There is some debate around whether your VO2 Max can be improved with training.

The truth is that there is probably a pre-determined upper limit for each individual. However, what can be achieved with training is how close an athlete is to that upper limit.

There are two ways to improve your VO2 Max. The first is by increasing the speed you can transport blood around your body. The faster blood is being pumped, the more oxygen is being transported to the muscles. To do this, the amount of blood pumped with each beat (stroke volume) of your heart needs to be improved. If we return to my article about training zones then the zone to train in to improve stroke volume is zone five. These are short, hard intervals designed to have you using as much oxygen as possible over a short period. This encourages you body to adapt and improve the rate at which it can deliver oxygen to your muscles.

The second way of improving your VO2 Max is to increase the amount of oxygen that your muscles can use. It is the mitochondria in the muscle fibers that use oxygen and, therefore, the more mitochondria you have, the more oxygen you can burn. Returning again to you training zones, then the zone that gives the mitochondria the greatest workout is upper zone three, more commonly known as sweetspot. However, if you went out and tried to do a combination of sweetspot and zone five efforts then you wouldn’t last too long without becoming very tired.

Therefore, what I would recommend is the same type of training that I suggested to improve your lactate threshold – polarized training. Combining 20 per cent zone five efforts with 80 per cent zone two (base training) will mean you are working on both your stroke volume and your ability to burn oxygen. As an additional benefit, zone two training has also been shown to improve both your economy on the bike and your stroke volume.

Finally, let’s take a look at a training session you can use to improve your VO2 Max.