So you think hitting the gym once a week and skipping carbs at breakfast is all you need to do to stave off Father Time, huh? Well, it seems your little stroll on the treadmill isn’t enough to keep your body as young as you are. Yes, we know that might sound confusing, but according to an article in the November 3rd Issue of New York Times Magazine, there’s a difference between your age and your fitness age. That’s right, you might be walking around thinking your just another young professional when your body’s already passing middle age.
Here’s how it works. A bunch of really smart people got together at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and developed a fairly easy way to estimate your fitness age. That is, “how well your body functions physically, relative to how well it should work, given your age.” Based on research collected from 5,000 Norwegians between the ages of 20 and 90, these guys collected all sorts of data (including things like resting heart rates, cholesterol levels, etc.), made the participants fill out a detailed lifestyle questionnaire, and then – here’s the good part – made them run on a treadmill until the “point of exhaustion.” We’re not sure about you but we got tired just thinking about filling out an extensive questionnaire. All of this info helped the researchers come up with an individual’s peak oxygen intake, or their VO2 max. Turns out this magic number is the most telling when it comes to your body’s fitness age. And since they realized that throwing someone on a treadmill until they pass out might be considered torture in some countries, the researchers went through their results and came up with an algorithm that allows people to figure out their estimated fitness age without having to get up off the couch (even if they really, really should). The five measurements they include are – drumroll please – waist circumference, resting heart rate, frequency and intensity of exercise, age, and gender.
According to New York Times Magazine, Ulrik Wisloff, the director of the K. G. Jebsen Center of Exercise in Medicine at the Norwegian University and the senior author of the study, claims that, “A youthful fitness age is the single best predictor of current and future health.” They’ve put together an online calculator for you to figure out your fitness age. But be warned: just like your Wii Fit age, this baby can be devastating.