In a recent study of 4,659 masters athletes who'd qualified for the National Senior Games (a competition that happens every other year and was once known as the Senior Olympics), most participants' strength and aerobic conditioning were high and their overall health enviable. Few had experienced heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic conditions, and fewer than 10 percent had needed a joint replacement.
As a group, they "challenge conventions of age-related limitations," the study concluded.
And now, you can see how you measure up: The study's primary purpose was to detail new fitness tests specifically focused on competitive older athletes, ages 50 to 90-plus.
This work was needed because existing physical function tests for older people were too easy, said Becca D. Jordre, who led the study and is a professor of physical therapy at the University of South Dakota School of Health Sciences. Older athletes "aced them," she said.
They needed their own fitness standards.
They have them now, thanks to what Jordre named the Sustained Athlete Fitness Exam, or SAFE, which the new study describes in depth. SAFE measures older athletes' cardiovascular health, muscular strength and power, flexibility and balance to benchmark their fitness by age.
"The importance and increasing popularity of masters sports warrants a more granular understanding" of older athletes' particular physiology and performance, said Alison Doherty, a professor of sport management at Western University in Ontario, Canada, who's studied masters athletes but wasn't involved in the SAFE research.
The new SAFE tests could be a useful yardstick for the rest of us, too. But the full Sustained Athlete Fitness Exam is long and complicated. So, at The Washington Post's request, Jordre and her colleagues chose the two most effective and simplest measurements from the full SAFE and calculated benchmarks for athletes and nonathletes.
Completing these at-home self-checks should give you a sense of how fit you are today and whether you really could hang with the elite 80-year-olds.
"There wasn't anything like this before," Jordre said.
About a decade ago, she and others, including her recent collaborator and co-author Wendy K. Viviers, began assessing the fitness of competitors at the National Senior Games, a competition for athletes older than 50 who placed near the top in their sport at the state level. The scientists originally planned to use the measurements to alert athletes to possible weaknesses. But they couldn't, they realized. The athletes' performance blew the tops off of charts for physical capability tests designed for relatively sedentary older people.
So, the researchers wound up pooling data from the 4,659 senior athletes they'd tested to develop new standards. Now, all men and women who qualify for the National Senior Games are invited to complete the SAFE, and if they score below average on any measure, they are given exercises to help them improve. (The results don't affect their participation in the Senior Games in any way.)
Other people can try the SAFE, too, Jordre said, but it's meant for competitive athletes. Some of the tests are tricky, even risky - standing on one leg with your eyes closed, for instance - and the entire exam requires expertise and equipment such as a blood pressure cuff, tape measure and foam pillow. You can find the full SAFE protocol here.
The two-part mini version requires only a chair, willing helper, stopwatch and few spare minutes.
"These two tests are the most important in the SAFE," in terms of their ability to predict physical capabilities, Jordre said. In a study of 308 masters track and field athletes that she and her colleagues presented at a physiology meeting this year, these two tests were almost as reliable as the full SAFE battery at foretelling how well the athletes would perform in Senior Games competition.
The two tests are the Five Times Sit to Stand and Maximal Walking Speed checks. Mainstays of the SAFE, they require "dynamic movement and speed," Jordre said, so they provide a sense of someone's overall strength, power and coordination.
Helpfully, the tests are also simple.
Five Times Sit to Stand: Position a chair, preferably without armrests, against a wall so it won't move. Sit at the chair's edge. Then, without using your hands, rise completely upright and sit back down five times in total, as rapidly as you can, while someone times you.
Maximal Walking Speed: Measure out a 10-meter course in a hallway or wherever you have space. Ten meters is 10.9 yards or 32.8 feet, about the length of a school bus. Start about 10 feet back from this walkway to get up to speed. Then walk as quickly as possible along the course while someone times you. Don't run; one of your feet should always be on the ground. Divide the distance (10) by the number of seconds to get your speed in meters per second.
How'd you do?
A typical max walking speed for an athlete in his or her early 50s would be about 2.3 meters per second or faster. For an 80-year-old athlete, it would be about 2 meters per second.
A good sit-to-stand time for a 50-year-old athlete would be about 6 seconds; for an 80-year-old athlete, 8 seconds.
You can find full results by age group above, for both current athletes and for older people who aren't in training, courtesy of Jordre and her colleagues, who calculated the nonathlete scores especially for The Post. All scores start at age 50. If you're younger than that, feel free to compare your performance to that of the athletic sexa-, septua- and octogenarians.
And if you didn't quite reach those benchmarks, you're not alone. The full SAFE includes more than a dozen tests and awards points for passing each. A perfect score would be 20. Only 1 percent of the nearly 4,700 National Senior Games athletes tested so far have earned a 20. The group average was about a 13. (Track athletes, triathletes and cyclists scored highest; bowlers and cornhole players a bit lower.)
Want to improve? Try these tips from Jordre.
Weight training: Start with regular weight training, Jordre said, especially if you aren't already lifting. "Resistance training does so much" for older athletes' - and aspiring athletes' - muscular fitness, she said. Aim to strength train at least twice a week, with a weight that fatigues you in eight to 12 repetitions, she said. Work up to two to three sets.
Power training: Using a lighter weight than in regular weight training, lift the weight fast, then return it to position more slowly. This helps build explosiveness and power, Jordre said. Or throw a weighted ball back and forth with a partner or swing a kettlebell. "Strength is critical for healthy aging, but power might be more important," she said. Movements such as climbing stairs, rising from a chair or catching yourself quickly if you start to fall require power.
Box or stair stepping: Try box or stair stepping to increase aerobic conditioning, leg strength and balance. You'll need a sturdy box, about six inches high. Push it against a wall for stability. Then step up and down, alternating arms and legs. You can do the same on stairs. Try for 12 repetitions to start. When that feels easy, increase the height of the box or speed of your steps, or start holding dumbbells while you step up and down. (You can find videos showing box stepping and other exercises Jordre recommends here.)
Competitive sports: Or maybe take up one of the dozens of competitive sports that are part of the National Senior Games, from swimming and tennis to volleyball and tai chi. Many senior athletes didn't begin training until after they retired, Jordre said, so it's never too late to start.
It's also never too early. "My husband and I have changed our training" because of the SAFE research," said Jordre, 48. They're weight training more. They're lifting faster. They're hoping to be as powerful, agile and simply fit as some of the 70- and 80-year-olds she works with.
"If you want a strategy for healthy aging," she said, "look to these athletes."