Since the advent of mainstream ventilatory data collection, VO2max, for some reason, has been the quintessential bit of information that makes an endurance athlete feel complete and whole. Granted, knowing that Lance Armstrong’s VO2max is “84” is both as interesting as it is humbling… that’s quite high, for the record. AND, I will admit that the most successful endurance athletes have historically had higher-than-normal VO2max values. However, just about everyone fails to understand that this metric is but one of many key indicators that consolidate the full spectrum of what most physiologists would consider a well-rounded athlete. They place an infinite respect for VO2max and often toss it around like some sort of endurance-related currency. Asking someone’s VO2max, as is the case with asking someone’s annual salary or what he or she scored on the ACT, is just about as common-place nowadays as it is annoying. However, the fact still remains: VO2max is “the” gold-standard that separates those who “will” and those who “might”… but from a training perspective (and I’ve been waiting a long time to say this), VO2max is 100%, totally, and without equivocation, useless.
What to Eat
One of the most interesting attributes, I find, regarding cyclists, triathletes, and runners is that they spend thousands of dollars and countless hours in perfecting and fine-tuning their technique in hopes of capitalizing on the advantage come race day. While it is rather obvious that technology and training are quite important to compete, especially, in the upper echelons of endurance sport, what is not so obvious, and this is said out of shear personal observation, is the level of attention and degree of detail that is paid to nutrition while performing.
Nerd finds niche in athletics
Physiologist and Arkansas native opens laboratory for peak performance.
Benjamin Stone doesn’t quite know what to call himself. At the most essential level, he works with people engaged in athletic activity, motivating them to do better. So you might say he’s a coach.
But he’s also a scientist, one who can analyze the byproducts of metabolic systems to figure out how efficiently a person’s body is working and how that efficiency could be improved to meet a specific goal.
“I call myself a physiologist. That can sound fairly pretentious, but it’s a better description than just ‘coach,’” said Stone. “Yet you can have all the science in the world, but if they’re not motivated, all that training is kinda worthless. You gotta get in their heads.”
