Age is but a number and we all know that good genes, a healthy diet and the right type and amount of exercise can leave us physically better off than our birth date implies. Yet there is no denying that ageing takes its toll and that, even with supreme effort, your strength, flexibility and aerobic capacity at 50 or 60 are unlikely to be the same as when you were 20 or 30.
What matters more is how fit you are for your age, and there are a host of simple tests to estimate how you measure up against your peers in terms of stamina, mobility, muscular endurance and strength.
“By assessing some of the important determinants of fitness, you get a relative benchmark of where you are for your age and how well your overall fitness is maintained,” says Dr Mark Homer, senior lecturer in sport and exercise science at Buckinghamshire New University. “The results will be a rough guide but can be a strong motivator.”
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Here are the tests that Homer and his team of exercise scientists recommend to discover how fit you are for your age (you don’t need to do them all but the more you complete, the more accurate the assessment).
The test
Time how long you can stand on one leg without wobbling. Do it with your eyes open and near a wall should you need support. Progress to doing it with your eyes closed.
What it tells you
Balance nosedives from our fifties onwards and with the decline the risk of falls and fractures rises. Results of a 12-year study involving 1,702 people aged between 51 and 75, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that an inability to stand unsupported on one leg with eyes open for 10 seconds was associated with an 84 per cent raised risk of death from any cause.
How did you score?
In your twenties and thirties
Good: 60+ seconds
Average: 35-59
Low: below 35
In your forties and fifties
Good: 45+ seconds
Average: 25-44
Low: below 25
In your sixties and older
Good: 30+ seconds
Average: 15-29
Low: below 15
Improve your score
Do the yoga stork pose and basic single-leg squats to improve balance. “As you get better try standing on one leg with your eyes closed, progressing to touch the floor in front or to the sides as you balance,” says Dalton Wong, founder of TwentyTwo Training.
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The test
Do the burpee challenge. From a standing position with feet parallel, push your hips back, bend your knees and lower into a squat. Place your hands on the floor near your feet and let the hands take the weight of your body as you powerfully thrust both legs backwards into a push-up position supported by straight arms. Don’t allow your bottom to sag or raise at this point. Proceed straight to jumping your feet back to the hands and standing up (or jumping) to reach arms overhead. Re-enter the squat start position and repeat. Perform as many as you can in 30 seconds.
If this is too hard, start with a chair burpee. Stand in front of a stable dining chair (with the seat facing you), feet hip width apart and arms by your sides. Place your hands firmly on the edge of the seat and step your right foot back first, then the left foot to meet it. Step your feet forward and stand up, raising your arms to the ceiling. Repeat from the start position, remembering to alternate your feet as they go back with each chair burpee. Again, count how many you can do in 30 seconds.
What it tells you
The burpee exercise recruits large muscles of the lower body such as the quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes as well as those in the core and upper body. “It is considered a good measure of muscular endurance — the ability of muscles to continually and repeatedly contract against a resistance such as your body weight,” Homer says.
How did you score?
In your twenties and thirties
Good: 14-16
Average: 10-13
Low: less than 10
In your forties and fifties
Good: 12-14
Average: 8-11
Low: less than 8
In your sixties and older
Good: 5-8
Average: 3-4
Low: less than 3
Improve your score
Press-ups and squat thrusts are all components of the burpee, so doing more of these — and mountain climbers — will speed up your progress. As you get fitter consider adding a press-up in the plank stage of the full burpee or a jump in the standing phase of the chair burpee. And gradually increase the duration to up to three minutes of burpees.
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The test
Sit down on the floor, with legs crossed, and get back up without the help of your hands or knees. If you can stand up without using a hand, forearm, knee, side of a leg or hand on a knee, you score a perfect 10 (five points for sitting, five points for standing); if you use any of these for support, subtract one point each time. Subtract a half-point if you were wobbly sitting or standing. Do the test twice to obtain an average of your scores. If you find this too hard, start with the alternative mobility test below.
What it tells you
This rising sit-to-stand test is considered a measure of functional mobility and musculoskeletal fitness and is used to predict mortality risk in middle-aged and older people. A study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology involving 2,002 adults in their fifties and older showed that those with the lowest score of 0-3 points were at 5-6 times higher risk of dying prematurely than those who scored 8-10 points.
How did you score?
Good: 8-10 points
Average: 4-7
Low: 0-3
Improve your score
A review of 20 years of research published in the Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy showed that t’ai chi is exceptional for improving mobility in older age groups. Semi-squats — half sitting in and out of a chair by bending the knees — stair climbing and chair-based side bends and leg raises will also help, Wong says.
The test
Sit upright in the middle of a hard-backed dining chair, arms folded across the chest and feet flat on the floor shoulder width apart. Raise yourself to full standing position, knees straight, before sitting down fully again. Don’t cheat — half standing or sitting and using your hands doesn’t count. Complete as many full stands followed by full sits as you can in 30 seconds.
