Bad Wigins wrote:
The original lab vO2max was designed on a flawed understanding of blood chemistry. It was test of incrementally increasing effort with the reading occurring at the highest effort before failure.
The problem with this is the duration. A middle distance runner should understand this implicitly. The maximum exchange rate of O2 and Co2 between blood and working muscle is regulated in part by the pH gradient. The lower the muscle pH relative to the blood pH, the faster the exchange rate. Muscle pH decreases when it is working hard anaerobically, like in an 800 or 1500.
It's not sustainable, but for a brief and glorious minute or two in these races, the acid lets the muscles take in more oxygen and work extra hard. Then it spills into the blood, the gradient diminishes and the effect is reversed, sometimes comically.
I don't know if they've revised this test since those ancient times, but if they tried it starting all-out instead of incrementally increasing, I think they'd find a new "max" somewhere between 90 and 240 seconds.
This should be presented in exercise science programs as an example of the state of the field. People have no idea what is going on inside their body, but read a few pages of physiology and they are able to feel the weakening of the O2 gradient inside their muscles. The actual experiments have very little in the way of definitive results, so people write entire stories about the physiological processes they believe are occurring inside them.
I see it all the time with all these covid experts. Only someone who doesn't understand this stuff at all would be so arrogant to think they know exactly what's goin on.