VO₂ Max Testing and Training
For the people who do not care about the scale: runners, cyclists, surfers, and anyone who wants their numbers up. A baseline VO₂ test sets your real zones, and eight weeks of structured intervals train to them.
Booking starts with a complimentary call. We schedule your test block from there.
The size of your engine
VO₂ max is the maximum rate your body can take in and use oxygen. It is the standard measure of aerobic fitness, it responds to the right training, and unlike most things people chase in a gym year, it is a single number you can watch move. Guessing it from your age is free. Measuring it is the difference between training near your ceiling and training near somebody else's.
The full panel, VO₂ up front
On this program the VO₂ test is the headline: it sets your zones on day one and delivers the verdict at week eight. The RMR test and the scan run alongside it, because the engine and the chassis are one body.
What your body burns at rest
Measured from your breath on the KORR metabolic analyzer, not estimated from an age and weight formula. This is the number that proves your metabolism held or climbed while the weight moved.
Your engine and your real training zones
A graded test that measures how much oxygen your body can actually use, and the personal heart rate zones that fall out of it. Every coached minute of the program runs on these zones.
What actually changed shape
You stand on the turntable, the scanner captures your body in 3D, and the software tracks composition and measurements between scans. The scale gives you one number. This shows you the change.
Booked on its own, all three tests together cost$320. You get the full panel twice, at week 0 and week 8, plus the week 4 scan. All of it is already in the program price.
Nothing extra to payBaseline
All three markers before anything else, so week one starts from data.
Midpoint
A Styku re-scan. Quick, and it lands: you see the change while it is happening instead of taking it on faith.
Endpoint
This is the proof the program is named for.
Eight weeks between test and retest
Interval work only pays when it lands in the right zone at the right dose. The block is built so every hard minute has an address.
Baseline Test
A graded VO₂ test finds your ceiling and, more usefully, the personal heart rate zones under it. RMR and a Styku scan round out the panel while you are here.
Build
Interval and threshold work programmed to your measured zones, two coached semi-private sessions a week, heart rate live on the screen. Your easy aerobic volume stays where it already lives, on your own runs and rides, now in zones you know for sure.
Midpoint Check
The Styku re-scan plus a read on your session data. If the intervals have stopped being hard at the prescribed heart rates, the targets move up. That drift is the adaptation showing.
Push
The work compresses: harder intervals, tighter recoveries, all still anchored to your zones rather than to feel.
Retest
The same graded test on the same equipment. The number either climbed or it did not, and you leave with the printout either way. That is the point.
Semi-private, capped and coached
Coached sessions on this program are interval days: HIIT and threshold work at your measured zones, with the recoveries policed as carefully as the efforts.
Three seats, always coached
Sessions cap at three people, each on their own zone targets. You get the attention of private coaching with the energy of a shared floor.
Live heart rate, real zones
You train in a heart rate monitor and your zones from the baseline test are on the screen. When a minute drifts out of zone, we both see it and fix it.
Three people make a class
Blocks run at standing weekly times, and seats pool across my metabolic programs: a fat-loss client and a VO₂ client can share the floor, each on their own numbers.
At Mavericks Fitness
The whole program runs at Mavericks Fitness, a fully equipped private fitness studio in Santa Cruz. The room, the equipment, and the testing gear in one place.
A documented climb, and the literacy to keep climbing
You leave with a before and after VO₂ readout measured on the same equipment, which is rare enough to mean something, and with eight weeks of practice reading your own zones. That zone literacy transfers to every ride, run, and paddle-out after the program ends.
One package, retest included
Booked piece by piece, the testing and sixteen coached sessions add up to about $2,260. The program wraps all of it into one price for the full eight week block.
8 weeks · test and retest · 16 coached sessions
VO₂ max, in plain terms
What is VO₂ max and why does it matter?
VO₂ max is the maximum rate at which your body can take in and use oxygen, usually expressed in milliliters per kilogram of bodyweight per minute. Higher aerobic capacity shows up everywhere you care about, from race pace to how you feel on the third flight of stairs.
How do you improve VO₂ max?
You improve VO₂ max with repeated interval work near your ceiling, balanced against easier aerobic volume, done consistently for weeks. The catch is knowing where your ceiling actually is. Training zones guessed from an age formula miss it; a measured test puts your intervals exactly where the adaptation happens.
How long does it take to raise VO₂ max?
With structured zone-based intervals, meaningful movement typically shows inside a couple of months, which is why this program runs as an eight week block with a retest at the end. How far the number moves depends on your starting point. Newer trainees tend to move faster; well-trained athletes fight for every point.
What is a good VO₂ max for my age?
Norms vary by age and sex, and published tables will happily rank you against the population. The more useful comparison is you against you: your test reports where you stand, and the retest reports which direction you are moving. That second number is the one you can actually train.
What happens during a VO₂ max test?
You wear a mask that measures your breathing while the effort ramps up in stages until you reach your limit, usually within a short, hard finish. The data gives your ceiling and the ventilation points below it, which become your training zones. You will work, but you will also finally know instead of estimate.
When do sessions run?
At standing weekly times: you hold two blocks a week for the eight weeks. A block can mix programs, with a Metabolic Reset client on fat-burn zones next to you on intervals, since everyone trains to their own numbers. If nothing on the current calendar fits, book the consult and name your windows: three people wanting the same time opens a new class.
Get a number worth chasing
One graded test tells you your ceiling and your zones. Eight weeks later the retest tells you what the work did. Between the two is the most honest training block you will ever run.
8 weeks · baseline and retest included
See the Metabolic ResetBooking starts with a complimentary call. We schedule your assessment block from there.
The builder runs on the same engine as everything else in the studio. Start with the test, and these are the rooms next door.