How to Improve Your VO₂ Max After 40 (Part 2)
In Part 1, we explained that VO₂ max measures how effectively your body takes in oxygen, delivers it to your tissues, and uses it to produce energy.
We also discussed why this matters for much more than athletic performance. Your cardiovascular capacity influences how easily you can climb stairs, carry groceries, travel, work outside, exercise, and remain active with the people you care about.
Click here to go back and read Part 1
The next question is practical...
How can you improve your VO₂ max?
The answer is not to make every workout as difficult as possible. The most effective plan uses the right amount of challenge, repeated consistently, with enough recovery for the body to adapt.
Is Walking Enough to Improve VO₂ Max?
Walking is one of the best forms of movement available to us.
It is accessible, requires little equipment, and can support circulation, mood, metabolic health, mobility, and consistency. For many people, especially those returning after an illness, injury, surgery, or a long period of inactivity, walking is the correct place to begin.
However, walking and cardiovascular training are not always the same thing.
If your walking pace never changes, the duration never increases, the terrain never becomes more challenging, and your body has completely adapted to the activity, walking may help you remain active without meaningfully improving the upper limit of your cardiovascular capacity.
The key is that exercise must be considered relative to the individual.
A slow walk may be a significant cardiovascular challenge for one person. The same walk may barely raise another person’s heart rate.
Walking is not ineffective. Your body needs an appropriate and gradually increasing demand if you want it to adapt.
General Movement and Cardiovascular Training Are Different
Everyday movement matters.
Cleaning, shopping, gardening, standing more often, walking around the house, and taking the stairs all help reduce sedentary time and keep your body engaged.
However, general movement may not be intense enough or sustained long enough to create a strong improvement in VO₂ max.
Purposeful aerobic exercise is continuous activity performed at an intensity that challenges the cardiovascular system.
This may include:
Brisk walking.
Cycling.
Swimming.
Rowing.
Hiking.
Using an elliptical.
Walking on an incline.
Using a hand bike.
Other repetitive activities that safely elevate your breathing and heart rate.
The specific exercise matters less than whether it creates the correct cardiovascular demand for your body.
What Is Zone 2 Training?
Zone 2 is a sustainable aerobic intensity that helps develop your cardiovascular foundation.
During Zone 2 exercise:
Your breathing is elevated but controlled.
You can usually continue speaking.
Long, effortless conversation becomes more difficult.
The effort feels purposeful but sustainable.
You are not casually strolling.
You are not performing a hard interval.
Zone 2 helps your body become better at producing energy aerobically. It supports adaptations in the mitochondria, blood vessels, capillaries, and muscles. It also helps improve your ability to sustain activity for longer periods.
One of the biggest challenges is that Zone 2 is individual.
The correct heart rate for one person may be too low or too high for another person, even when they are the same age. Generic heart-rate formulas can provide estimates, but they do not account for every person’s physiology, medications, fitness level, or actual breathing thresholds.
Without direct testing, the talk test can provide a simple starting point. Your breathing should be noticeably elevated, but you should still be able to speak in short sentences.
What Are VO₂ Max Intervals?
VO₂ max intervals are periods of harder cardiovascular work followed by planned recovery.
The working interval should be challenging enough to increase oxygen demand substantially. The recovery period should allow you to regain enough control to repeat the effort with good quality.
Intervals do not have to be all-out sprints.
For adults over 40, especially those with joint pain or difficulty running, lower-impact options may be more appropriate. Intervals can be performed on a:
Stationary bike.
Elliptical.
Rower.
Incline treadmill.
Hand bike.
Swimming pool.
Other safe cardiovascular exercise mode.
The purpose is not to create maximum stress on your joints. The purpose is to create the correct cardiovascular stimulus.
Zone 2 and Intervals Work Together
Zone 2 and interval training should not compete with one another. They perform different but complementary jobs.
Zone 2 builds the foundation.
It improves your ability to sustain activity and recover from physical effort.
Intervals challenge the ceiling.
They tell your cardiovascular system that it needs to increase its upper capacity.
A program made only of easy exercise may not sufficiently challenge your upper limits.
A program made only of hard intervals may cause excessive fatigue, poor recovery, soreness, and inconsistency.
The goal is to combine the two intelligently.
Why Harder Is Not Always Better
One of the most common cardiovascular-training mistakes is turning every workout into a test.
People often assume that if some intensity is good, more intensity must be better. They make every session moderately hard or extremely hard.
This can leave them training too hard to properly build an aerobic foundation but not specifically enough to create a well-designed VO₂ max stimulus.
Every workout begins to feel uncomfortable. Recovery suffers. Fatigue accumulates. Eventually, the person concludes that cardio is not for them.
Effective cardiovascular training has different gears.
There is a time to:
Move easily.
Build duration.
Perform Zone 2 training.
Work near a higher threshold.
Complete controlled intervals.
