How much would quitting smoking increase someone’s vo2 max? would it make a huge difference? I have a friend who is a fast runner and is looking to improve. Now you would think that obviously if he quit smoking his running would improve. He says it hasnt hurt his performance that he can see so why stop. I should note that he is runs marathons anywhere between 305 and 315 and ‘dabbles’ in tris. He also does ultras and during his last 100km race he wore a nicotine patch. Really, he did. He thought that stopping to smoke would take too much time. Id like to give him some evidence that if he quit he could get faster quickly. I know when I lost 30 pounds I got way faster without changing my training. So what to tell him?
I quit smoking cold turkey about 10 years ago… & I do not regret it a bit… healthwise, moneywise, tastewise, smellwise …
Fred.
Who cares about VO2 max. It is about life. Since my father in law just died of lung cancer, why would ANYONE smoke and slowly kill
themselves, and have a TERRIBLE end of life?
Dave
good for you fred! but this guy, I don’t know, it seems he is not motivated to quit so why should I care so much? I just DO care. But I think you have to be presonally motivated to quit. This is a guy who brings cigs in his fanny pack so he can smoke before the Boston Marathon, he says ‘well I have to wait around for hours so I might as well smoke’. He doesnt seem to care that everyone around him thinks it is disgusting. And runners about to do Boston really do not want to be around smoke and really do not expect it!
I think he thinks of himself as a kinda bad dude and so he smokes. I think he looks stupid. But if he had some hard facts about how it could increase his times, it might help. There is an online calculator —cant find where-- but you can put in your current weight and race times, then it shows you how much faster you can be if all things remained the same, at a lower weight. He needs some hard facts like this as running is all he cares about. I am sorry for your loss and I also have lost a lot of people to smoking related illness. It just seems so stupid and senseless when it is so preventable. I am asking about VO2 max as it might be something he can relate too. He also is not a young guy, he is late 30s, so its not the Im Young Who Cares attitude that is doing him in, I just dont get it…