This scientific tool is officially known as the Cooper test and was developed by physician Kenneth Cooper in 1968 to measure aerobic fitness in the U.S. military. It checks the amount of oxygen your body uses during exercise, which is called VO2 max or VO2 max. The higher the VO2 max level, the more efficiently the heart pumps blood to organs and tissues, which is an indicator of its health.
Studies have shown that people with a high VO2 max for their age have a lower risk of dying from heart disease compared to people with lower scores. It can be performed on a treadmill, running track or any flat surface. You run, jog or walk briskly for 12 minutes without stopping and use a distance tracking app to see how many meters you’ve covered. Then just compare it with the results table, e.g. shared on Wikipediato see what distances are considered excellent, above average, average, below average and poor.
Thank you, men in their 30s should be able to run 1.9 km, while women of the same age should be able to run 1.7 km. If a man of this age runs 2.6 km, his VO2 is considered “excellent”, and the same applies to women who run 2.5 km. For middle-aged people, the thresholds are slightly different – on average, a 50-year-old man can cover a distance of 1.6 km in 12 minutes, and if he reaches 2.4 km, his result is “excellent”. As for women, on average it should be 1.4 km, and for “perfection” it takes 2.2 km. Distances below 1.1-1.6 km are generally considered weak.
The VO2 Max result is not the only simple indicator of how healthy we are for our age. Experts also believe that the number of push-ups a person can do is a good indicator of strength and endurancewhich, as research has shown, may indicate life expectancy.
This is because the exercise engages most of the major muscle groups throughout the body, including the legs, abdomen, shoulders, back and arms. According to the Mayo Clinic, young men should aim to do 28 push-ups and women 20. Fast forward a few years, for age 45 it is recommended that women should be able to do 14 push-ups and men should be able to do 16, and for age 55 the number push-ups are reduced to 10 for women and 12 for men.
We would also like to remind you about the one-leg stand test, which we wrote about recently – Dr. Kenton Kaufman, senior author of the study from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, emphasizes that Balance is an important indicator of health because it reflects how well the body’s various systems work together. Good balance helps you perform everyday activities without fear of falling, which translates into a better quality of life and healthy aging.
Source: geekweek.interia.pl
