How to Improve Your VO2 Max & Build Endurance

**Andy Galpin** (0:00)
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life.
Welcome to Perform.
Hello friends, I'm Dr. Andy Galpin. I'm a professor of kinesiology in the Center for Sport Performance at Cal State Fullerton. In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about specifically how to improve your VO2 max. In previous episodes, we talked about the heart. We went over what it is, how it works, why you should care about it. We also spent some time going over the three I's, so how to investigate or assess your overall cardiovascular function, how to interpret that to know whether it's good, bad, terrible, or potentially a world record, and then how to intervene, so what to do about it, and how to improve its function. If you missed that previous episode we did on the heart, please go back and check that out. But I'd be remiss to not remind you, or tell you for the first time, about how important VO2 max is. If you want all the studies, direct links, specific details on the statistics and values, you can see that in the previous episode, as well as the show notes for that episode. But really quickly, your VO2 max is one of the most significant predictors of all cause mortality that we know of.
In fact, if you compare it to more traditional markers like blood pressure, smoking history, cholesterol levels, while those are all very important, VO2 max can be two to three to even up to four fold higher predictor of survival and mortality than those other traditional markers. So it's insanely important. And in fact, many folks would argue it is the most important metric to pay attention to if you want to know how long you're going to live.
Now I apologize for being overly dramatic about that, but really it is that astounding about how important that number is to determining how long you're going to live. The other important point about this is there is no upper limit, such that the higher your VO2 max, the higher your chance of survival continues to go. It really doesn't seem to get to any point of diminishing returns. And so it's a metric that is within your control.
It is arguably one of, if not the most important metric for how long you're going to live.
And the higher, the better. And so focusing on this, whether you want to run a marathon or want to play sports, it really doesn't matter. If you want to live longer and better, VO2 max should be one of your top priorities. But in today's discussion, I wanted to do something a little bit different. And that is really spend our entire time going over practical applications. I want to walk you through exact programs and protocols, giving you both the concepts as well as specific methodologies as samples to help you get guided in either developing your own program or helping others with theirs. In order to do that, I need to start with a very quick overview of what we're trying to actually accomplish when we're improving our endurance or VO2 max. So that you understand the different components that tend to be pretty similar amongst all different styles and training approaches. I promise we'll keep that very brief.
After that, we're gonna jump right into a very specific protocol for improving your VO2 max. And then after that, I'm gonna share with you a specific protocol a friend of mine used to complete his first ever marathon. Now, before we go too much further, I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsors because they make this show possible. Not only are they on this list because they offer great products and services, but because I actually personally love them and use them myself. Today's episode is brought to you by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink mix that has an ideal ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium, but has no sugar. Electrolytes are critical to proper hydration, which I've been harping on for years, but you can't do that by only drinking water. In fact, many of you will probably remember that I featured Element in my YouTube series on optimizing hydration all the way back in 2020, which is obviously long before this podcast even existed.
So I've been a fan of Element for a long time. In fact, astute listeners will also realize these hydration videos were the genesis of the Galpin Hydration Equation, named not by me, but by the legendary neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman. I featured Element in these videos because their blend of 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams potassium and 60 milligrams magnesium really is different than any other electrolyte on the market and has great scientific support. However, I want to be ultra clear. 1,000 milligrams of sodium is a lot and not everyone needs that much. In fact, that may be way too much if you don't exercise or sweat much, already eat a lot of salt in your diet, say from a lot of processed foods, or otherwise have sodium related medical concerns. I personally use the citrus and watermelon flavors, a ton to pre-hydrate before heading out on a full day of training or long hike or a hunt, since I know I'll be losing a bunch of fluids and won't have many opportunities to take things with me. Element has also just released a new line of canned sparkling element, which I am all about. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinklmnt.com/perform to claim a free Element sample pack with the purchase of any Element drink mix. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/perform to claim a free sample pack. Today's episode is also brought to you by Vitality Blueprint. Vitality is the world's only comprehensive blood work company built specifically for high performance.