What is a good VO2 max for my age?

Published reference standards place a typical man aged 40 to 49 at roughly 32 to 38 ml/kg/min and a typical woman of the same age at roughly 26 to 31 ml/kg/min, with well-trained individuals measuring considerably higher. The tables on this page set out bands by age and sex. They are reference ranges for context, not diagnostic thresholds, and your doctor reads your figure alongside your history and body composition.

Is a VO2 max test safe?

The test is supervised by our clinical team and is stopped at any point you ask. We screen your medical history first, and the effort is built up gradually rather than started at maximum. If you have a known cardiac condition, tell us beforehand so the doctor can decide whether the test is appropriate for you.

How accurate is the VO2 max estimate on my smartwatch?

A watch estimates VO2 max from heart rate and pace using a general model, and validation studies of wrist-worn devices report individual errors of several ml/kg/min in either direction against laboratory gas analysis. A watch is useful for tracking your own trend. It is not a sound basis for setting training zones or for comparing yourself against clinical reference data.

Do you use a treadmill or a bike?

The test is usually performed on a cycle ergometer, which keeps the breathing mask stable and makes the workload easy to quantify in watts. A treadmill can be used where it suits you better. Whichever is used, we repeat future tests on the same equipment so the comparison stays fair.

How long does the appointment take?

Allow about 45 minutes: medical screening and setup, the graded protocol to your own limit, then supervised recovery. The maximal portion itself is usually 8 to 12 minutes.

Am I too old or too unfit for a VO2 max test?

The protocol starts easy and increases in stages, so it adapts to your current capacity, and the test ends when you reach your own limit. Older and less active patients are tested routinely. Your medical history is screened first, and the doctor will say if a different assessment suits you better.

How often should I retest?

A repeat measurement after about twelve weeks of consistent training will usually show whether your programme is working. Where the test forms part of an annual longevity review, once a year is enough to follow the trajectory. What matters is measuring the same way each time.

How should I prepare?

Wear clothing and shoes you can exercise in, avoid a heavy meal in the three hours beforehand, skip caffeine on the morning of the test and avoid hard training the day before. Tell us about any medication, particularly beta blockers, which change your heart-rate response. Your concierge sends the exact instructions before your appointment.

What does the report include?

Your peak oxygen uptake in ml/kg/min and in METs, your ventilatory thresholds, heart-rate and power training zones built from those thresholds, your figure placed against age and sex reference bands, and the doctor's written interpretation.

Can I use MediSave or insurance at Hisential?

Fees are private and payable in full at the visit. MediSave, CHAS and Healthier SG subsidies do not apply. Some insurance plans cover consultations and investigations on a reimbursement basis: you pay the clinic and claim back from your insurer afterwards. The concierge provides the documentation you need and helps with the claim paperwork. Instalment payment is available: ask the concierge about the options before your visit.

How much does VO2 max testing cost?

Pricing is provided by your personal concierge before you book, with the full cost confirmed up front. The test is also included within The Helios and The Orion longevity tiers and within the Performance Max Bundle. There are no charges for tests you did not approve.

Longevity & Performance · Orchard, Singapore

VO2 Max Testing in Singapore

A doctor-supervised cardiopulmonary exercise test at Hisential Orchard. Your maximum oxygen uptake is measured breath by breath on a metabolic analyser rather than estimated by a watch, then reported with your ventilatory thresholds, training zones and your figure placed against published reference ranges for your age and sex.

Speak to Concierge for Pricing

Verified by Dr. Anthony Stanislaus, MBBS, PBM, Cert. Men's Health · Last reviewed 12 August 2026 · Next review 12 February 2027

Looking for metabolism rather than fitness? See resting metabolic rate testing, or compare both tests side by side.

What VO2 max testing measures

VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use during activity, expressed in millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. It reflects the whole chain: your lungs taking oxygen in, your heart moving it, your blood carrying it, and your muscles using it. It is the standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness.

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing measures that chain directly rather than inferring it, which is why professional bodies treat it as the reference method for assessing exercise capacity.^[7]

Alongside the peak figure, the test identifies your ventilatory thresholds: the workloads at which your breathing pattern shifts as you move from mostly aerobic work to harder efforts. Those thresholds are what training zones are properly built from.

How it is done

You exercise on a cycle ergometer, or a treadmill where that suits you better, with the workload increasing in stages.
A breathing mask connected to a metabolic analyser tracks the oxygen you take in and the carbon dioxide you breathe out, breath by breath.
Heart rate is monitored throughout and the clinical team supervises the whole test, stopping at any point you ask.
A doctor reviews the data and writes it up as a plain-language report with your peak figure, thresholds and heart-rate zones.

