Middle Aged Health Assessment
From Tony Isola
Dr. Attia speaks about training NOW for the Centenarian Decathlon. This includes doing things like these at the advanced age of 100.
Hiking 1.5 miles on a hilly trail.
Picking up a young child from the floor.
Carrying two five-pound bags of groceries for five blocks.
Lifting a twenty-pound suitcase into the overhead compartment of a plane.
Doing thirty consecutive jump-rope skips.
What should be the middle aged decathlon? What should we be able to do now? There will be many different opinions on this I'm sure. Anytime I've tried to bring this up at fire training, I get some real pushback.
1. Be able to deadlift your body weight
2. Be as strong at other stuff as you were 20 years ago
Putting in the work, this is very achievable.
3. Be able to jump down off of something
4. Be able to run like you did 20 years ago
5. Avoid or lose the dad bod
Putting in the work, you can have a similar shape as when you were younger
6. How many pushups?
One of our firefighters said 100 minus your age. If you're 45, you should be able to do 55 pushups. I don't know what I think about that one. I try to be able to do my age once a year. Last week I did my age, 57, plus 2 but I am not sure about this as a broad benchmark or how long I will be able to do that.
7. Timed distance run?
The only one I care about is pack testing which is the annual firefighter requirement to hike 3 miles wearing a 45 pound pack in 45 minutes or less. I've never been fast at this but I am still a no doubter. I hope to be able to do this for many years to come.
8. Strong grip
I have a benchmark for this that involves carrying a 5 gallon water bottle from the car to the house as pictured.
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