What it tells you
A measure of functional mobility in older people but also for those of any age who spend much of their day sitting.
How did you score?
Researchers at the University of Oslo published the following guideline on average scores:
60-70 years: 21 (women), 24 (men)
70-79: 17 (women), 19 (men)
80 and older: 14 (women), 17 (men)
Improve your score
Yoga and Pilates are great for improving and maintaining mobility at all ages. “Include exercises that challenge your range of motion with twists and turns but also add in squats, which are essential for improving the sit-to-stand efficiency,” Wong says.
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The test
The dead hang is a test of your grip power and requires you to engage muscles in the arms, abs, back and shoulders. You can do it on a bar at a park or playground, at a gym or on a bar attached to a doorframe. The idea is to hold on to the bar for as long as you can.
What it tells you
Declining grip power and strength is a red-flag warning for deteriorating health and the dead hang is a way of measuring it if you don’t have access to a hand-held dynamometer machine at the gym. Researchers from the University of Michigan reported that muscle weakness as measured by poor grip strength is associated with accelerated biological ageing. Doing the dead hang exercise regularly will strengthen the muscles needed to improve your score.
How did you score?
In your twenties and thirties
Target: 60-90 seconds
In your forties and fifties
Target: 20-45
In your sixties and seventies
Target: 10-15
Improve your score
Pull-ups and dead hangs are great, but also try lifting and holding heavy objects with your fingertips — a large milk carton, a dumbbell held by the end — on a daily basis. “Looping a resistance band around your foot and holding the end with your hand, then flexing and extending your wrist for 10 repetitions, three times on each side, will build strength in the wrists, which is essential for a strong grip,” Wong says.
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The test
Using a treadmill, running track or a measuring device such as a GPS tracker, time how long it takes you to run or walk one mile.
What it tells you
“Stamina is a measure of your physical and mental ability to sustain prolonged effort at close to your maximum capacity,” Homer says. “Good stamina requires muscular and aerobic fitness, and the decline in muscle mass as we age affects our stamina.”
How did you score?
In your twenties and thirties
Walking
Good: 12-14 minutes
Average: 15-16
Low: more than 16
Running
Good: 7-10 minutes
Average: 11-12
Low: more than 12
In your forties and fifties
Walking
Good: 14-15 minutes
Average: 16-17
Low: more than 17
Running
Good: 8-11 minutes
Average: 12-13
Low: more than 14
In your sixties and older
Walking
Good: 15-16 minutes
Average: 17-18
Low: more than 18
Running
Good: 10-13 minutes
Average: 14-15
Low: more than 15
Improve your score
Add short 10-20 second bursts to walking, running and cycling, and include strength training — squats, lunges and press-ups as a minimum — to increase power and efficiency.
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The test
Do a 5km Parkrun. These free weekly events are held at 9am on Saturday mornings at 1,236 locations around the UK. Sign up for a barcode at parkrun.org.uk and walk or run the route as fast as possible.
What it tells you
“As we age, a drop in aerobic capacity and muscle strength means that endurance performance slows,” Homer says. “Instead of focusing purely on the stopwatch, you can gauge progress for your age.” Parkrun organisers take your time and roughly compare it to the world best 5km time for your sex and age to come up with an age-graded percentage score that appears next to your result. Other race organisers use age-grading formulae that might differ slightly but provide a guide to relative fitness.
How did you score?
The higher your age-graded score, the better your performance relative to the fastest in the world for your age and sex. It’s a score that levels the playing field and means you can compare performances with family and friends across age ranges.
For example, Parkrun says that a 23-year-old man who runs 21:30 (21 minutes 30 seconds) has the same adjusted age-graded score of 60 per cent as a 65-year-old man running 27:57 and a 75-year-old woman recording 40:25.
Age-grade scores above 80 per cent are considered national class level, 60 per cent is considered a good “local’’ level score and 50 per cent is about average for your age. The UK age-graded Parkrun record is 179.04 per cent and credited to Fauja Singh who ran 38:34 in 2012 when he was 101 (if you’re confused by how he managed to score over 100 per cent, it’s because he smashed the existing record held by someone of his age).
If you don’t want to do a Parkrun, you can time yourself over a 5km distance and use an online calculator such as those at goodrunguide.co.uk or howardgrubb.co.uk for an age-grade percentage.
Improve your score
You won’t get faster if you always run at the same pace, so add intervals — short bursts of effort — and hills, and vary the distance of your weekly runs. Do at least one Parkrun every month to monitor your progress.
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What’s your fitness age?
If you are in good physical shape for your age it means that your body could be biologically younger than your birth (or chronological) age suggests. For several decades Norwegian scientists have researched how fitness affects the ageing process and our susceptibility to age-related diseases and their findings, published in journals such as Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, have enabled them to come up with a calculator using an algorithm that predicts your fitness age.
Studies have also shown that the lower your fitness age according to this algorithm, the lower your risk of heart attacks, brain shrinkage and depression. You can use the calculator to find out your score here: hvemereldst.no/en