Why VO2 max matters for healthspan

Healthspan is the number of years you spend in good functional health. Aerobic capacity is one of the few markers that speaks to that directly: it sets the ceiling on what your body can do in a day, and it is the reserve you draw on during illness, surgery and recovery.

In a cohort of 122,007 adults who underwent exercise testing at the Cleveland Clinic, higher measured fitness was associated with lower all-cause mortality across every group examined, and the association continued into the highest fitness category with no observed ceiling. The risk associated with being in the least fit group was of a magnitude comparable to established clinical risk factors.^[1]

A meta-analysis of 33 studies covering more than 100,000 participants found that each one-MET increase in measured fitness, roughly 3.5 ml/kg/min, was associated with a 13 per cent lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 15 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular events.^[2] That is why a small measured improvement is worth tracking.

In 2016 the American Heart Association published a scientific statement arguing that cardiorespiratory fitness should be assessed in clinical practice as a vital sign, on the basis that it carries prognostic information standard risk factors alone do not.^[3]

These findings describe associations observed across large populations. They are not a prediction about any individual, and testing does not by itself change your risk. What a measurement gives you is a starting point and a way to see whether what you do next moves it.

1 MET

About 3.5 ml/kg/min. Each one-MET increase in measured fitness was associated with a 13 per cent lower all-cause mortality risk in pooled cohort data.^[2]

122,007

Adults in the Cleveland Clinic cohort where higher measured fitness tracked with lower mortality, with benefit continuing at the highest levels of fitness.^[1]

Vital sign

The American Heart Association position is that cardiorespiratory fitness should be measured in clinical practice, alongside blood pressure and lipids.^[3]

VO2 max reference ranges by age

The bands below give typical values in ml/kg/min, adapted from published reference standards for cardiopulmonary exercise testing.^[4] They are context for reading your own figure, not diagnostic thresholds. Your doctor interprets your result alongside your body composition, training history and medical background.

Men: VO2 max in ml/kg/min
Age	Below average	Average	Above average	High
20 to 29	Below 38	38 to 44	45 to 51	52 and above
30 to 39	Below 35	35 to 41	42 to 48	49 and above
40 to 49	Below 32	32 to 38	39 to 44	45 and above
50 to 59	Below 28	28 to 34	35 to 40	41 and above
60 to 69	Below 24	24 to 29	30 to 35	36 and above
70 and above	Below 21	21 to 25	26 to 31	32 and above

Women: VO2 max in ml/kg/min
Age	Below average	Average	Above average	High
20 to 29	Below 31	31 to 36	37 to 42	43 and above
30 to 39	Below 29	29 to 34	35 to 40	41 and above
40 to 49	Below 26	26 to 31	32 to 37	38 and above
50 to 59	Below 23	23 to 27	28 to 32	33 and above
60 to 69	Below 20	20 to 24	25 to 29	30 and above
70 and above	Below 18	18 to 21	22 to 26	27 and above

Reading the number in METs

One MET is the oxygen cost of sitting quietly, about 3.5 ml/kg/min. Dividing your VO2 max by 3.5 gives your capacity in METs, which is the unit most clinical research uses. A VO2 max of 35 ml/kg/min is 10 METs. Moving from 10 to 11 METs is the one-MET change associated with meaningfully lower risk in pooled cohort data, and for most people it is an achievable target over a training block rather than a lifetime goal.^[2]

Age-related decline and what changes it

Aerobic capacity falls with age. Longitudinal data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging found the rate of decline is not steady: it accelerates from roughly 3 to 6 per cent per decade in the twenties and thirties to more than 20 per cent per decade after the age of 70, in both men and women, and the acceleration was seen in habitually active participants as well as sedentary ones.^[5]

The practical consequence is that the level you build in mid-life sets how much functional reserve you carry into later decades. Two people of the same age can sit twenty years apart in measured capacity.

None of this can be read from a formula. A measured baseline now, repeated on the same equipment and protocol later, is the only way to see which direction your own curve is travelling.

What a repeat test shows

Whether your peak oxygen uptake has moved, and by how much in ml/kg/min and METs.
Whether your ventilatory thresholds have shifted, which often changes before the peak figure does.
Whether your heart rate at a given workload has come down, a sign of improved efficiency.
Whether a change in body weight or lean mass explains part of the movement in your figure.

