Running / 002
VO2max calculator
Estimate VO2max from a 12-minute run, a 1.5-mile run, or your resting pulse — with the equation, the rounding and the assumptions next to the result.
Read the guide: measured averages for every age group, plus Cooper and 1.5-mile lookup tables
Estimated VO2max
CooperMeasured averages by age and sex
Mean ± standard deviation of directly measured VO2max from the HUNT 3 Fitness Study, a reference population of 3,816 healthy Norwegian adults. Exact figures from Table 2 of the paper cited below. These are averages, not grades: roughly two-thirds of that group fell within one standard deviation of the mean for their age and sex.
| Age | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 20–29 | 54.4 ± 8.4 | 43.0 ± 7.7 |
| 30–39 | 49.1 ± 7.5 | 40.0 ± 6.8 |
| 40–49 | 47.2 ± 7.7 | 38.4 ± 6.9 |
| 50–59 | 42.6 ± 7.4 | 34.4 ± 5.7 |
| 60–69 | 39.2 ± 6.7 | 31.1 ± 5.1 |
| 70+ | 35.3 ± 6.5 | 28.3 ± 5.2 |
Source: Loe H, Rognmo Ø, Saltin B, Wisløff U (2013). Aerobic Capacity Reference Data in 3816 Healthy Men and Women 20–90 Years. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64319, Table 2. Open access under CC BY. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064319. This cohort was fitter than North American samples — the authors put the gap at about 20% once body mass is scaled for — so expect to sit lower against this table than against a North American one.
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What VO2max measures
VO2max is the most oxygen your body can take in and use during hard exercise, expressed per kilogram of body mass per minute. It sets a ceiling on sustained aerobic work: two runners with the same technique and the same pacing discipline will be separated by it over anything longer than a few minutes. A laboratory measures it directly, by collecting expired air while the workload climbs until oxygen uptake stops rising.
Field tests do not measure it. They measure something simpler — how far you ran in 12 minutes, how long 1.5 miles took, how fast your heart beats at rest — and convert that into a VO2 max estimate using a relationship fitted to people who did both the field test and the lab test. The conversion is where the error lives, and it is why two methods applied to the same person on the same day will rarely agree exactly.
The three formulas, written out
Cooper 12-minute run. VO2max = (distance in meters − 504.9) ÷ 44.73. Run 2,400 m in twelve minutes and that gives (2400 − 504.9) ÷ 44.73 = 42.4 ml/kg/min. The equation assumes a flat, measured course and even pacing; starting too fast and fading will produce a shorter distance and a lower estimate than your fitness deserves.
1.5-mile run test. VO2max = 3.5 + 483 ÷ time in minutes. Cover the distance in 12:00 and that is 3.5 + 483 ÷ 12 = 43.8 ml/kg/min. Seconds are converted to a decimal fraction of a minute before dividing, so 12:30 is treated as 12.5, not 12.3.
Uth–Sørensen resting heart rate. VO2max = 15.3 × maximum heart rate ÷ resting heart rate. With no measured maximum, this page estimates it from age using Tanaka's equation, 208 − 0.7 × age. A 40-year-old with a resting pulse of 60 gets an estimated maximum of 180, and 15.3 × 180 ÷ 60 = 45.9 ml/kg/min. Every result is rounded to one decimal place for display, after the arithmetic is done at full precision.
The resting heart rate method carries the widest error of the three. It was derived in a group of trained men, it assumes your resting pulse was measured properly — lying still, on waking, not after coffee or a broken night — and it inherits whatever error the age-based maximum carries, which for any individual can be off by more than ten beats.
Reading the reference table
The table above is not a scoring rubric. It is the measured mean and standard deviation for each age band in one published cohort, reproduced exactly as the paper reports it. Comparing your estimate to the mean for your age and sex tells you roughly where you sit in that group, and the standard deviation tells you how spread out the group was: about two-thirds of people fell within one of them either side of the mean.
Two cautions. The cohort is Norwegian and was fitter than North American reference samples, so the same number will look worse here than against a domestic table. And your figure is an estimate from a field test while theirs were measured directly in a lab, so you are not comparing like with like. The comparison is for orientation, not for a verdict.
This page applies published equations to the numbers you enter. It does not know your health history, your medication, or whether a maximal effort is safe for you today. Nothing here is medical advice or a fitness assessment, and an estimated VO2max is not a diagnosis. Speak to a doctor before attempting a maximal test, and particularly if you have a heart or lung condition, are pregnant, are returning from illness, or have been inactive for a long time.
Common questions
Which VO2max test should I use?
Pick the one matching the effort you can actually do safely. The Cooper 12-minute run needs a measured track and a hard, evenly paced 12 minutes. The 1.5-mile run test needs the same willingness to push but a fixed distance instead of a fixed time. The resting heart rate method needs no running at all, which makes it the only option if a maximal effort is a bad idea for you — but it is also the roughest of the three, because it infers aerobic capacity from two heart rates rather than measuring work done.
How accurate is an estimated VO2max?
Treat it as a band, not a figure. A lab test measures the oxygen you actually consume; these formulas infer it from a distance, a time or a pulse, using a curve fitted to other people. Pacing, terrain, heat, altitude, sleep and motivation all move the result without your fitness changing at all. The number is most useful compared against your own previous result on the same test, run the same way.
What is a good VO2max?
It depends on your age and sex, and the honest answer is that any single threshold is arbitrary. The table on this page gives measured averages from a published reference population so you can see where your number sits relative to people of the same age and sex. Being below the mean is not a diagnosis, and being above it is not a clean bill of health.
Why is the reference table Norwegian?
Because it is open data that can be reproduced in full and checked against the original paper. The widely quoted category tables are licensed and cannot be republished here, and approximating them would mean inventing numbers. The trade-off is that this cohort was fitter than North American samples — the authors put the gap at roughly 20% once body mass is scaled for — so a North American reader should expect to sit lower against this table than against a domestic one.
Can I raise my VO2max?
For most people, yes, and the untrained improve fastest. Aerobic capacity responds to regular endurance work, with interval training at hard efforts and sustained easy volume both contributing. How much it moves is partly genetic: studies of identical training programs find large differences in how much individuals gain. Age lowers the ceiling gradually but training still raises it from wherever you are.