VO2 Max by Age: Average, Good, and Elite Scores for Men and Women

VO2 max is the single best lab measure of aerobic fitness: the maximum volume of oxygen your body can use per minute at full effort, scaled to body weight in milliliters per kilogram per minute (ml/kg/min). It tracks endurance performance, it predicts long-term health, and it falls predictably with age. The charts below show what is average, good, and elite for your age and sex, and how to read your own number.

What is a good VO2 max?

A good VO2 max is any value above the average for your age and sex. As a rough guide, a man under 40 wants to clear 45 ml/kg/min and a woman under 40 wants to clear 38 ml/kg/min to sit comfortably above average. Anything in the top 20 percent for your age is "excellent," and trained endurance athletes typically run 55 to 70 or higher. The number only has meaning relative to your age band and sex, because both shift the reference range substantially.

Fitness testing labs and the American College of Sports Medicine group VO2 max into percentile-based categories, usually labeled from "very poor" through "superior." The boundaries below follow the modern US reference standards from the Fitness Registry and the Importance of Exercise National Database (FRIEND), the dataset that underpins current ACSM norm tables (Kaminsky et al., 2015).

Category	Percentile	What it means
Superior	Top 5%	Competitive-athlete territory for your age
Excellent	80th to 95th	Clearly above average, well-trained
Good	60th to 80th	Above the typical person your age
Average	40th to 60th	Median for your age and sex
Fair	20th to 40th	Below median, room to improve
Poor	Bottom 20%	A meaningful health and performance flag

VO2 max chart by age for men

For men, average VO2 max falls from roughly 42 to 50 ml/kg/min in your 20s to roughly 25 to 30 by your 70s. The values below are approximate reference standards for healthy men measured on a treadmill; your exact percentile depends on the testing protocol and the reference dataset.

Age	Poor (below)	Average	Good	Excellent (above)
20 to 29	under 42	42 to 50	51 to 56	57
30 to 39	under 40	40 to 47	48 to 53	54
40 to 49	under 36	36 to 43	44 to 49	50
50 to 59	under 33	33 to 39	40 to 45	46
60 to 69	under 29	29 to 35	36 to 41	42
70 to 79	under 25	25 to 30	31 to 37	38

VO2 max chart by age for women

For women, average VO2 max runs roughly 8 to 12 ml/kg/min below men of the same age across every decade, falling from about 33 to 40 in your 20s to about 20 to 25 by your 70s. As with the men's chart, treat these as approximate reference bands rather than hard cutoffs.

Age	Poor (below)	Average	Good	Excellent (above)
20 to 29	under 33	33 to 40	41 to 46	47
30 to 39	under 31	31 to 37	38 to 43	44
40 to 49	under 28	28 to 34	35 to 40	41
50 to 59	under 25	25 to 31	32 to 36	37
60 to 69	under 22	22 to 28	29 to 33	34
70 to 79	under 20	20 to 25	26 to 31	32

Why VO2 max declines with age

VO2 max falls roughly 10 percent per decade after about age 30 in sedentary adults, and the decline accelerates with each decade, exceeding 20 percent per decade after age 70. The main drivers are a falling maximum heart rate, a reduction in maximal stroke volume, and a gradual loss of muscle mass. A large longitudinal study of healthy adults (Fleg et al., 2005) showed the drop is not linear: it is gentle in the 20s and 30s and steepens sharply in later life.

The encouraging part is that the rate of decline is highly trainable. Masters athletes who keep training at intensity lose VO2 max far more slowly than sedentary peers, often holding values in their 50s and 60s that match untrained people decades younger. The age-related drop is real, but how steep it is depends largely on what you do about it.

Why women's VO2 max is lower than men's

At any given age, the average woman's VO2 max sits roughly 10 to 20 percent below the average man's. The gap is physiological, not a fitness gap: men carry more hemoglobin per liter of blood (more oxygen-carrying capacity), have larger hearts and lungs relative to their size, and have a higher proportion of muscle to fat mass. This is why VO2 max norm tables are always split by sex. A 35 ml/kg/min score is below average for a 30-year-old man but solidly good for a 50-year-old woman.

What does an elite VO2 max look like?

Elite endurance athletes record some of the highest VO2 max values measured in humans: roughly 70 to 85 ml/kg/min for elite male distance runners and cyclists, and 60 to 75 for elite women. The highest values ever recorded, around 90 to 97 ml/kg/min, come from elite cross-country skiers and cyclists, whose sports load both the upper and lower body.

