A board certified internal medicine physician talks about how you can improve your exercise capacity, or VO2max, at any age. Your body naturally does this by increasing your stroke volume or the amount of blood pumped out of the left side of your heart each time your heart beats. This is an example of hormesis or a positive adaptation that your body makes with regular aerobic exercise.

0:00 Intro
0:13 VO2max is the best measure of cardiorespiratory fitness.
1:05 How oxygen gets to your muscle
2:00 What is VO2max?
2:51 You can increase your stroke volume to improve your exercise capacity
3:14 Your body first adapts by increasing blood volume
3:25 Why blood doping works
3:54 If you have a higher blood volume, you have a higher stroke volume
4:09 How exercise changes the heart
4:29 Exercise stimulates angiogenesis or the growth of new blood vessels
5:14 Exercise changes the structure of your arteries
5:43 Your muscle adapts by increasing the number and size of its mitochondria
6:05 Having more mitochondria allows your muscle to burn more fat and produce less lactic acid
6:26 The mild stress of exercise leads to positive adaptations, a process called hormesis
7:07 References