How To Improve Your VO2 Max: What Actually Works for Cyclists
Raising the ceiling!
The topic about how to improve your VO2 max and the importance of it has been in the talks a lot lately, either for performance on the bike or simply has a longevity stand point. Yet most cyclists want to raise their VO2 max to be faster on climbs, sustain the surges during their weekly group rides or handle the hard race paces.
It’s a bit of a love/hate relationship when it comes to those hard intervals needed to raise your aerobic ceiling.
Part of that comes from a misunderstanding of how to actually train for it in a way that improves cycling performance. The real question is: can you still increase their VO2 max power?
Why does VO2 Max Correlate with cycling performances?
VO2 max defines potential. Your training defines the realization of that potential.
But there are many nuances to this performance correlation. Training right is what’s key here.
Understanding that VO2 max is not the only metric determining endurance performances is part of the equation. The rise of durability/fatigue resistance as a key endurance metric is another important component and marker of the performance equation.
It is now argued that the durability/fatigue resistance is telling a much more complete story of performances. The capacity of producing the same amount of power after a certain amount of work is much more valuable to cycling performances.
Before we jump into what are the actionable steps you can do to work on improving your VO2 max performance, let’s start by defining what is VO2 max.
What VO2 Max Actually Is
VO2 max = the maximum amount (Volume) of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise.
In other words, it is your maximal aerobic capacity or in simple words it’s your aerobic engine’s upper limit.
It’s the maximal uptake and utilization of oxygen your body can effectively consume...how much can get in the system and how much can be utilized. It sets the ceiling for endurance capacity, but it doesn’t guarantee how well you can perform around it.
VO2 max is a physiological state that represents your cardiovascular capability.
The output is how much power we can put out when we are in that physiological state.
As your ride intensity increases, your muscles use more and more oxygen to fuel the aerobic system. As the workload increases beyond this point, it then starts relying on the anaerobic system and is only sustained for short bursts.
VO2 max can only be determined in lab and is expressed in 2 ways:
Absolute VO2 max: Liters of Oxygen used per minute (L/Min) and measures total overall O2 consumption. On average 2 - 2.5L/min for the untrained athlete.
Relative VO2 max: Includes bodyweight in the calculation and is defined as milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute (mL/kg/min). On average 30-45 mL/kg:min for the untrained athlete.
What Factors Determine Your VO2 Max
When you ride hard, your body needs oxygen to produce energy. VO2 max reflects how well your body can uptake from the air available in the lungs:
Take in oxygen (lungs)
Deliver it (heart + blood)
Use it in the muscles (mitochondria)
In overview, the factors that impacts this uptake of oxygen:
Cardiac Output: the volume of blood moved by each heart beats. The more blood is being moved (faster heart beat during activity) the more oxygen is being delivered.
Oxygen-Carrying Capacity: the more red blood cells the more oxygen-carrying capacity since they contain the iron-rich protein: hemoglobin which in turn transport oxygen from the lungs to the muscles.
System efficiency: Another key component is the system efficiency at transporting the oxygen and then the muscles at utilizing the oxygen to do the work.
The higher your VO2 max, the more oxygen your body can use → which means more potential power output for hard efforts.
For cyclists, this is what allows you to:
Respond to attacks
Surge over short climbs
Handle hard race efforts
Recover faster between hard efforts
Is VO2 Max Trainable?
Yes, it is trainable and you can not only increase your VO2 max, but also the power you can produce at VO2 max, how long you can sustain that power, and the amount of work you can accomplish between lactate threshold and VO2 max. Here is a great podcast.
For years it was understood that VO2 max was genetically fixed and that genes played a big part in this predisposed performance ceiling. While genes play a significant role in VO2 max capacity science now shows that most factors that determine VO2 max are responsive to training.
With different types of workouts, we can increase VO2 max itself but more likely increase peak power and duration at VO2 max and fractional utilization.