Reading your VO2 max report

Peak oxygen uptake

Your headline figure in ml/kg/min and in METs, with the absolute value in litres per minute alongside it. The per-kilogram figure moves when your weight moves, so both are reported.

Ventilatory thresholds

The first threshold marks the ceiling of comfortable aerobic work. The second marks the point where hard effort can only be held briefly. Your zones are set from these, not from 220 minus age.

Heart rate and power zones

Practical training ranges in beats per minute and in watts, so easy sessions stay genuinely easy and hard intervals are hard enough to drive adaptation.

Respiratory exchange ratio

A quality marker confirming you reached a genuine maximal effort, which is what makes the figure comparable with reference data and with your own future tests.

Efficiency at submaximal loads

Your heart rate and oxygen cost at fixed workloads. These often improve before the peak figure does, so they are the earliest sign that training is working.

Doctor's interpretation

A plain-language summary placing your figure against age and sex reference bands, read together with your bloods, body composition and history.

How to move the number

Cardiorespiratory fitness responds to structured aerobic training in most people, though the size of the response varies widely between individuals in published training studies.^[8] We do not promise a figure. What testing gives you is a way to see your own response rather than an average one, and the levers below are the ones your doctor will discuss with you.

Aerobic base volume

Regular sessions held below your first ventilatory threshold, where conversation stays possible. This is the volume most people are short of, and the zone your report defines precisely.

Higher-intensity intervals

A smaller weekly dose of work near your second threshold. Interval training features in most protocols that produce measurable gains in aerobic capacity.

Body composition

Because VO2 max is expressed per kilogram, changes in fat and lean mass move the figure independently of your heart and lungs. Body composition is read alongside it.

Iron and haemoglobin status

Oxygen carrying capacity depends on your blood. Low ferritin or haemoglobin can hold the figure down, which is why bloods are reviewed with your result.

Sleep and recovery

Training adaptation happens between sessions. Poor sleep and unmanaged stress blunt the response to an otherwise sound programme.

Consistency over months

Meaningful change in aerobic capacity is measured over training blocks of eight to twelve weeks or longer, not week to week.

Who VO2 max testing is for

People who train regularly and want a measured fitness baseline rather than a watch estimate.
Anyone starting structured exercise who wants training zones set from their own thresholds.
Endurance athletes preparing for an event who need workload targets in watts and beats per minute.
Patients in their forties and beyond who want to know how much functional reserve they carry.
People being reviewed for breathlessness or unexplained fatigue, as part of a wider work-up.
Anyone taking a longevity screening package that includes physical function testing.

Test-day protocol and preparation

Before your test

No hard training in the 24 hours beforehand, and no alcohol the night before.
No heavy meal in the three hours before the test. A light snack two hours prior is fine.
No caffeine on the morning of the test, as it alters heart rate at a given workload.
Bring exercise clothing and shoes. Cycling shoes are welcome if you use them.
Tell us about any medication, particularly beta blockers, which change your heart-rate response.

On the day

Medical screening, resting heart rate and blood pressure, then mask fitting and calibration.
An easy warm-up, followed by a graded protocol where the workload steps up every one to two minutes.
The maximal portion usually lasts 8 to 12 minutes and ends at your own limit.
Supervised active recovery with continued monitoring until your heart rate settles.
Allow about 45 minutes in the clinic in total.

Safety screening and when we do not proceed

Every patient is screened before a maximal test. Where there is unstable cardiac disease, uncontrolled blood pressure, an acute illness or another condition that makes maximal effort unsuitable, the doctor will postpone the test or recommend a submaximal alternative. Testing follows established cardiopulmonary exercise testing practice, with monitoring throughout and clear stopping criteria.^[7]

What the test does not tell you

It is not a cardiac diagnostic. A VO2 max test is not a substitute for a diagnostic stress test, echocardiogram or coronary imaging where those are clinically indicated.
It does not measure strength, muscle mass or bone density. Those are assessed separately through body composition and grip strength.
A single figure is a snapshot. Illness, poor sleep, heat and recent hard training can all pull a result down on the day.
It is expressed per kilogram of body weight, so weight change alone can move the number without any change in your heart or lungs.
It does not predict what will happen to you as an individual. Population associations are context, not prognosis.
Results are only comparable when repeated on the same equipment and protocol, which is why retesting is done here rather than elsewhere.

How to book

VO2 max testing can be booked on its own, or as part of The Helios and The Orion longevity tiers and the Performance Max Bundle. Pricing is provided by your personal concierge before you book, with the full cost confirmed up front.