Six things you can measure at home that track how long people live.
Each one takes minutes, five of the six need no equipment, and each comes with the study behind it and the part of that study nobody quotes.
The six with the strongest evidence behind them are cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 max), grip strength, the sit-and-rise test, push-up capacity, the one-leg balance test and usual walking speed. They are not six measures of six things. They are six windows onto the same underlying physical reserve, which is why they agree with each other and why each of them separately tracks survival in the cohorts that followed them.
Which of these six are about you
Three of the six were normed on age groups that leave most readers out. Your age decides which findings transfer to you and which are somebody else's.
What you have measured
nothing measured yetThree things the six tests measure, each against a published cohort. Two minutes apiece.
Results stay on this device unless you save them.
VO2 max
How much oxygen you can use when you are working hard
No equipment. A walk or a resting pulse will do.
Grip strength
How hard your hand can squeeze, as a read on whole-body reserve
Needs a hand dynamometer. They are inexpensive.
Sit and rise
Getting to the floor and back up without using your hands
No equipment. Floor space and a clear head.
Push-ups
How many you can do before form goes
No equipment. Floor space.
One-leg balance
How long you can stand on one leg, eyes open and shut
No equipment. A wall within reach.
Walking speed
How fast you walk when nobody is timing you
No equipment. Four metres of floor and a phone timer.
What each one actually showed
VO2 max
The bottom quarter of fitness carried five times the death rate of the top few percent across 122,007 people followed for a median of 8.4 years, a larger adjusted hazard than smoking or diabetes in the same model.
Grip strength
Every 5 kg weaker carried 16% higher all-cause mortality across 139,691 people in 17 countries.
Sit and rise
Among 4,282 people aged 46 to 75 followed for a median 12.3 years, 42.1% of those scoring 4 or under died of natural causes, against 3.7% of those scoring 10.
Push-ups
In 1,104 male firefighters over ten years, those managing more than 40 had a far lower rate of cardiovascular events than those managing ten or fewer. The authors were explicit that this does not make push-up count an independent predictor.
One-leg balance
Among 1,702 people aged 51 to 75, one in five could not hold ten seconds, and they had 1.84 times the death rate over seven years after adjustment.
Walking speed
Across 34,485 adults over 65, every 0.1 m/s faster carried about 12% lower mortality, in a gradient with no breakpoint.
What these tests are not
They are not causes. Every finding above is an association measured by watching people, not by changing anything about them. No trial has shown that raising a grip strength reading or walking faster on purpose lowers anybody's risk. The reserve these tests show is what moves risk. The tests are the window you look through, not the thing you change.
They are not all for every age. The chair stand version of sit-to-stand is normed from 60 to 94. The ten-second balance test is failed by fewer than one in twenty people in their early fifties and by over half of those in their early seventies, so it says almost nothing before fifty. The walking speed thresholds everyone quotes come from adults aged 65 and over. Each page states the ages its numbers came from.
The headline is usually half the finding. Grip strength did predict death better than blood pressure, and blood pressure predicted cardiovascular disease better than grip. The push-up study's own authors wrote that their results do not establish push-up count as an independent predictor of risk. The one-leg balance figure that ran in the press was 4.58; after adjusting for age, sex, weight and existing conditions it was 1.84. All three second halves are on the pages here.
And what raises each one
How to improve your VO2 max, and how much is realistic
Zone 2 training: what the evidence actually shows
How to build grip strength, and what it really buys you
How to do your first push-up, and why knees are not the answer
Balance training that actually prevents falls
Getting off the floor without your hands: what trains it
How much walking is enough? What the step studies show
The habits underneath all six
These tests show the reserve. The eight habits are what build it, scored against what is known about how much each one is worth.
Common questions
Which fitness test best predicts how long you will live?
Cardiorespiratory fitness, measured as VO2 max, has the largest and best-replicated association. Across 122,007 people followed for a median of 8.4 years, the bottom quarter of fitness carried a larger adjusted death rate than smoking, diabetes or coronary artery disease did in the same model. Grip strength is second and is far easier to measure, which is why it appears in more studies.
Can a home test really say anything about lifespan?
It can place you against the people who were followed in the studies, which is not the same as predicting your life. Every finding on these pages is an association measured in an observational cohort. They tell you where you sit in a distribution. They do not tell you what will happen to you, and none of them has been shown to be a cause of anything.
Do I need equipment?
Five of the six need nothing. Sit and rise, push-ups, one-leg balance and walking speed need floor space and a timer. VO2 max can be estimated from your resting pulse, a walk or a run. Only grip strength needs a device, a hand dynamometer, which costs less than a pair of running shoes and is what every published cutoff was built on.
I am in my thirties. Do these tests mean anything yet?
Some do and some do not, and this is where most pages on the subject go wrong. The chair stand is normed for 60 to 94 and hits the ceiling before that. The ten-second balance test is failed by almost nobody under fifty. The walking speed survival thresholds come from adults over 65. What does work at thirty: VO2 max, grip strength, push-ups, the sit and rise score against its reference range, and the eyes-closed balance test. Each page says which applies to you.
What if I score badly on one?
Take it as a place to start rather than a verdict. Every one of these is trainable, and the biggest returns are always at the bottom end: the step from no exercise to regular walking moves more than anything available to somebody already fit. If a score falls below a clinical cutoff and you are over 65, that is worth raising at an appointment rather than solving alone.
How often should I retest?
Every three to six months for the strength and balance tests, which move in weeks. VO2 max is the exception if you are estimating it from a resting pulse, because those equations barely move even when real fitness does; use a timed walk or run if you want to track change in that one.
Written and checked by the AskDoc Medical Team under our Medical Director, MBBS. How we review. Health education, not medical advice.