What's a good VO2 max for runners?

Updated August 25, 2026 · By the Runked team

VO2 max norms by age and sex

These bands are the exact brackets from the Cooper Institute's Physical Fitness Specialist Manual (2005), as reproduced in a fitness-industry handout hosted at bodyboutiquefitness.com; the Cooper Institute does not publish the table online. They are the Cooper Institute's own classification built for submaximal fitness testing rather than a percentile spread of directly measured lab values, and they are not blended with any other source's brackets. One caveat on the first column: the handout leaves its Poor cells blank, so the "≤" values in the Poor column below are this page's own derivation, one below the bottom of each row's Fair band.

Values in mL/kg/min. Source: Physical Fitness Specialist Manual (2005), The Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, Dallas, TX.

Why the same number means different things to different runners

Helgerud and colleagues, writing in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise in 2007, call VO2 max "probably the single most important factor determining success in an aerobic endurance sport." It sets a ceiling on how much oxygen the heart, lungs and muscles can move and use at full effort, and running performance tracks it closely.

How far that ceiling can move with training is not equal for everyone. Bouchard and colleagues' 1999 HERITAGE Family Study trained 481 sedentary adults from 98 two-generation families on an identical 20 week program and measured VO2 max on a cycle ergometer twice before and twice after, so the numbers come from cycling tests rather than running ones. Some participants barely changed. Others gained more than a liter of oxygen per minute. A model fitting analysis of the family data put the heritability of that training response at up to 47%, adjusted for age and sex. Two runners on the same plan can see very different gains for reasons neither one controls.

That is the case for comparing your VO2 max to your own past numbers, not to anyone else's: in Runked the rank starts everyone at Bronze and only moves on your own runs. See how the rank works.

How accurate your watch's VO2 max is

Garmin and Apple Watch both estimate VO2 max from heart rate and pace during runs, without a lab or a mask. Two recent validation studies checked those estimates against a lab criterion.

Lambe et al.'s 2025 study in PLOS ONE compared Apple Watch VO2 max estimates against indirect calorimetry in 28 participants and found the watch underestimated VO2 max by a mean of 6.07 mL/kg/min (95% CI 3.77-8.38), with wide individual variation (Bland-Altman limits of agreement from -6.11 to 18.26 mL/kg/min).

Engel et al.'s 2025 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology tested the Garmin Forerunner 245 against lab-measured VO2 max in 35 endurance athletes across two runs. The watch underestimated VO2 max overall, with a mean absolute percentage error of 7.9% on the first run and 6.7% on the retest. The error was much larger in highly trained athletes (MAPE 9.4-10.4%, above 60 mL/kg/min) than in moderately trained ones (MAPE 2.8-4.1%).

Both studies measured their own device, software version and participant group. A watch's VO2 max estimate works best as a monthly trend line rather than a single number to check against the table above.

How to raise your VO2 max

Milanović, Sporiš and Weston's 2015 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine pooled 28 controlled trials of 723 healthy adults aged 18 to 45 (mean baseline VO2 max around 40.8 mL/kg/min). Against no training, continuous endurance training produced a possibly large pooled increase of 4.9 mL/kg/min and high intensity interval training (HIIT) produced a likely large 5.5 mL/kg/min. In the trials that compared the two head to head, HIIT's edge over continuous training was smaller, a possibly small 1.2 mL/kg/min, and larger for older and less fit participants.

Helgerud et al.'s 2007 study tested one specific interval structure directly. Forty moderately trained men trained three times a week for eight weeks, split into four groups matched for total oxygen cost. The group running four 4 minute intervals at 90-95% of max heart rate, with 3 minutes of easy jogging at 70% of max heart rate between each, raised VO2 max from 55.5 to 60.4 mL/kg/min, a 7.2% increase. The two continuous groups, running at 70% and 85% of max heart rate for the same total oxygen cost, showed no significant change.

1. 10 minute easy warm-up jog.
2. 4 minutes running at 90-95% of max heart rate.
3. 3 minutes easy jog recovery at around 70% of max heart rate.
4. Repeat the interval and recovery three more times, for 4 rounds total.
5. 3 minute cool-down jog.

Helgerud's group ran this structure 3 times a week for 8 weeks on a treadmill. Runked's running workouts guide covers fitting intervals like this around easy running, and the training load, fitness and fatigue guide explains how to tell whether a block like this is landing as fitness gain or as fatigue.

Common mistakes

• Comparing your number to someone else's. Bouchard et al.'s HERITAGE data shows the same training program produces very different VO2 max gains in different people; your own trend over months carries more information than where you land next to a training partner.
• Treating VO2 max as the one number that predicts race day. Helgerud et al. describe it as one of three factors, alongside lactate threshold and running economy, that together determine endurance performance.
• Expecting a watch estimate to match a lab test. Lambe et al. and Engel et al.'s validation studies both found meaningful gaps between watch estimates and lab-measured VO2 max, in different directions and magnitudes depending on the device and the runner's fitness level.
• Chasing the number instead of the training that moves it. Helgerud et al.'s data found no change in VO2 max from continuous running at 70% or 85% of max heart rate over 8 weeks, under the same total workload as the interval group that did improve.

What to do next

The table above is a reference point for where your training has you now. Runked's zone 2 running guide covers the easy aerobic pace that sits underneath interval work like this. The race time predictor turns your actual training data into a projected finish time, and the training load, fitness and fatigue guide explains the numbers behind whether a block is working.

Frequently asked questions