/ team
Running coach, VO₂max testing specialist
A running coach since 2012, Candidate Master of Sport in mountain running, a runner of the Majors marathons. At Dynamica he runs VO₂max testing and turns the numbers into a training plan.
VO₂max test — UAH 4,000. Together with Physio Check-Up — UAH 7,000. With a marathon certificate — 50% off the check-up.
/ what people come with
Usually not with an injury or pain, but with the question «why is my result not improving».
/ reviews
Two Google reviews that mention him by name. Texts unedited.
«I ran for 5 years without tests and without understanding my capabilities. But it was time to take a step forward. Friends recommended the VO2 Max test at the Dynamica lab. Professional runner and coach Dmytro Kharchenko ran it. It turned out all the zones my Garmin was showing were wrong. What is more, I could potentially run marathons much faster.»
Mykola KizilovAugust 2026 · Google«Dmytro tested me — a competent, positive person with enormous experience. The result: a clear, informative report. I adjusted my training using the heart-rate zone data, I am progressing, and training looks completely different now.»
Александр ШеинJune 2026 · Google/ what the test gives
Numbers on their own change nothing. The work starts where they turn into a training week.
How much oxygen the body can turn into work. Measured, not calculated from a formula.
Your limits, not the ones a watch derived from «220 minus your age». This is where it most often turns out that you spent the whole past year running in the wrong zone.
Where lactate starts to accumulate — that is, where the pace you can hold for a long time ends.
Each zone gets a specific pace in minutes per kilometer, rather than a feeling of «easy / hard».
How much easy work, how much threshold, how much fast — and why each of them is there for you.
/ the mistake
The most common mistake before testing is to go by pace and the VO₂max figure on a watch, while training from a ready-made plan off the internet.
A watch does not measure VO₂max. It estimates it from a formula based on heart rate and pace — and it does not know where your thresholds are.
The second mistake is running fast all the time, because it feels like the result will come sooner. In reality progress more often starts not from adding volume or intensity but from distributing the load between them correctly.
You do not need to train more — you need to train more precisely.
Dmytro Kharchenko
So the first meeting is not about the plan but about the numbers: what VO₂max means, what heart rate, pace and lactate mean. Once you understand each of them, training stops being a set of workouts and becomes a system that leads to a specific result.
/ case
The scenario Dmytro sees most often.
An athlete arrives thinking he simply lacks speed. The test shows something else entirely: the aerobic base is underdeveloped and the intensity is distributed wrongly — too much fast work and not enough easy work.
After that the structure of the training changes. And the person understands not only what to run but why.
This is not a rare case but a typical one: in most stories the issue is not speed itself but what it grows from.
/ boundaries
So that you come with the right expectations.
If a question goes beyond sports testing and the training process and requires medical diagnosis or treatment, Dmytro will refer you to the right doctor. Testing should not replace medicine — its job is to help you understand an athlete’s physiology and capacity.
/ result
Not when the VO₂max number gets bigger.
But when the test results turn into real changes in your running.
You hold the required pace for longer, tolerate load better and reach the start line knowing exactly how to run the distance. A good result is when an athlete becomes not only faster but more controlled and more confident in their preparation.
/ outside the lab
Dmytro trains and runs marathons himself — so he feels many things not only as a coach. He tries different approaches, watches how the body responds to load and tests on himself what he recommends to others.
Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University.
Competed at the World Mountain Running Championships and the Laser Run World Championships.
Founder of the First Ukrainian School of Natural Running.
Testing runners: analysing foot pronation and selecting running shoes for the individual athlete.
The Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro marathons.
A runner of the Majors marathons.
Plus his own race preparation — in the same regime he recommends to others.
/ booking
One test — and instead of guesses you have your thresholds, your zones and your paces. The plan is then built around them.
VO₂max test — UAH 4,000 · together with Physio Check-Up — UAH 7,000
/ questions
Briefly, what comes up before booking.
This is question number one — and a single figure does not determine a marathon result. Thresholds, running economy, endurance, the ability to hold the required intensity for a long time and how well you prepared specifically for 42.2 km all matter too.
VO₂max sets the ceiling. How much of it you actually use on the day is a matter of preparation.
A watch does not measure oxygen uptake — it estimates it from a formula based on heart rate and pace. And it almost never knows where your lactate thresholds are.
The most common finding in testing is that the heart-rate zones someone trained by for years turn out to be shifted. Then the whole training week changes.
VO₂max is one of the strongest known measures of endurance and of the body’s overall reserve. It speaks not only about your finish time but about how much load you can handle in life generally.
So the test makes sense without racing too: it shows where you start from and what is worth developing.
Two paths. You take the report with your zones and paces and train on your own — that alone is enough to stop running blind. Or Dmytro guides your preparation for a specific race: the format and cost of that support are agreed separately.
