Article Links: A Good VO2 Max Boosts Brain Health: How To Improve Your Numbers
A routine sweat sesh can offer a whole slew of health benefits, but if you really want to capitalize on those workouts, going hard (think: sprinting, HIIT, intervals) may be your best bet. At least, that's the major takeaway from research that looked at the link between people's VO2 max and their corresponding brain health.
As you may know, VO2 max or maximal oxygen consumption, is your body’s capacity for oxygen intake when you’re exercising hard. The higher your VO2 max, the more efficient your body is at dispensing energy, leading to better endurance and stamina. VO2 max has been used for ages to measure physical fitness, but the brain health association is still being explored.
So, what’s the link between VO2 max and cognitive decline and, more importantly, how can you boost your own numbers? Neurologists and a personal trainer break it down for Women's Health.
What did the study find?
The study, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, looked at 648 adults between the ages of 65 and 80. Each was put through a treadmill test to measure their VO2 max, as well as a series of cognitive tests to look at things like memory, processing speed, and executive function.
The researchers found that higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness (which VO2 max can be used to measure) was linked with better performance across all five cognitive tests the participants were given. And, this link was even stronger in women.
Why is VO2 max important for brain health?
VO2 max is a measure of your body’s efficiency in delivering oxygen and nutrients to tissues, including your brain, explains Vernon Williams, MD, sports neurologist and founding director of the Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles.
“The oxygen and nutrients are critical to brain functions like memory and executive function,” Dr. Williams says. As you get older, blood flow to the brain and the health of blood vessels tends to get worse, which can raise the risk of cognitive decline, according to Dr. Williams. But exercises that improve your VO2 max can also increase the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which works against age-related decline.
“VO2 max provides information on how your body and brain are aging together based on the ability to deliver these key ingredients—oxygen, nutrients—to the body and brain tissue,” Dr. Williams says. “What's good for the heart tends to be good for the brain, and vice versa.”
Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University, agrees that being physically fit will support your brain health. “A very toned and fit body consumes more oxygen during exercise,” he says. “Such a body has healthier blood vessels and a good supply of sugar to the brain. The brain runs on sugar.”
What range should my VO2 max be?
VO2 max is measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute or mL/kg/min. In the study, the highest VO2 max recorded was 21.68 mL/kg/min.
But factors like age and even your go-to exercise can influence your VO2 max. In many adult women under 50, a good VO2 max would be from 29 to 41 (with higher VO2 max number generally being better). As you get older, those numbers drop. Women aged 50 to 59 have a good VO2 max between 27 to 35.7, while the goal numbers are lower in older women.
How can I improve my VO2 max?
There are a bunch of factors that cumulatively determine your VO2 max, including how active you are, the type of exercises you do, and how hard you push yourself during workouts.
If you want to improve your VO2 max, there's a pretty simple solution. “You want to be working out near or close to the high end of your output range,” says Albert Matheny, RD, CSCS, co-founder of SoHo Strength Lab. That means focusing on things like sprints or fartleks (which means "speed play" in Swedish) when you run versus cruising along at a steady state, he explains.
Keep in mind, during intervals, sprints or "push" points, you want to aim for between 80 percent and 90 percent of your total effort, per Matheny. "You want to be pushing it."
Are there specific exercises that help with improving VO2 max?
Some exercises are better for boosting VO2 max than others. “You can improve VO2 max, basically, by any kind of interval-type training,” Matheny says.
He recommends focusing on cardiovascular exercises that work big muscle groups and doing intervals (like: a minute going hard, and a minute off), or two minutes on and two minutes off. "[The] intervals should be pretty hard. That's why you have periods of rest in between," he says.
Matheny suggests doing things like cycling, running, or stair climbing, or HIIT workouts that rotate through different exercises, including lunges and squats. You should aim to “prioritize large muscle movements because you'll get a bigger cardiovascular strain."