VO2 max chart by age and sex (with sources)

Most VO2 max charts online share two problems: nobody says where the numbers came from, and the categories ("superior", "excellent", "fair") are stacked on top of each other like a horoscope. This one is different. Every number in the VO2 max chart below comes from a published table of lab-tested adults, linked so you can check it.

You'll get percentiles for men and women by decade from 20 to 79, a note on why different charts disagree, and how to read your own number, including the one on your watch. If you're here because your VO2 max is lower than you'd like, the fix is training rather than staring at charts, and that's the part apps for runners who lift are built to plan.

What a VO2 max chart actually measures

VO2 max is the highest rate at which your body can take in and use oxygen, written as milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (mL/kg/min). A chart ranks that number against other people your age and sex.

It's a ceiling, not a race result. The efforts that drive it sit at the very top of the five-zone model we use across this blog, zone 5, roughly RPE 9–10, and you can work out where that is in beats per minute with a zone calculator. How long you can run near that ceiling depends on your threshold, which is why threshold training matters as much for race times as VO2 max does.

Where the numbers come from

The chart uses the FRIEND registry (Fitness Registry and the Importance of Exercise National Database). In its first reference paper, eight experienced US labs contributed 7,783 maximal treadmill tests with directly measured oxygen uptake, from men and women aged 20 to 79 without cardiovascular disease (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015). The full percentile table is open access on PubMed Central.

Why this source: it's measured, not predicted. Many older charts estimate VO2 max from how long someone lasted on a treadmill test, which is a guess with a formula attached.

VO2 max chart for men

Percentiles of measured VO2 max (mL/kg/min) for men, from treadmill tests in the FRIEND registry (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015):

VO2 max chart for women

The women's VO2 max chart, same source and same test method (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015):

The gap between men and women at every age is a population average. Men in the registry were measured higher at every decade, and the paper reports the differences as statistically significant. It says nothing about any individual woman's ceiling: a woman in her 20s at the 90th percentile (51.3) scores above the median man her age (48.0).

VO2 max chart by age and gender: how to read it

The percentile tells you what share of tested people your age and sex scored below you. Our plain-English reading of the columns:

Three things to keep in mind:

1. ›The people tested weren't a random sample of everyone. They were adults who had a lab exercise test, at labs that contributed data. A 2022 update from the same registry, using more labs and tests, put its treadmill standards 1.5 to 4.6 mL/kg/min lower than the 2015 values (Kaminsky et al., 2022).
2. ›The machine matters. Cycle tests give lower numbers than treadmill tests. In FRIEND's cycle reference data, the 50th percentile for 20–29-year-olds was 41.9 for men and 31.0 for women (Kaminsky et al., 2017), well below the treadmill medians above. Compare treadmill to treadmill.
3. ›It drops with age. The 2015 paper puts the decline at about 10% per decade (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015), which is exactly why charts are split by decade.

Why VO2 max charts disagree

If you've seen a different chart with different numbers, you're not imagining it. The same FRIEND paper printed its measured values next to an older reference set from the Cooper Clinic, whose VO2 max values were predicted from treadmill test time rather than measured (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015). The medians compare like this:

The predicted values are higher at older ages, which makes older adults look better on a predicted chart than on a measured one. The FRIEND authors' conclusion was that measured reference data allows a more accurate interpretation than standards based on workload estimates. If a chart doesn't say whether its numbers were measured or predicted, or doesn't cite a source at all, be skeptical.

Where does your number come from?

A chart is only as useful as the number you compare to it.

• ›Lab test: a graded treadmill test with gas analysis. This is what the chart above is built from.
• ›Field test: the Cooper test is the classic version: run as far as you can in 12 minutes and estimate VO2 max from distance. It was first checked against treadmill testing in US Air Force men by Cooper (1968). Good for tracking yourself; an estimate, not a measurement.
• ›Your watch: useful for trends, shaky for absolute numbers. In a 2026 study, Apple Watch Series 10 underestimated lab VO2 max by about 6 mL/kg/min on average, with wide limits of agreement, and correctly classified only 5 participants (14%) into their FRIEND percentile band (Lambe et al., 2026).

So if your watch puts you in the 25th percentile, don't panic. And if it puts you in the 95th, don't update your bio just yet.

What to do with your result

The chart tells you where you are. Training decides where you go next.

• ›Low on the chart: good news, this is where VO2 max responds fastest. Consistent easy running plus one harder session a week moves it. The full approach, with the research, is in increase VO2 max explained.
• ›Middle of the chart: add a weekly dose of VO2 max workouts (think 4 × 4 minutes hard) on top of a solid easy base.
• ›High on the chart: the ceiling is already good. More gains usually come from threshold and economy. Threshold runs and steadier sessions, the ones coaches use when they define tempo run workouts, are where most of your racing improvement lives.

Choosing between those sessions each week comes down to tempo run vs interval run: intervals raise the ceiling, tempo and threshold work raise how much of it you can use. And if you'd rather pace by heart rate than by pace, lactate threshold heart rate is the number to anchor your hard sessions to.

How exrsz uses your fitness level

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment, so a runner near the bottom of the chart and one near the top get different sessions. It balances the hard running against your lifting in one plan, adapts each week to how you actually trained, and reshuffles missed sessions rather than piling them up.

FAQ

What is a good VO2 max for my age?

Anything above the 50th percentile for your age and sex is above average. For example, the median in lab-tested US adults was 42.4 mL/kg/min for men and 30.2 for women aged 30–39 (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015).

What does the VO2 max chart for men look like at 40?

For men aged 40–49 in the FRIEND data, the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles were 31.9, 37.8 and 45.0 mL/kg/min, and the 90th percentile was 52.1 (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015).

What does the women's VO2 max chart look like at 40?

For women aged 40–49 in the FRIEND data, the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles were 22.1, 26.7 and 32.4 mL/kg/min, and the 90th percentile was 38.4 (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015).

Why do VO2 max charts give different numbers?

Some use measured lab values and some use values predicted from test time; the test machine (treadmill or bike) and the population tested also differ. Predicted Cooper Clinic values, for example, run higher than measured FRIEND values at older ages (Kaminsky, Arena and Myers, 2015).

Can I use my watch's VO2 max with this chart?

Only loosely. One 2026 study found a popular smartwatch underestimated lab VO2 max by about 6 mL/kg/min on average with wide error (Lambe et al., 2026), so compare your watch with itself over time rather than with a lab-based chart.