What is a good VO2 max for my age?

Median (50th percentile) VO2 max in ml/kg/min. Men: 20–29 48.0, 30–39 42.4, 40–49 37.8, 50–59 32.6, 60–69 28.2, 70+ 24.4. Women: 20–29 37.6, 30–39 30.2, 40–49 26.7, 50–59 23.4, 60–69 20.0, 70+ 18.3. The 50th percentile for your age band is average; the 75th and above is good to excellent.

What is a good VO2 max for a 40 year old?

For men 40-49 the median is 37.8 ml/kg/min, 45.0 at the 75th percentile and 52.1 at the 90th. For women 40-49 the median is 26.7, 32.4 at the 75th and 38.4 at the 90th.

How fast does VO2 max decline with age?

Roughly 10 percent per decade if untrained. Median male VO2 max falls from 48.0 ml/kg/min in the 20s to 24.4 in the 70+ band, and median female from 37.6 to 18.3. Training can roughly halve that rate of decline.

Free Tool

VO2 Max by Age & Sex

Name: VO2 max percentile norms by age and sex (ml/kg/min)
Creator: Cooper Institute

VO2 max may be the single strongest predictor of how long you live — and it falls ~10% per decade if you don't train it. See where you stand against population norms, and what 5 longevity experts agree on.

Norms from the Cooper Institute / ACSM (80,000+ treadmill tests). Not a diagnosis.

What is a good VO2 max for your age?

Half of men in their forties test at 37.8 ml/kg/min or better, and half of women at 26.7. That is the middle of the population, not a goal. The experts on our panel treat roughly 30–31 ml/kg/min as the floor for staying independent in your eighties, and 50–55+ as the range worth training toward. Full table below — it is the same one the calculator scores you against.

Median man, 20s → 70+

48.0 → 24.4

Median woman, 20s → 70+

37.6 → 18.3

About half the number, across fifty years, without training. That decline is the part you can change.

VO2 max percentiles by age and sex

Cooper Institute / ACSM norms, ml/kg/min. Find your age row, then read across to see where a number lands.

Women

Age	5th	10th	25th	50th	75th	90th	95th
20–29	21.7	23.9	30.5	37.6	44.7	51.3	56.0
30–39	19.0	20.9	25.3	30.2	36.1	41.4	45.8
40–49	17.0	18.8	22.1	26.7	32.4	38.4	41.7
50–59	16.0	17.3	19.9	23.4	27.6	32.0	35.9
60–69	13.4	14.6	17.2	20.0	23.8	27.0	29.4
70+	13.1	13.6	15.6	18.3	20.8	23.1	24.1

Men

Age	5th	10th	25th	50th	75th	90th	95th
20–29	29.0	32.1	40.1	48.0	55.2	61.8	66.3
30–39	27.2	30.2	35.9	42.4	49.2	56.5	59.8
40–49	24.2	26.8	31.9	37.8	45.0	52.1	55.6
50–59	20.9	22.8	27.1	32.6	39.7	45.6	50.7
60–69	17.4	19.8	23.7	28.2	34.5	40.3	43.0
70+	16.3	17.1	20.4	24.4	30.4	36.6	39.7

Below 20th Poor 20–40th Fair 40–60th Average 60–80th Good 80–95th Excellent 95th+ Superior

The 70+ row is the oldest published band, so we compare anyone 80 or over against it rather than extrapolating past the data.

Find your exact percentile

Enter your number, or estimate it from a 12-minute test.

Age

Biological sex

How do you want to enter it?

Your VO2 max (ml/kg/min)

Apple Watch, Garmin, Whoop, and Oura all estimate this. Wearable estimates are approximations — fine for tracking your trend.

Your VO2 Max

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ml/kg/min

Percentile

— percentile

What this means for how long you live

The decline is real, and it compounds. —
Where you stand vs the targets. —
Why it matters: across all 5 experts, VO2 max is one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality — the fittest are at far lower risk than the least-fit, with little evidence of a harmful upper limit.

Now

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+10 yrs, untrained

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+20 yrs, untrained

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Projection at the untrained ~10%/decade rate (Attia/Joyner). Training can roughly halve it.

Precis Pro

You know your number. This is how it moves.

Your percentile, the full Cooper table, and the panel's position on VO2 max are free and complete — nothing above is held back.

Pro adds

The 4×4 interval prescription — work length, recovery, and how many sessions a week, as the panel prescribes it
Your weekly Zone 2 to high-intensity split, which is the one thing the five of them actually argue about
The age-banded target for your decade, not the population median
Chat with the corpus: "what should my VO2 max be at 47, and what got the biggest gains?"

$9/mo · Cancel anytime

What 5 experts say about VO2 max

4.6/5 · Universal

All 5 agree VO2 max predicts longevity and can be trained at any age — the only real debate is how much Zone 2 vs high-intensity intervals (the Norwegian 4x4) it takes to raise it.

Read the full VO2 Max consensus report →

Precis Pro

The table tells you where you stand. Pro tells you what to do about it.

The Cooper norms above are the whole table, free — every age band, both sexes, all seven percentiles. What Pro adds is the training side.

Pro adds

The 4×4 interval prescription — work length, recovery, and weekly frequency, as the panel prescribes it
Your Zone 2 to high-intensity split, which is the one thing the five of them actually argue about
The age-banded target for your decade, not the population median
Chat with the corpus, with a timecode behind every answer

$9/mo · Cancel anytime

How this is calculated

Percentiles use the Cooper Institute Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study norms (80,000+ maximal treadmill tests), as published in the ACSM Guidelines (11th ed.), by sex and age decade. Your value is interpolated between the published percentile anchors.
The 12-minute estimate uses the Cooper formula: VO2 max = (distance in meters − 504.9) ÷ 44.73.
Norms top out at the 70+ bracket; for ages under 20 or 80+ we compare to the nearest published bracket and say so.
The longevity framing is grounded in our VO2 Max report — cited + timestamped to the experts. Not medical advice.

Keep going

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