In simple words, the performance around VO2 max is determined by how much of it you can use and for how long.
Here’s an overview of how you can improve and maximize your maximal aerobic capacity:
Power Duration at VO2max: amount of time that can be sustained at your VO2max
Peak power at VO2max: highest power that can be generated at VO2max
Fractional Utilization: percentage of VO2max that can be sustained for prolonged efforts. Percentage of VO2max you are working at.
What workouts actually Improve VO2 Max
The body improves VO2 max when it’s pushed close to its oxygen-processing limit.
So the goal is simple:
Spend time near VO2 max oxygen consumption.
But that doesn’t always mean going all-out immediately, as aerobic training also plays a role in improving oxygen uptake. Time spent training at endurance level (zone 2) has a great impact on improving aerobic endurance and mitochondrial density and capillarization. All factors, as discussed above, that helps with oxygen uptake.
FTP (Functional Threshold Power) training is also effective at improving and pushing your aerobic ceiling, as it increases your fractional utilization, the percentage of power you can use and sustain.
Below are examples of the intervals that are the most effective on impacting VO2 max:
It is important to note that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, keeping things simple and sometimes the progression of these intervals may even look a little boring. But the classic VO2 interval workouts are still the foundation.
The demands of your event and your goal determine the type and length of intervals you should be doing. With either type of workout, you want to aim for a total time in a zone ranging between 12 to 20min.
1. Classic VO2 Intervals (The Gold Standard)
These are the workouts most riders think of. This interval type has stood the test of time and provides what is needed in a VOs interval workout: specificity, progressive overload and adequate recovery. It’s long enough to teach you to suffer with control without blowing up at the first rep, helping you with pacing and building repeatability.
Example workout:
4–6 × 3–5 minutes
110–120% FTP
3–5 minutes easy recovery
RPE: 8-9 out of 10
Example workout:
5 × 4 min hard
4 min easy spin
2. Short Repeated Intervals (Sneaky Effective)
These help you accumulate a lot of time near VO2 max without completely blowing up.
A session like the 30/30s or 40/20s can help improve your FTP, improve your stamina and ability to repeat-high intensity efforts. A key with this style of effort is the total amount spent at intensity. The power numbers suggestion is relatively around 120-130% of FTP, but self-paced works great for these intervals.
Example:
30s hard / 30s easy or 40s hard / 20s easy
2–3 sets
8–12 minutes per set
RPE: 8-9 out of 10
These are challenging but effective because your oxygen consumption stays elevated the whole time.
3. Over-Unders
These help riders who struggle when the pace surges, think of those tough group rides.
Example:
2 min just below threshold
1 min above threshold
Repeat 4–6 times.
This teaches your body to recover while still riding hard.
How Often Should You Train VO2 Max?
Most riders only need: 1-2 sessions per week
VO2 work is very stressful on the nervous system and recovery.
Typical weekly structure:
1 VO2 workout
1 threshold workout
endurance rides in between
optional group ride
Too much VO2 work can lead to overtraining, not enough resting which in turns impedes fitness improvement.
Key Takeaways
A lot of riders think they need more VO2 intervals, but they actually need to incorporate more aerobic base
If your endurance and threshold aren’t strong, VO2 work becomes:
unsustainable
inconsistent
less effective
Think of it like this:
Base fitness = foundation
Threshold = floor you can sustain
VO2 max = the ceiling
You need all three.
One More Important Thing
VO2 max is partly genetic.
But here’s the important part: Performance is not just VO2 max.
Many strong cyclists succeed because they have:
high fractional utilization (strong threshold)
good fatigue resistance
good repeatability
So chasing VO2 max alone isn’t the goal.
The real goal for cyclists:
Increase your VO2 max and increase the percentage of it you can sustain.
Bottom line, VO2 max is a key metric that most riders are interested in maximizing and training, but it has been demonstrated that there are also other factors that are important in actual performances on the bike.