VO2 Max by Age: Charts for Men & Women + What You Need at 80, 90 and 100

VO₂ max chart for men by age

VO₂ max of men in ml/kg/min by percentile (50th = median, in bold). Source: FRIEND 2015, Table 3.
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
70–79	16.3	17.1	20.4	24.4	30.4	36.6	39.7

VO₂ max chart for women by age

VO₂ max of women in ml/kg/min by percentile (50th = median, in bold). Source: FRIEND 2015, Table 3.
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
70–79	13.1	13.6	15.6	18.3	20.8	23.1	24.1

How to read it: each row is an age group, each column a percentile. The 75th percentile means 75% of people in that group measured lower and 25% higher. The values come from lab treadmill tests of adults without known heart disease in the USA (FRIEND registry). A 2022 update of FRIEND reports values 1.5–4.6 ml/kg/min lower (according to its abstract), so these 2015 tables may run slightly high for today's population. The source gives no values under 20 or over 79.

Three levels: what your number means for daily life

Level	What it means	Value	Source
1. Floor for independent living	Below this, losing independence becomes likely: everyday tasks such as shopping, stairs and cleaning get hard without help.	Men ≈ 18, women ≈ 15 ml/kg/min	Paterson 1999; Shephard 2009
2. Typical for your age	The median (50th percentile) for your age group and sex.	E.g. men 70–79: 24.4; women 70–79: 18.3	FRIEND 2015
3. Functionally younger (estimate)	Your value is at or above the median of a group 10 or 20 years younger.	E.g. a man aged 60–69 with 37.8 or more matches the median of men 40–49	Our reading of the FRIEND table

Level 1 comes from Paterson and colleagues, who tested 298 independently living people aged 55–86 on a treadmill and estimated the minimum aerobic power compatible with an independent life at 85. Shephard reached the same thresholds and notes that a sedentary person typically reaches them between 80 and 85.

How much VO₂ max do you need now to stay independent at 100?

This is our estimate: the floor (level 1) plus the average yearly decline Paterson measured at ages 55–86 (0.31 ml/kg/min per year for men, 0.25 for women), multiplied by the years left to 100.

Estimated VO₂ max needed now (ml/kg/min) to still be above the floor at 100. Formula: floor + yearly decline × (100 − age).
Your age	Men	Women
60	30.4	25.0
65	28.9	23.8
70	27.3	22.5
75	25.8	21.3
80	24.2	20.0
85	22.7	18.8
90	21.1	17.5

Compare with FRIEND for ages 70–79: men have a median of 24.4 and a 75th percentile of 30.4; women have a median of 18.3, a 75th percentile of 20.8 and a 90th percentile of 23.1. So a 70-year-old man would need roughly between the median and the 75th percentile, and a 70-year-old woman roughly between the 75th and 90th percentile.

Read this as a rough guide, not a forecast. The model is a straight line. Paterson only measured up to 86, and his decline rates come from comparing different people of different ages. A long-term study that followed the same people (Fleg 2005) found that the decline speeds up with age, to more than 20% per 10 years in the 70s and beyond. If that applies to you, you would need more than the table shows. On the other hand, training can raise the number even very late: Robert Marchand went from 31 to 35 ml/kg/min between 101 and 103 (Billat 2017) — one case, not a rule.

VO₂ max, lifespan and biological age

Large studies link higher fitness with lower risk. These are associations, not proof that fitness alone causes the difference.

Mandsager 2018 (122,007 patients after a treadmill test): people in the lowest fitness group (below the 25th percentile) had 5.04 times the all-cause mortality risk of the elite group (97.7th percentile or higher; 95% CI 4.10–6.20). Below average versus above average: 1.41 — similar to smoking (1.41) and diabetes (1.40) and higher than coronary artery disease (1.29) in the same study. Even at 70 and older, elite fitness was associated with lower risk than high fitness (HR 0.71).
Kokkinos 2022 (750,302 US veterans aged 30–95): the least fit (20th percentile) had 4.09 times the risk of the extremely fit. Risk was lowest at about 14 METs (about 49 ml/kg/min, using 1 MET ≈ 3.5 ml/kg/min), with no increase in risk at very high fitness.
Nes 2014 (37,112 healthy Norwegians in the HUNT study, 24 years of follow-up): each 1 MET higher estimated fitness was associated with 21% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, and 15% (men) / 8% (women) lower all-cause mortality, in people under 60 at the start.
Shephard 2009, in a review, judges that regular aerobic exercise can lower a person's biological age by 10 years or more and may delay the need for care by 10–20 years. That is his assessment, not a measured result.