Recover.
The goal is not to prove your toughness during every session. The goal is to create an adaptation.
Exercise provides the signal. Recovery is when your body responds to that signal.
Four Principles for Improving VO₂ Max
1. Consistency
A perfect workout performed once will do very little.
A reasonable plan repeated consistently over weeks and months can create meaningful change.
Choose activities you can perform safely, recover from, and realistically continue.
2. Individualization
Your training should reflect your:
Current fitness level.
Medical history.
Joint tolerance.
Exercise experience.
Medications.
Goals.
Recovery ability.
Your intervals should be hard relative to you—not relative to someone younger, more experienced, or more conditioned.
3. Progression
Your body adapts to the demands you repeatedly place on it. Once a workout becomes easier, gradually change one variable.
Progression may include:
Adding a few minutes.
Increasing frequency.
Increasing resistance.
Walking slightly faster.
Adding incline.
Lengthening an interval.
Slightly reducing recovery time.
Progression does not mean changing everything at once.
4. Recovery
Hard workouts should not be stacked together carelessly.
Sleep, stress, training history, illness, medical conditions, and joint health all influence your ability to recover.
When you are well recovered, you may be ready for a more demanding session. When you are not, a lighter workout may be more productive.
More effort is not always more effective. The right effort, applied consistently, produces progress.
A Simple Beginner Approach
A beginner program should create success, not fear.
Someone beginning cardiovascular training might work toward three sessions per week.
Two sessions could focus on controlled aerobic exercise. A starting session may involve 20 to 30 minutes at an easy-to-moderate pace.
When continuous exercise feels too difficult, the session can be divided into shorter blocks. For example, someone could perform five minutes of activity, recover briefly, and then repeat.
A third session could gradually introduce short intervals.
One example is:
Begin with an appropriate warm-up.
Perform 30 seconds at a brisk but controlled pace.
Recover easily for approximately 90 seconds.
Repeat up to six times, depending on tolerance.
Finish with an easy cooldown.
This is only a general example, not a prescription for every person. The activity, intensity, number of rounds, and recovery time should match your individual ability.
A beginner should finish feeling as though the workout was useful—not as though it created a physical crisis.
When Should You Get Medical Guidance?
Higher-intensity exercise should be introduced carefully.
Speak with an appropriate healthcare professional before beginning vigorous interval training when you have concerns such as:
Known cardiovascular disease.
Uncontrolled blood pressure.
Unexplained chest pain or pressure.
Severe or unusual shortness of breath.
A history of fainting.
Unexplained dizziness.
An irregular heartbeat.
New neurological symptoms.
Medications that significantly affect heart rate.
Your warm-up should allow your body time to transition into activity. Warning symptoms during exercise should never be ignored.
Can a Smartwatch Measure VO₂ Max?
Many smartwatches estimate VO₂ max using information such as heart rate, pace, age, movement, and exercise mode.
These estimates can help you follow general trends. However, they remain predictions produced by an algorithm.
Several factors can influence the estimate, including:
Medications.
Heat.
Hills.
Stress.
Device placement.
Exercise type.
Movement efficiency.
Individual physiology.
A direct breath-analysis (The PNOĒ Metabolic Analysis) test measures the oxygen you inhale and the carbon dioxide you exhale while exercise intensity gradually increases.
This can provide a measured VO₂ max and help identify individual training thresholds and heart-rate zones.
A test does not replace training. It helps direct the training.
The test is the map. Training is the journey.
Establishing a baseline also allows you to compare future results with your own starting point rather than comparing yourself with another person.
Train for the Life You Want to Keep Living
The purpose of improving VO₂ max is not to become an elite athlete.
It is to build the capacity to continue doing the things that matter to you.
You train so that you can walk through an airport without needing assistance.
You train so that you can carry groceries, work in the yard, travel, hike, and attend your grandchildren’s activities.
You train so that your world does not become smaller simply because you are getting older.
Improving VO₂ max takes consistency, progressive challenge, intelligent intensity, and recovery. You do not need to begin with extreme workouts. You need to begin at the appropriate level and give your body a reason to adapt.
Stop Guessing and Start Understanding Your Body
PNOĒ Metabolic Health Assessment uses direct breath analysis to measure your VO₂ max and identify individualized cardiovascular training zones.
This information can help our team better understand your current capacity and build a more intentional plan to improve your cardiovascular fitness, energy, and long-term health.
Specialized Wellness
A Division of Sumner Specialized Physical Therapy
Start Understanding Your Body.
(509) 684-5621
sumnerpt.com
The author, Rob Sumner, is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, Athletic Trainer, Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist. He is the owner of Specialized Strength Fitness, Specialized Massage and Specialized Physical Therapy in Colville. He's happy to answer any questions about this article, wellness, fitness, or your health overall by phone at (509) 684-5621 or by email at Rob@SumnerPT.com
