VO2 Max: Training to Use Oxygen Efficiently VO2 max (V=volume, O2= oxygen) is the measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen utilized while exercising. It may seem simple and inherent: you breathe in, you breathe out, you keep the workout going. The importance of maximal oxygen consumption for exercise and the idea of the VO2 max was brought to into the fold by AV Hill, the 1920s by Nobel Prize winner from Cambridge. And it wasn’t even until the 1950s and 1960s that methodol