VO₂ Max by Age and Gender: What's Actually a Good Score at 30, 40, 50, and 60+

You Googled your VO₂ Max score. You found a chart. You landed on a word like "fair" or "below average." And now you're either discouraged, confused, or hunting for a second opinion.

We see this constantly at Mavericks. Someone comes in after a smartwatch estimate or a gym-based test, and the first thing they want to know is whether their number is good or bad. We get why that matters. But the honest answer is that the question itself is incomplete, and the standard charts most people find online are doing more harm than good.

This article gives you the charts. The real ones, based on the best available population data. But we're also going to give you what those charts always leave out: context. Because a VO₂ Max of 34 means something very different depending on whether it's going up or going down.

Where the benchmark data actually comes from

Most VO₂ Max classification charts trace back to a handful of sources. The one that dominates the research landscape right now is the FRIEND registry (Fitness Registry and the Importance of Exercise: A National Database). It's a pooled dataset of cardiopulmonary exercise tests from multiple labs across the United States, representing tens of thousands of adults tested under clinical-grade conditions.

This matters because a lot of the charts floating around the internet pull from outdated norms, small sample sizes, or populations that don't reflect the general public. The FRIEND data is large, recent, and based on actual maximal exercise testing, not estimations from submaximal protocols or wearable devices.

That said, even the FRIEND data has limitations. The people who show up for exercise testing in a research lab or clinical setting are not a random sample of the population. They skew healthier. They skew more active. They skew toward people who have access to healthcare and the motivation to get tested. The "average" in these tables is really the average of people who got tested, which is a very different thing from the average of everyone walking around out there.

Keep that in mind as you read the numbers below.

VO₂ Max charts by age and sex

The following tables show VO₂ Max values (in mL/kg/min) broken into percentile-based categories by age group. These are drawn from FRIEND registry norms and widely cited exercise physiology references. We use six categories rather than the typical five because the spread matters, especially at the tails.

Men: VO₂ Max by age (mL/kg/min)

| Category | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70+ | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Superior (top 5%) | 55+ | 52+ | 50+ | 45+ | 41+ | 37+ | | Excellent (top 20%) | 47-54 | 45-51 | 42-49 | 39-44 | 35-40 | 31-36 | | Good (top 40%) | 42-46 | 40-44 | 37-41 | 35-38 | 31-34 | 27-30 | | Fair (middle) | 37-41 | 35-39 | 33-36 | 31-34 | 27-30 | 23-26 | | Below Average (bottom 30%) | 30-36 | 29-34 | 27-32 | 26-30 | 22-26 | 19-22 | | Poor (bottom 10%) | <30 | <29 | <27 | <26 | <22 | <19 |

Women: VO₂ Max by age (mL/kg/min)

| Category | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70+ | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Superior (top 5%) | 50+ | 46+ | 43+ | 39+ | 36+ | 32+ | | Excellent (top 20%) | 42-49 | 39-45 | 36-42 | 33-38 | 30-35 | 27-31 | | Good (top 40%) | 37-41 | 34-38 | 32-35 | 29-32 | 26-29 | 23-26 | | Fair (middle) | 32-36 | 30-33 | 28-31 | 26-28 | 23-25 | 20-22 | | Below Average (bottom 30%) | 26-31 | 25-29 | 23-27 | 22-25 | 19-22 | 17-19 | | Poor (bottom 10%) | <26 | <25 | <23 | <22 | <19 | <17 |

There they are. If you came here just for the numbers, you have them. But if you stop here, you're making the same mistake everyone makes.

What these labels actually mean (and don't mean)

The word "poor" in a VO₂ Max chart is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It tells a 45-year-old man that his 27 mL/kg/min puts him in the bottom tier for his age group. What it doesn't tell him is that he just started training eight months ago, that he's up from a 22, and that at his current rate of improvement he'll be in the "good" range within a year.

Labels like "good," "fair," and "poor" are designed for population-level classification. They're useful for researchers comparing groups. They're useful for physicians screening for cardiovascular risk. They are not useful, on their own, for telling an individual person whether they're doing well.

Here at Mavericks, we use these benchmarks as navigation tools. They tell you where you are on the map. But a dot on a map doesn't tell you which direction you're heading or how fast you're moving. For that, you need something else entirely.

The decline curve and why it's not destiny

VO₂ Max declines with age. That's well established. The general estimate is about 7 to 10 percent per decade after age 30 in sedentary individuals, driven by decreases in maximum heart rate, cardiac output, and the body's ability to extract oxygen at the muscle level.

But here's the part that the charts flatten out. That rate of decline is not fixed. It's heavily modifiable.

In habitually active adults, the decline can slow to 5 percent per decade or less. In people who maintain or increase their training intensity, particularly high-intensity interval work and sustained aerobic training, the decline can be significantly blunted well into the 60s and 70s.

