#176 – AMA #27: The importance of muscle mass, strength, and cardiorespiratory fitness for longevity
“If you have the aspiration of kicking ass when you’re 85, you can’t afford to be average when you’re 50.” —Peter Attia
You have likely heard me talk about the importance of knowing and tracking your VO2 max. As Alex Hutchinson and I discussed in episode #151, your VO2 max refers to the maximum rate at which your muscles can extract oxygen from your blood and put it to metabolic use to generate energy. Your VO2 max is often used as an indicator of overall cardiorespiratory fitness and can serve as a metric for tracking progress.
As I discussed in detail during AMA #27 and again on Twitter in early March 2022, when looking at VO2 max in relation to all-cause mortality, we see a very clear trend. Simply bringing your VO2 max from ‘low’ (bottom 25th percentile) to ‘below average’ (25th to 50th percentile) is associated with a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality. When you go from ‘low’ to ‘above average’ (50th to 75th percentile) the risk reduction is closer to 70%!
The following is a collection of content diving deeper into the topic of VO2 max, including: what it is, how it is measured, and how to improve your VO2 max with Zone 5 training.
“If you have the aspiration of kicking ass when you’re 85, you can’t afford to be average when you’re 50.” —Peter Attia