What's your fitness age?

So this is kind of fun. And by fun, I mean potentially quite depressing, depending on how often you work out.

It’s a new test, developed by clever Norwegian researchers, that allows you to see what your fitness age is. So – how well your body actually works, compared to how it SHOULD work at your age.

Your fitness age means that you could be 30, yet your body works like that of a 19-year-old’s. Or it could go the other way – you could be 21 and yet your fitness age could be older than 50.

The test involves calculating VO2 max, which indicates a person’s peak oxygen intake (how well your body delivers oxygen to its cells). Unfortunately, this is kind of hard to measure without the use of a bunch of treadmills. So scientists studied the VO2 max of 5000 Norwegians aged between 20 and 90, and used the data to calculate what is most essential to indicate fitness age without involving a physical test.

The answer? By entering in your waist circumference, resting heart rate, frequency and intensity of exercise, age and gender, into an algorithm, the calculator can give a “fairly accurate” reading of a person’s fitness age.

So really, it’s not 100% sure. After all, when entering in the frequency of your exercise, there’s no option for “some weeks I go to the gym four times and also do a seven-minute yoga routine every morning, but other weeks I actually spend all my spare time sitting on the couch, watching re-runs of The Bachelor“.

But it can still be a really useful tool for estimating how fit you really are – and a bit of a wake-up call if you’re not quite as fit as you hope to be.

Everyone in the office – even those who aren’t particularly interested in exercise – wanted to do this test. Here‘s where to find it. And if you’re also interested, here’s how to do it.

It should be easy to fill in your age, gender, and fields where it asks about your frequency and intensity of exercise.

For the waist circumference, measure around the narrowest part of your torso. For your resting heart heart, sit yourself down and relax for awhile, and then pull out the timer on your phone.

Measure your pulse for 30 seconds and then double the number to get your resting rate for a minute. Plug it all into the calculator to figure out your fitness age.

Mine was 21. You?

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