Fitness for masters

The term "master" is used here in its euphemistic use, to denote persons (athletes?) who are past their prime. I am one myself and as you can imagine I am interested in everything that has to do with that age bracket. (I am aware that "age bracket" is somewhat vague, so let us say that we are talking about people who are past 50). 

I am regularly reading the newsletter of "Art of Manliness". One could think that with a sexist title the newsletter would be a "men only" thing. And although some articles cater to the male readership, I think that many of them would be equally interesting for women. So, while perusing a recent newsletter, I stumbled upon a podcast on "Physical benchmarks every man should meet, at every age". Now, I don't particularly like podcasts and I wouldn't have spent any time on this one, were it not for the fact that a full transcript was given. It was an interview of a strength coach who gave a series of helpful benchmarks that everybody (they write "guys  from age 8 to 80") can use to see if they’ve got an operative level of strength, mobility, and conditioning.

So here are the tests: 

Balancing on one foot for 10 seconds. 

Do a deep squat for 30 seconds and then stand up without any assistance. 

Those two can be easily done without any equipment. The  next two can only be done in a gym. 

Hang from a bar for 30 seconds.

Pick up one's own weight and be able to move with it.

To tell the truth I am not sure I did understand this 100 %. So while the first three are  reasonably difficult tasks this sounds a great ask. And things get even worse with the standing long  jump test. To begin with, the latter can only be done in a place equipped with a jumping pit.

Do a standing long jump: its length should be at least one's height.

Now this, I have trouble believing. Jumping the length of one's height is serious business and asks for definite athletic qualities.

And the final test is getting down on the ground and getting back up, the sitting-rising test (SRT). 

This last one is rather tricky because there is a score associated with it. The perfect score is 10 and then points are subtracted according to the following list

Hand used for support: -1 point

Knee used for support: -1 point

Forearm used for support: -1 point

One hand on knee or thigh: -1 point 

Side of the leg used for support: -1 point

I got particularly interested in this last test because it is particularly simple and it is something that does have a practical value. 

And it turned out that the test is particularly useful as a mortality predictor. A medical team from the University of Rio de Janeiro followed a cohort of some 2000 individuals (roughly 2/3 of the being men) of ages 51 to 80. They obtained the score of the SRT test (they give a link to a video which does help in understanding how the performance is scored). The figure below gives the distribution of the scores as a function of age.

And what is most interesting, the medical team followed the subjects for more than 6 years and they concluded that lower SRT scores were associated with higher mortality. The graphic below is really telling. 

They summarise their findings by saying that each point increase in the SRT score is a 20 % decrease in mortality. And they conclude that, while it is well known that aerobic health is essential for longevity, muscular strength and flexibility do also count.

While I like this simple test I also like playing devil's advocate. How about taking a group of people who scored poorly in the SRT test and train them so that they improve both their technique and their strength with as a result an improved SRT score? Will this affect their survival probability? Although I can see a definite benefit coming from the strength training I am not quite convinced that their longevity will be on par with their SRT score prediction. But on the other hand working towards a goal (here improving the SRT score) can only be a plus, so...