, race, and sex. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 80(6), 598-609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2022.05.038

Mandsager, K., Harb, S., Cremer, P., Phelan, D., Nissen, S. E., & Jaber, W. (2018). Association of cardiorespiratory fitness with long-term mortality among adults undergoing exercise treadmill testing. JAMA Network Open, 1(6), e183605. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605

Ross, R., Blair, S. N., Arena, R., Church, T. S., Després, J. P., Franklin, B. A., Haskell, W. L., Kaminsky, L. A., Levine, B. D., Lavie, C. J., Myers, J., Niebauer, J., Sallis, R., Sawada, S. S., Sui, X., Wisløff, U., & American Heart Association Physical Activity Committee of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health. (2016). Importance of assessing cardiorespiratory fitness in clinical practice: A case for fitness as a clinical vital sign. Circulation, 134(24), e653-e699. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000461

Weber, K. T., & Janicki, J. S. (1985). Cardiopulmonary exercise testing for evaluation of chronic cardiac failure. The American Journal of Cardiology, 55(2), 22A-31A. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(85)90792-1