Differences in VO2 max between men and women and also, bad headlines

Here’s a link to the article here.

We shared the Outside article above on our blog’s Facebook page and very quickly some readers followed up with questions.

The article’s sub-header reads, “A new study suggests men and women should address age-related declines in aerobic capacity quite differently” but the question we got was “Can someone tell me how they should address these declines?  I seem to just be missing that in the article.”

Fair point. The article describes differences between men and women but didn’t offer any gender specific training advice.

So I took to Twitter to follow up with the article’s author Alex Hitchinson.

See https://x.com/sweatscience/status/18206219854.

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Sorry for slow reply – just getting back online after travel. Short answer: I don't know (and I don't think anyone else does at this point, though some may claim otherwise!). E.g. it might be that women would benefit from isolated single-limb endurance work rather than full-body.

— Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience) August 6, 2024

So, bad headline but I enjoyed engaging with Alex Hutchinson on the general point. I also liked his conclusion,  base exercise choices on individual responses.

But then I started to wonder about measuring my response to exercise.  Maybe it’s time for some VO2 max testing.  It’s been a while.