Want a single “fitness age”? Use the fitness calculator from NTNU (the group behind the HUNT studies), or estimate your biological age on bioage.io. We do not build our own fitness-age formula. More on the evidence: VO₂ max and longevity.

Estimate your VO₂ max How to improve it

FAQ

What is a good VO₂ max for my age?

It depends on your age and sex. In the FRIEND registry (lab treadmill tests, USA), the median was 48.0 ml/kg/min for men aged 20–29, 37.8 for men 40–49 and 24.4 for men 70–79. For women it was 37.6 (20–29), 26.7 (40–49) and 18.3 (70–79). A value above the median is above half of the people in that group. The source gives percentiles, not labels such as “good” or “excellent”.

How much VO₂ max do you need to live independently?

Paterson and colleagues (1999) estimated that the minimum compatible with an independent life at 85 is about 18 ml/kg/min for men and 15 for women. Shephard (2009) describes the same thresholds: below them, losing independence becomes likely.

Does VO₂ max decline with age?

Yes. In people aged 55–86, Paterson (1999) measured an average drop of 0.31 ml/kg/min per year in men and 0.25 in women. Shephard (2009) puts the adult decline at about 5 ml/kg/min per decade. A long-term study by Fleg (2005) found that the decline speeds up with each decade, to more than 20% per 10 years in people in their 70s and older.

Can you raise VO₂ max after 60 or 70?

Yes, in many people. Shephard (2009) estimates that regular aerobic training can raise VO₂ max by 5–10 ml/kg/min. One documented case: French cyclist Robert Marchand raised his VO₂ max from 31 to 35 ml/kg/min between ages 101 and 103 after two years of training (Billat 2017). That is one person, not a promise.

Is my watch VO₂ max the same as these tables?

Not exactly. The FRIEND values were measured in labs with gas analysis on a treadmill. Watches and field tests estimate VO₂ max and can be off by several points, so compare roughly.

Sources

Kaminsky LA, Arena R, Myers J. Reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness measured with cardiopulmonary exercise testing: data from the Fitness Registry and the Importance of Exercise National Database. Mayo Clin Proc 2015;90(11):1515–1523, Table 3. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.07.026 (free: PMC4919021)
Kaminsky LA, Arena R, Myers J, et al. Updated reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness measured with cardiopulmonary exercise testing: data from FRIEND. Mayo Clin Proc 2022;97(2):285–293. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2021.08.020
Paterson DH, Cunningham DA, Koval JJ, St Croix CM. Aerobic fitness in a population of independently living men and women aged 55–86 years. Med Sci Sports Exerc 1999;31(12):1813–1820. doi:10.1097/00005768-199912000-00018
Shephard RJ. Maximal oxygen intake and independence in old age. Br J Sports Med 2009;43(5):342–346. doi:10.1136/bjsm.2007.044800
Shephard RJ. Independence: a new reason for recommending regular exercise to your patients. Phys Sportsmed 2009;37(1):115–118. doi:10.3810/psm.2009.04.1691
Fleg JL, Morrell CH, Bos AG, et al. Accelerated longitudinal decline of aerobic capacity in healthy older adults. Circulation 2005;112(5):674–682. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.105.545459
Billat V, Dhonneur G, Mille-Hamard L, et al. Case studies in physiology: maximal oxygen consumption and performance in a centenarian cyclist. J Appl Physiol 2017;122(3):430–434. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00569.2016
Mandsager K, Harb S, Cremer P, Phelan D, Nissen SE, Jaber W. Association of cardiorespiratory fitness with long-term mortality among adults undergoing exercise treadmill testing. JAMA Netw Open 2018;1(6):e183605. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605
Kokkinos P, Faselis C, Samuel IBH, et al. Cardiorespiratory fitness and mortality risk across the spectra of age, race, and sex. J Am Coll Cardiol 2022;80(6):598–609. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2022.05.031
Nes BM, Vatten LJ, Nauman J, Janszky I, Wisløff U. A simple nonexercise model of cardiorespiratory fitness predicts long-term mortality. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2014;46(6):1159–1165. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000000219

Last updated: October 17, 2026. Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above; no personal experiences are described.