The experiments on Hill and his colleagues involved running in tight circles around an 85-meter grass loop in Hill’s garden (a standard track, in comparison, is 400 meters long) with an air bag strapped to their backs connected to a breathing apparatus to measure their oxygen consumption.19 The faster they ran, the more oxygen they consumed—up to a point. Eventually, they reported, oxygen intake “reaches a maximum beyond which no effort can drive it.”20 Crucially, they could still accelerate to faster speeds; however, their oxygen intake no longer followed. This plateau is your VO2max, a pure
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