Surely, you’ve heard the saying that age is nothing but a number. Perhaps you feel younger than you are. Maybe your joints scream that you are older.
To understand whether you are aging like fine wine — or like milk — the Norwegian University of Science and Technology developed a fitness calculator.
All you have to do is provide details about yourself, such as age, weight and height, your resting heart rate, how often you exercise and how hard.
The idea that we have a “fitness age” comes from studies of aerobic fitness, or more specifically, V-O 2 Max. It measures how well a person’s body uses oxygen during exercise.
Fitness age is used as a predictor of disease, mortality and good health. For the past five years, researchers have analyzed the fitness calculator’s algorithm. A low fitness age signals substantially lower long-term risk of heart attack, depression, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, brain shrinkage and dementia in those middle-aged and older.
The connection between fitness age and chronic disease is important: If your fitness age is low, your symptoms are likely to progress more slowly.
If you find your fitness age is older than you expected, there are ways to shave years off. You’ve got to move more, sometimes vigorously. Consider an uphill walk or interval training on a treadmill or stationary bike to exert yourself strenuously, and ultimately, bring your fitness age down.
Of course, it’s important to realize that fitness age is not the be-all end-all. It’s only a peek at how your body functions compared with others who are your biological age.
Still, a lower fitness age means good things. Why wait? Get moving and make yourself younger.