Strength Training

The One Measurement Where Smaller Is Worse # Nearly every body measurement in health is a warning when it goes up. Thigh circumference runs the other way — below roughly 60 cm, cardiovascular disease and premature death risk climb steeply. And above it, a bigger thigh buys you nothing at all. The study # Heitmann and Frederiksen (2009, BMJ) measured 1,436 men and 1,380 women in the Danish MONICA cohort — height, weight, waist, hip and thigh circumference, plus body composition by impedance — then followed them for 10 years for cardiovascular events and 12.5 years for mortality.

Push-Up Capacity Is a Vital Sign # Men who could do 40 or more push-ups had a 96% lower rate of cardiovascular events over the following decade than men who could manage 10 or fewer. The test cost nothing, took two minutes, and predicted risk better than a treadmill. The study, and what it actually showed # The finding comes from Yang et al. (2019, JAMA Network Open), a longitudinal cohort of male firefighters in Indiana followed for ten years. Participants were stratified by how many push-ups they could complete at baseline. Over the decade, 37 cardiovascular events were recorded — and all but one occurred in men who had managed 40 or fewer at the start.

Grip Strength Is the Shadow, Not the Thing # Across nearly 140,000 people in 17 countries, how hard someone could squeeze a handle predicted death better than their systolic blood pressure. Not because grip matters. Because you cannot fake the decades of loading and feeding that produce it. The study # Leong et al. (2015, The Lancet) reported grip strength findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study — 142,861 participants enrolled across 17 countries spanning the wealthiest and poorest economies, with 139,691 followed for vital status.

The Fitness You Keep Is the Boring Kind # Getting in shape is slow. Getting out of shape is fast. The difference isn’t the programme — it’s that people revert to who they were. Which is why the durable version starts from identity and ends with habits dull enough to survive a bad month. Start from who, not how # Most fitness advice is tactical: this split, that protocol, these macros. Tactics are fine, and they’re not what fails.

Getting Off the Floor Is a Mortality Test # Sit on the floor, then stand back up, without using your hands or knees. In 2,002 adults aged 51–80, the lowest scorers on that task died at several times the rate of the highest scorers. The test takes ten seconds and needs no equipment. How the test works # Lower yourself to the floor and rise again, using as little support as possible. You start at 10 points — five for sitting, five for rising.

Protein Is the Most Underrated Drug You Already Own # The official recommendation is 0.8 g per kilogram. The evidence for maintaining muscle through middle and later life points to roughly double that. That gap — between a floor designed to prevent deficiency and a target designed to preserve function — is one of the largest in everyday nutrition. What actually ends independence # The version of ageing people plan for is cancer or dementia. The version that arrives is quieter: no longer carrying shopping, no longer rising from a low chair unaided, no longer trusting yourself on stairs.

Creatine Is a Multiplier, Not a Source # Across 22 randomised trials in older adults, creatine plus resistance training added about 1.37 kg of lean tissue over training alone. That’s a real effect and a small one — and it’s zero if you aren’t lifting anything. What it actually is # Creatine is a compound your body already makes, mostly in the liver, and tops up from meat and fish. Plants contain virtually none, so vegetarians and vegans run lower stores and often notice supplementation more. The supplement itself is synthesised, so it’s vegan-suitable.