An analysis of VO2 Max as a Performance Indicator for Collegiate Cross-Country Athletes

 

An analysis of VO₂ Max as a Performance Indicator for Collegiate Cross-Country Athletes

COED 6330 Final Assignment

October 9, 2020

April Greer, Renee Harden, Kris Jones, Samuel Owens 

      This report will be focusing on the importance of VO₂ max in endurance athletes, how to reasonably assess an athlete’s VO₂ max, and provide guidance for further improvement. VO₂ max, as described by Ungvarsky (2020), is the amount of oxygen a person can intake during strenuous exercise. Measuring an athlete’s VO₂ max throughout the season is to A) assess athlete’s fitness, B) use the information to improve the quality the athlete’s training, and C)  allow for the athlete to improve, not only throughout the season, but to achieve their best performance at the end of the year.

1. Athlete’s Fitness

Measuring the athlete's VO₂ max throughout the season is imperative, as the information obtained is one of the tools that can be used to improve the athlete's training. The recommended time to calculate the athlete’s VO₂ max is at the start of the season and once a month during the season (Christensen, 2010). Further, the ideal distance to measure the athlete's VO₂ max is the two-mile or using a race distance (Christensen, 2010). For our athletes, we measure their VO₂ max after the first two weeks, then at weeks 6, 10, and 15 (shown in table 1). We use their 5k race time to calculate VO₂ max as it is 97% of maximal effort which is converted to predict maximal effort.   

 

Table 1

Time table of when to measure athlete’s VO2 max during the season
When	Event
Week 2	Two-mile Time Trail
Week 6	5K Race (one)
Week 10	5K Race (two)
Week 15	5K Race (three) - Conference Championship

 

2. Using VO₂ max for Training

      To improve their VO₂ max, athletes will do a maximal workout once a week (Christensen, 2010; Favero and Stoll, 2016). Once the VO₂ max is established for the athlete, the coach will use the predicted maximal effort time to give the athletes a performance goal for the workout. For example, in Table 2, Athlete 1 has a predicted maximal effort of 6:08/mile. Coaches will create a workout plan for the athlete based around 6:08/mile effort. VO₂ max testing will be repeated a month after the initial test to track training adaptations. In the college setting, the best way is to measure VO₂ max is with race effort. In this case, Athlete 1 is shown to have made a :07 improvement in her maximal effort mile time. Once the new VO₂ max time is converted, the coach will use the predicted maximal effort for the next few weeks of training before the next race to predict another new VO₂ max. This pattern will continue throughout the remainder of the season. 

 

Table 2

5K Group Women	Two-Mile Time Trail	Predict VO2 max/mile pace effort	5K Race (one)	Predict VO2 max/mile pace effort	5K Race (two)	Predict VO2 max/mile pace effort	5K Race (three)	Predict VO2 max/mile pace effort
Athlete 1	12:16	50.9 / 6:08	19:21	51.77 / 6:01	19:14	52.13 / 5:59	19:01	52.83 / 5:55
Athlete 2	11:39	53.98 / 5:49	18:22	55.01 /5:43	18:40	53.98 / 5:49	18:11	55.60 / 5:40
Athlete 3	11:30	54.78 / 5:45	18:06	55.96 / 5:39	17:25	58.52 / 5:25	17:21	58.78 / 5:24

 

3. Recommend training for improvement

      As stated above, it is recommended that the VO₂ max workout needs to be done once a week for athletes to improve their maximal effort (Christensen, 2010; Favero and Stoll, 2016). There are also several types of training intensities for coaches to use, including but not limited to: race pace, lactate threshold, and zone training (Kenneally et al., 2018). Athletes in this designs examples performed one VO₂ max workout and a race pace workout (5k) per week. For all other runs including the long run, the athletes would run at recovery pace. All paces and percentages of effort levels are listed in Table 3. 

Christensen (2010) and Mackenzie (2001) both advise using training durations of 3-5 minutes or 800-1600m repetitions at a high intensity to increase VO₂ max.

 

Table 3

 

Distance	Percetage of VO2 max
5K Race Pace	97% of VO2 max
VO2 max Effort	100% at Max
Recovery run	65-75% of VO2 max

 

Considerations

 

One of the most important considerations when training athletes is that environment and extraneous physiological factors affect them during the VO₂ max test and during any given race day. It is not often that athletes will get faster each time they step on the line. In table 2, Athlete 2 had a race where they seemed to slow down. In their first race, they ran an 18:22 for the 5k, and for her second 5k, she ran an 18:40. Many factors can affect the athlete on race day, such as stress, nerves, disrupted sleep, and weather (Weinberg, 2019). Coaches need to talk with their athletes to see what happened during the race or maximal effort test. Talking with the athlete will help the coach determine how to progress the athlete in future workouts. 

Age is a significant factor when it comes to training adaptation. Green and Pate’s (2015) book Training Young Distance Runners argues that young athletes’ VO₂ increases even when the athlete only moderately increases their training. This means that replications of this design may not provide detail adequate to coaches who are training younger runners as it makes causation less clear.

Conclusions

            The design covered in this report gives coaches and trainers the tools to assess and enhance VO2 max in their endurance athletes without the need for expensive or intrusive equipment. This design is tailored to be incorporated within a training program and to be used alongside competitions allowing it to be accessible for wide use. While coaches need to be aware of the systems limitations listed above, they will be able to use it effectively with strong athlete communication.

References

Christensen, S. (2010). The profiling and preparation of an elite junior miler. Retrieved from http://www.ustfccca.org/assets/symposiums/2010/Scott-Christensen_Preparation-Elite-Junior-Miler.pdf

Favero, T. & Stoll, K. (2016). Seasonal improvements in VO2 max among women’s college soccer players with one day per week aerobic interval training. Kinesiologia Slovenica, 22(2), 14-21.

Green, L. & Pate, R. (2015). Training young distance runners. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Kenneally, M., Casado, A., & Santos-Concejero, J. (2018). The Effect of Periodization and Training Intensity Distribution on Middle- and Long-Distance Running Performance: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 13(9), 1114-1121. doi:10.1123/ijspp.2017-0327

Mackenzie, B. (2001). VO₂ max [WWW] Retrieved from https://www.brianmac.co.uk/VO2max.htm [Accessed 8/10/2020]

Ungvarsky, J. (2020). VO2 max. Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science.