Population	Typical VO2 max (ml/kg/min)
Untrained healthy man, age 30 to 40	40 to 45
Untrained healthy woman, age 30 to 40	33 to 38
Recreational endurance athlete	50 to 60
Competitive amateur	60 to 70
Elite male runner or cyclist	70 to 85
Elite female runner or cyclist	60 to 75
Highest values ever recorded	90 to 97

A high VO2 max is necessary but not sufficient for elite endurance performance. Two athletes with the same VO2 max can race very differently depending on their lactate threshold and running or cycling economy, which is why VO2 max is a ceiling rather than a finishing time.

VO2 max and longevity: why the number matters beyond performance

VO2 max is one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality, stronger than smoking, diabetes, or high blood pressure in some analyses. In a study of more than 120,000 patients (Mandsager et al., 2018), higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with progressively lower mortality, with no observed upper limit of benefit. The least fit group had roughly five times the mortality risk of the elite-fitness group.

This is why VO2 max has moved from a niche athletic metric to a mainstream health marker. Even modest gains matter: moving from the "poor" band up into "fair" or "average" carries a large reduction in risk. The performance benefits are a bonus on top of the health return.

How to measure or estimate your VO2 max

The gold standard is a graded exercise test with a metabolic cart (cardiopulmonary exercise testing) in a lab, where you breathe into a mask while running or cycling to exhaustion. For a free field estimate, the Cooper 12-minute run test (Cooper, 1968) and the 1.5-mile run test both estimate VO2 max from how far or fast you cover a set distance.

Modern GPS watches from Garmin, Apple, Polar, and Coros estimate VO2 max continuously from your heart rate and pace or power. These estimates are usually within 5 to 10 percent of a lab value and, more usefully, are consistent over time, so the trend is reliable even when the absolute number is approximate. To turn the estimate into training, you need your heart rate zones: use the heart rate zone calculator to set them from your age and resting HR, and cyclists can anchor interval power with the FTP calculator.

How to improve your score

A below-average number is not a fixed trait. VO2 max responds to the right training within weeks, and most people can add 15 to 20 percent over a few months of structured work. The single most effective stimulus is high-intensity interval training layered on top of an aerobic base. For the protocols, timeline, and evidence, see the companion guide: how to improve your VO2 max. To build the underlying aerobic engine that interval work sits on, start with the Zone 2 cardio guide.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good VO2 max for my age?

A good VO2 max is anything above the average for your age and sex. For men in their 30s that is roughly 48 ml/kg/min or higher; for women in their 30s, about 38 or higher. The threshold falls by roughly 10 percent per decade, so a "good" score at 50 is a lower number than a "good" score at 30.

What is the average VO2 max by age?

Average values decline steadily with age. For men, average is roughly 40 to 47 ml/kg/min in the 30s; for women, roughly 31 to 37, with both dropping about 10 percent each decade after 30. Sedentary adults sit below these midpoints and trained athletes well above them.

Why does VO2 max decline with age?

Maximum heart rate falls about one beat per year, and the heart's stroke volume and the muscles' oxygen extraction also decline, so the body delivers and uses less oxygen at peak effort. The drop averages about 10 percent per decade after 30, but staying trained roughly halves that rate (Fleg, 2005).

Is a higher VO2 max better for longevity?

Yes. In a study of more than 120,000 adults, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with lower long-term mortality, with no observed ceiling to the benefit (Mandsager, 2018). VO2 max is one of the strongest single predictors of all-cause mortality.

How is VO2 max measured?

The gold standard is a lab cardiopulmonary exercise test with a metabolic cart. Free field estimates include the Cooper 12-minute run and the 1.5-mile run test, and modern GPS watches estimate it continuously, usually within about 5 to 10 percent of a lab value.

Sources

• Kaminsky LA, Arena R, Myers J. Reference Standards for Cardiorespiratory Fitness Measured With Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing: Data From the FRIEND Registry. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015;90(11):1515-1523. doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.07.026
• Fleg JL, Morrell CH, Bos AG, et al. Accelerated Longitudinal Decline of Aerobic Capacity in Healthy Older Adults. Circulation. 2005;112(5):674-682. doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.105.545459
• Mandsager K, Harb S, Cremer P, et al. Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing. JAMA Netw Open. 2018;1(6):e183605. doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605
• Cooper KH. A Means of Assessing Maximal Oxygen Intake: Correlation Between Field and Treadmill Testing. JAMA. 1968;203(3):201-204. doi.org/10.1001/jama.1968.03140030033008
• American College of Sports Medicine. ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, 11th ed. Wolters Kluwer, 2021.