We work with clients in their late 50s and 60s who maintain VO₂ Max values that would land in the "excellent" range for someone a decade younger. They didn't get there by accident. They got there by training consistently, training with intention, and tracking their progress over time rather than accepting the standard aging curve as inevitable.

The charts show you where the population sits. Your training determines whether you sit with the population or above it. For a deeper look at how this plays out past 50, we wrote a full piece on VO₂ Max after 50 that's worth reading if you're in that window.

What the "inactive population" baseline actually represents

This is worth its own section because it changes how you interpret every chart you've ever seen.

When researchers build VO₂ Max norms, they're drawing from the population that showed up for testing. But the broader context is that most American adults are sedentary. The CDC's data consistently shows that fewer than 25 percent of adults meet both aerobic and strength training guidelines. A significant portion do no structured exercise at all.

So when a chart tells you that a VO₂ Max of 35 is "average" for a 40-year-old man, it's average among a population where most people don't exercise. Being "average" in that context is not a neutral outcome. It's a warning sign, because the average 40-year-old is on a trajectory toward metabolic disease, cardiovascular risk, and functional decline.

This is why we don't love the "average" label. It normalizes a baseline that is itself a problem. Our clients don't come to us because they want to be average. They come because they want to know what's actually possible for their body, and what they need to do to get there.

The trajectory argument: a rising 38 beats a declining 44

This is the concept we come back to more than any other when we talk about VO₂ Max with our clients.

Imagine two people, both 42 years old.

Person A tested at 44 mL/kg/min two years ago. They've been inconsistent with training, pulled back on intensity, and let stress and schedule erode their fitness. Today they test at 40. Still "excellent" by the chart. But the arrow is pointing down, and if the trend continues, they'll be in the mid-30s within a few years.

Person B tested at 32 mL/kg/min eighteen months ago. They committed to a structured program. They built an aerobic base, added interval work, and stayed consistent. Today they test at 38. The chart calls that "good." But the arrow is pointing up, the rate of improvement is strong, and they've got real momentum.

Who's in a better position? We'd take Person B every time.

A VO₂ Max score is a snapshot. Snapshots are useful, but they don't tell you the story. The story lives in the trajectory, the direction and rate of change over time. A rising 38 tells us that your cardiovascular system is adapting, your training is working, and your body is responding. A declining 44 tells us that something is slipping, even if the number still looks impressive on paper.

This is the exact reason we encourage retesting. Not once. Regularly. A single test gives you a data point. Multiple tests give you a trend line. And the trend line is where all the useful information lives. If you're wondering how often to retest and what to look for, we break that down in our guide on how often to retest your VO₂ Max.

How age-matched athletic benchmarks differ

The charts above reflect general population norms. If you're comparing yourself to those numbers and you train regularly, you're probably landing higher than you expected. That's good. But it also means the charts aren't giving you the most useful comparison.

Athletic benchmarks tell a different story. Here's a rough sense of where recreational and competitive athletes tend to fall, regardless of the specific sport:

Recreational athletes (3-5 sessions/week, mixed training)

| Age group | Men (mL/kg/min) | Women (mL/kg/min) | |---|---|---| | 30-39 | 42-50 | 36-44 | | 40-49 | 38-47 | 33-41 | | 50-59 | 35-43 | 30-37 | | 60+ | 30-38 | 26-33 |

Competitive athletes (structured training, sport-specific)

| Age group | Men (mL/kg/min) | Women (mL/kg/min) | |---|---|---| | 30-39 | 50-60 | 44-54 | | 40-49 | 46-56 | 40-50 | | 50-59 | 42-52 | 36-46 | | 60+ | 37-47 | 32-42 |

The gap between the general population tables and the athletic ones is massive. A 50-year-old competitive cyclist or masters swimmer can easily have a VO₂ Max that would rank "superior" for someone 20 years younger in the general population.

This is useful context if you're training seriously and want to know where you actually stand relative to people who train like you do. It's also a reminder that the ceiling for what's achievable at any age is much higher than the standard charts imply.

For a more detailed breakdown by specific sport, our article on VO₂ Max by sport digs into those numbers in detail.

Why this is the exact question retesting answers

Every question that brought you to this article, such as "is my VO₂ Max good for my age?" or "where should I be at 45?", is ultimately a question about where you stand. That's fair. We all want to know where we are.

But the more useful question is: where are you going?

A single VO₂ Max test tells you your current position. Two tests, spaced six months or a year apart, tell you your trajectory. Three tests start to give you a real trend. And that trend is the most valuable piece of fitness data you can own, because it tells you whether your training is actually working at the cardiovascular level, not just whether you feel tired after a workout.

We run VO₂ Max assessments as part of our fitness evaluations at Mavericks. Not the estimate-from-a-treadmill-protocol kind. We test, we contextualize, and we help you understand what the number actually means for your body, your goals, and your trajectory. If you've been staring at a chart trying to figure out whether your number is good enough, come in and find out where you actually are. Then come back in six months and find out which direction you're heading.

That direction matters more than any label a chart can give you.