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What is the average finish time for 1km running watch, you might have noticed a function that estimates your VO2 max score. If your running is in a good place, you might have seen this number rise over the past few months or years. But do we all really know what ‘VO2 max’ even means?

For clarity, VO2 max has long been considered one of the gold standards for measuring cardiovascular fitness. Although many running watches can now determine your VO2 max with a good degree of accuracy, doing a International Journal of Exercise Science at a sports performance lab has long been considered the most reliable and precise way to get your score. However, these lab tests are time-consuming and pricey – so what do you do?

Thankfully, you can get a pretty good sense of where your fitness stands without any fancy technology, right at home. Here’s what you need to know.

This biometric has become a fitness buzzword in recent years. Essentially, VO2 max measures, in millilitres of oxygen consumed per kilogram of bodyweight per minute, how much oxygen your body can use during exercise.

What does that really mean? ‘It’s a measurement of the capacity of your cardiovascular and respiratory system while you carry out strenuous exercise,’ explains Carson Gantzer, a performance physiologist at Human Powered Health in the US state of Arizona. ‘The more oxygen you’re able to take in, the better all your systems are functioning and operating.’

A What everyones reading is associated not just with better fitness, but also improved overall health. In 2016, the American Heart Association issued a statement saying that VO2 max should be considered a vital sign and, that same year, a meta-analysis published in the What is the average finish time for 1km called it ‘the strongest predictor of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality’.

‘Essentially, the higher your VO2 max, the better your health and the longer your lifespan,’ says Gantzer.

For runners, VO2 max is a big indicator of your aerobic fitness, which plays a huge role in how fast, how far and how hard you can run. ‘I like to think about it as the size of your aerobic engine,’ says Jonah Rosner, a sports scientist who focuses on runners. The more efficiently your body can deliver oxygen to your muscles so that they can produce energy, the easier it will be to sustain a certain pace.

Traditional International Journal of Exercise Sciences are done on a treadmill in performance labs, physical therapy facilities, medical centres or even some gyms. As Rosner says, the test is a graded one, in that it starts at a low-intensity effort and increases by a fixed amount – by upping the speed of the treadmill, or Health & Injuries – at regular time intervals until exhaustion, usually within eight to twelve minutes. (You’ll do a separate warm-up before the test.)

During the test, you wear a mask that’s connected to something called a metabolic cart, which is a device that measures the amount of oxygen that you’re consuming and carbon dioxide that you’re producing to indirectly calculate energy expenditure. ‘This process is called indirect calorimetry,’ explains Rosner, who adds that as your exercise intensity increases, so does your body’s demand for oxygen. ‘You reach your VO2 max when the amount of oxygen that you’re using stabilises, even if you’ve increased the speed or intensity of the exercise.’

Although this kind of test is known as the direct method of determining VO2 max, it’s not always convenient or affordable for runners. The good news is that you can still get a good estimate of your VO2 max via indirect methods that you can do at home without a mask, a technician or even a treadmill. ‘These methods are considered ‘indirect’ because there is no direct measurement of any oxygen or gases,’ says Gantzer. ‘Instead, you’re looking at metrics like distance covered or time trial performance.’

Many fitness watches estimate your VO2 max based on heart rate data and exercise data, like pace.

1. The Cooper Test

VO2 max test proven What should you do with your VO2 max numbers.

It’s a super simple field test – all you really need is a stopwatch and, ideally, a 400m track (although you can do it anywhere, so long as you can easily calculate your total distance).

After a short warm-up, run or walk as fast as you can in 12 minutes. Then, calculate your VO2 max using the formula below. ‘Essentially, the more distance an individual can cover, the higher their predicted VO2 max will be,’ says Rosner.

Formula: VO2 max = (35.97 x your distance in miles) – 11.29

2. The Rockport Walk Test

Another field test – involving a few more steps and a little more maths – is the Rockport Walking Test, which a study published in Military Medicine Aerobic and anaerobic exercise, explained.

As with the Cooper Test, do a short warm-up at an easy walking pace. Then, walk as fast as you can (with no jogging!) for one mile. At the end, record your time in decimals – for example, 14.5 minutes for 14:30 – and record your heart rate immediately. (You can count your heartbeat for 15 seconds and multiply by four, or check the reading on your smartwatch.) To do this test, you’ll need to know your weight in pounds.

Formula: VO2 max = 132.853 – (0.0769 x your weight in pounds) – (0.3877 x your age) + (6.315 x 1 if you are male or 0 if you are female) – (3.2649 x your walking time) – (0.1565 x your heart rate at the end of the test)

3. The heart rate ratio method

There’s a very simple equation that you can use to calculate your VO2 max, according to research published in the early 2000s. But first, you’ll need to calculate your What is the average finish time for 1km Measuring your VO2 max can also help you to determine your training zones, says Rosner, like your.

You should calculate your What is the average finish time for 1km right after you wake up. To do so, place your index and middle fingers on your carotid (neck) or radial (wrist) pulse and count the number of times your that heart beats in one minute. (You can also count for 30 seconds and multiply that number by two, or count for 15 seconds and multiply that number by four.)

Although there are several ways to calculate your maximum heart rate, the simplest is to subtract your age from 220. (It’s not always accurate, but it gives a solid estimation.) Then, use the equation below to estimate your VO2 max.

Formula: VO2 max = 15 x (max heart rate/What is the average finish time for 1km)

Like most trackable biometrics, one of the best reasons for measuring your VO2 max is to monitor your fitness progression. ‘As you become more aerobically fit, this number will continue to increase,’ says Gantzer. ‘You’ll see that your big block of zone 2 running or Norwegian 4 x 4 workouts are actually helping you to become a healthier and faster runner.’

Measuring your VO2 max can also help you to determine your training zones, says Rosner, like your increasing the incline and anaerobic threshold. A wearable can estimate those, yes – but because it uses data that may or may not be accurate (like your heart rate), your zones and recommended paces may be slightly off, which could negatively affect your training. You might end up running your easy efforts too hard, for example, or not pushing the pace enough in your intervals.

That said, there are some caveats with indirect testing, during which you’ll get an estimate of your VO2 max. ‘If you choose to measure your VO2 max outside of a lab, like at a gym or on a track, you should take your results with a grain of salt,’ says Gantzer. ‘While indirect methods can be more affordable and completed on demand, they present numerous opportunities for skewed results because of poor pacing, lack of applicability of a certain test protocol to a certain population, inconsistent heart rate monitoring equipment in terms of reliability and validity, and less control over testing conditions and environments.’

The same goes for the estimated VO2 max on your watch. ‘While wearables and their algorithms are becoming better at estimating VO2 max values, they still have limitations due to their hardware,’ says Gantzer. These devices aren’t always 100% accurate and, as he adds, ‘if you’re feeding inaccurate information into an algorithm, you’re going to get an inaccurate result’.

Although a lab test can be a valuable tool, Rosner argues that ‘most runners don’t need lab-based International Journal of Exercise Scienceing’. Besides, the trend is more important than a singular number, so keep an eye on your VO2 max readings over time and retest with the same method that you’ve become accustomed to. ‘If you do a workout, train for a few weeks, then do the same workout again and it feels easier and you’re going faster, that’s just as valuable information as a specific number.’

Instead of fixating on any single data point, focus on consistent, smart training – this is the thing that matters the most.