What Makes You Faster: VO2 Max or Running Economy?
The size of your engine vs. your miles per gallon, and which one you should be training right now.
As I've dug deeper into running mechanics, I keep coming back to two topics: VO2 max and running economy. Here's a brief overview of the difference, and how to improve the one that has the bigger impact on your race results.
The definitions
VO2 max is the size of your engine. It's the most oxygen your body can move at one time. It's about 50% hereditary, and it's mostly a heart number, not a leg number.
Running economy is your miles per gallon. It's what it actually costs you to hold a pace. Two people running a 7:30 mile can have completely different economies.
Which one should you train?
It comes down to how long you've been running. If you're newer, it's VO2 max, and it isn't close.
In one study, researchers trained 480 sedentary adults for 20 weeks. The average VO2 max went from 33 to 39, a 17% gain. The best responders more than tripled that.
The prompt
I built a prompt that reads your baseline, walks you through the 4x4 interval sessions that actually move your VO2 max, and drops each workout on your Google Calendar so you just show up and run. (Don't want the calendar sync? Just tell Claude.)
Train with your own data. Build your own AI coach.
Athlete AI helps athletes and coaches take control of their training with AI. No code required. Join the free community for the 7-Day Challenge and the full classroom, or get the news in your inbox every week.
READY TO BUILD YOUR OWN APP OR AI AGENT? SEE ATHLETE AI LABS →