Originally Posted by
gregf83
Technically VO2Max is the maximum amount of oxygen you consume and is normally expressed relative to your weight (mL/kg/min). You may have trouble increasing your VO2Max much without losing weight but you can increase the power you output at your VO2max and that is what the VO2max intervals are designed to do.
In order to increase power without increasing VO2max, efficiency (in the correct sense of the term) must increase. There is some controversy over whether this can be done at all, but if so, any improvements would be small. On the other hand, VO2max both absolute, volume/time, and relative, volume/time/mass are trainable especially for relatively new riders. The short answer on how to do this is by accumulating training time at an intensity that elicits a VO2 near max.