Sunday marked an exciting milestone in my personal fitness journey. For the first time, my Vo2 Max—a measure of my cardiovascular fitness—reached the 'High' category. A remarkable leap from being 'below average' to 'High' in just 13 months. In April of 2022 my VO2 Max as measured by my Apple Watch was 31.5 which put me right on the borderline between “Below Average” and “low” cardio fitness. 13 months later my reading is 47.1 climbing 15.6 points and putting me in the “high” category. I went from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The classifications come from this important study and they include Low, Below Average, Above Average, High, and Elite. * Low: less than the 25th percentile * Below Average: 25th to 49th percentile * Above Average: 50th to 74th percentile * High: 75th to 97.6th percentile * Elite: at or above the 97.7th percentile VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during intense exercise, serving as a measure of your cardiorespiratory fitness. According to some studies, my advancement in my personal cardio fitness, signifies a 2 to 3.9 fold decrease in all-cause mortality. In layman's terms, that means my risk of dying at any given moment has been slashed by about half or up to three-quarters. This is an astonishing change in my risk of dying. And of course I should mention, this is a population statistic, not a personal guarantee. I could still be hit by a bus tomorrow, or develop a disease that I have no control over. But it's nevertheless an impressive stride towards better health and increased healthspan. To give you some context, let’s look at some other ways you can change your all-cause mortality or your risk of dying. From that chart, if you look at the “Group Comparisons” and go from “low vs high” - that is where you will see the 3.9 Hazard Ratio. And if you look at “Below Average to High” that is where you will see the 2 Hazard Ratio. This is the reduction in all cause mortality that I used above. My rating is somewhere in between those two because I was exactly on the borderline between Low and Below Average. Let's delve deeper into the comorbidity risk factors presented in this study. Hazard ratios for various conditions are as follows: Smoking at 1.41, Coronary Artery Disease at 1.29, Diabetes at 1.40, Hypertension at 1.21, and End-Stage Renal Disease at a striking 2.78. These figures indicate that having low cardio fitness could amplify your risk of dying even more than established risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes, or even end-stage renal disease. We often direct significant efforts towards encouraging people to quit smoking to extend their lifespan. This is undoubtedly important, but this data suggests that improving cardiovascular fitness should command just as much, if not more, attention. Low cardio fitness, it appears, constitutes a far more substantial risk factor for mortality. So while smoking cessation remains crucial, enhancing cardio fitness can be a game-changer in the pursuit of longevity. This puts into black and white terms how important it is to be physically fit if you want to live a long time. If you are in the “low” group and went to the “Elite” group - you could have a 5 fold reduction in all cause mortality! Let me make it even more clear. That means that if you had a group of 100 of your peers and 50 of them were predicted to die over a certain time period because you were in the “low” cardio fitness group. If you were to improve your cardio fitness and get into the Elite category, now only 10 of the 100 would die in that time period. Your chance of dying would have been decreased from 50% to 10%. That is massive. It’s more than any other change in lifestyle that