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Comment by weatherlite | Hacker News Reader

Why is Vo2Max important for people who aren't professional athletes? It's not that I'm not curious about my number I'm just not sure how helpful it is going to be - I need to understand what pace I can hold 5k, 10k, 21k and eventually 42k. I think the best way to know that is racing again and again and getting a good feel for your aerobic / threshold zone. Whether my Vo2max is 51 or 52 - does it matter to me?

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> looking at VO2 max in relation to all-cause mortality, we see a very clear trend. Simply bringing your VO2 max from ‘low’ (bottom 25th percentile) to ‘below average’ (25th to 50th percentile) is associated with a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality. When you go from ‘low’ to ‘above average’ (50th to 75th percentile) the risk reduction is closer to 70%!

https://peterattiamd.com/category/exercise/vo2-max/

But isn't it one of those things where someone with a higher VO2 is likely doing healthy things that they have lower risk. Rather than a lower risk simply because their VO2 is higher.

Unless you're getting it tested in a lab, the number is not very accurate. Genetics also plays a large part in how much you can raise it.

For most casual people it's just a single data point that seems all encompassing so they go:

number goes up = good.

Most professional athletes don't really care about vo2 max all that much.

To me it's a measurement of roughly how not-dead I am

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