By ANNA HODGEKISS
Do you struggle to climb the stairs or walk up a hill?
Now there’s a website that will show if you really are old beyond your years – by calculating your true fitness age.
By putting in simple measurements such as how much exercise you do, your waist measurement and resting heart rate, the website calculates how well your body delivers oxygen to the cells – a measurement called VO2 max.
The results can be somewhat terrifying - a sedentary, moderately overweight 40-year-old woman could have a fitness age of 54, for example.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that putting just five measurements - waist circumference; resting heart rate; frequency and intensity of exercise; age; and sex - into an programme helped them predict a person’s VO2 max quite accurately.
Fitness age is basically how well the body functions physically – compared to how well it should work – given the person’s age.
It is also a strong indication of lifespan, and, while not perfect, is a ‘rough estimate of cardiorespiratory fitness’, the researchers wrote in their paper, published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
And a young fitness age is 'the single best predictor of current and future health', the lead study author, Ulrik Wisloff, told The New York Times.
He and his team of researchers got 5,000 people aged between 20 and 90 to run on a treadmill to the point of exhaustion.
Various measurements were taken from them - and these were used to build a picture of what’s normal at certain ages.
Obviously, the nearer the fitness age is to your age, the better.
If you get a fitness age of 40, for example, then you have the 'typical, desirable' fitness of a 40-year-old, he says.
Or, 'A 70-year-old man or woman who has the peak oxygen uptake of a 20-year-old has a fitness age of 20,' says Professor Wisloff.
So how do you calculate your fitness age? The two main things you need are your waist circumference in centimetres and your resting heart rate.
This can be calculated by taking your pulse for 30 seconds and then doubling it. Add in your age, gender, intensity and frequency of exercise and the calculator will generate your fitness age.
The results can provide a stern wake-up call. A 40-year old woman with the average UK woman’s waist circumference of 34inches (86cm) who rarely exercises and has a resting heart rate of 80bpm (the average resting heart rate is between 60 and 80 beats per minute) has a fitness age of 54.
On the other hand, if you are super fit, it can take years off your life.
Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins is said to have a resting heart rate of 35 – and when the rest of his details are plugged in, he is given a fitness age of ‘younger than 20’.
To calcuate your fitness age, click http://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/vo2max
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