VO2max, VO2-Lactate Threshold & Cardiac Drift

Whether you are training for running or triathlon, you can make it as simple or as a complex that you would like. There is no shortage of technical terminology when it comes to the world of endurance sports, you don’t necessarily need to understand what they mean but here are a few terms that can be thrown around.

VO2max

Simply, this is your body’s maximum amount of oxygen consumption per minute, and is often measured in ml/kg/min. VO2max can provide an estimation of an individual’s aerobic capacity. It is said that 50% of your VO2max is heritable (comes from your genetics), and the other 50% can be trained. Referencing the previous blog article around ‘Aerobic Respiration’, if your body has a greater density of mitochondria, this in turn will improve its ability to utilise oxygen which can assist in boosting an athlete’s VO2max.

VO2-lactate threshold (LT2)

Your lactate threshold is the point at which lactate production exponentially increases and your body produces more lactate than can be removed. From a training perspective, there is a strong correlation between this point and an athlete’s time to fatigue. Training athletes to improve their LT2 point can lead to improvements in performance. This can be particularly important for short course triathletes or up to a 10k or half marathon running where athlete’s are sitting at or near their threshold for an extended period of time.

Cardiac Drift

This phenomena occurs during prolonged often strenuous exercise. Cardiac drift is the concept where your heart rate gradually rises over the course of the session for the same given intensity. Your heart rate gradually increases in order to compensate for the reduction in the heart’s stroke volume (the amount of blood that is pumped out of the heart). This can be an important concept to remember for athletes who train with heart rate. As you progress through a session your heart may begin to naturally rise and hence if you are doing an intervals session your pacing towards the back end of a workout may not be the same as when you first started.

There are lots of interesting concepts in the field of sport science and endurance training. Whether you know them or not does not really matter but a simple understanding can help provide a clearer picture into your own training.