October 11, 2026
It’s Sunday. In this week’s deep dive: five tests you can do at home in about 10 minutes. Each one is backed by a study linking your score to how long people live. You’ll need a floor, a pull-up bar and a watch.
Last week’s deep dive: Is AI conscious?
DEEP DIVE
The Doctor Who Asks Patients to Sit on the Floor
In Rio de Janeiro, sports physician Claudio Gil Araújo asks patients to do something that sounds too simple to matter: sit down on the floor, then stand back up, using as little help as possible.
He has been scoring people on it for decades. Last year, he published results on 4,282 adults, average age 59, followed for about 12 years.
Of those who scored 0 to 4 out of 10, 42% died. Of those with a perfect 10, fewer than 4% did.
No blood test. No scan. Just a floor.
Why it matters: Your doctor checks your cholesterol and blood pressure. Almost no one checks whether you can get off the floor, hold your balance or hang from a bar. Those are the abilities that keep you from falling, and from what comes after a fall.
The other side: Falls are the leading cause of injury death for adults 65 and up, and 1 in 4 older adults fall every year. A broken hip often starts the slide: surgery, time off your feet, lost muscle, lost independence. Studies find roughly 1 in 10 to 1 in 4 older adults die within a year of breaking a hip.
It Starts Earlier Than You Think
Why it starts now: Adults lose roughly 3% to 8% of their muscle each decade after 30. The fall at 80 starts at 40.
Yes, but: These studies show links, not proof, and people who are already sick tend to score lower. A low score is a warning light, not a verdict, and every one of these numbers can improve.
TOGETHER WITH HUMECARE+
The Number Your Scale Leaves Out
You just read that adults lose 3% to 8% of their muscle every decade after 30. Here’s the catch with most weight-loss plans: they track one number, and a scale can’t tell fat from muscle.
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Find out what your scale isn’t telling you
The 5 Tests
Grab a pen and write down each score. Have someone nearby for the floor and balance tests, and check with your doctor before max-effort tests if you have heart or joint issues.
Floor and Balance
▲ 1. Sit and rise. Lower yourself to the floor cross-legged, then stand back up. Start at 10 points. Lose 1 each time a hand, forearm, knee or the side of your leg helps, and half a point for a wobble | How to score yourself
▲ 2. One-leg stand. Stand on one foot with the other resting against the back of your standing calf, arms at your sides, eyes forward. Goal: 10 seconds, with three tries per side. In a study of 1,702 adults ages 51 to 75, the 1 in 5 who couldn’t do it had an 84% higher risk of death over the next decade | Watch Mayo Clinic’s 1-minute demo
Strength
▲ 3. Push-ups. Do as many good-form push-ups as you can without stopping. In a 10-year study of male firefighters averaging age 40, those who did 40 or more had a 96% lower rate of heart events than those who did fewer than 10. The study only included men, but the test works as a baseline for anyone | Inside the Harvard study
▲ 4. Dead hang. Hang from a pull-up bar as long as you can. Longevity doctor Peter Attia’s target at 40: 2 minutes for men, 90 seconds for women. Why grip matters: in a 140,000-person study, every 11-pound drop in grip strength was linked to a 16% higher risk of death, a better predictor than blood pressure | The grip study
Bonus Video : how to build a pull-up bar in about 5 minutes
Cardio
▲ 5. Cardio fitness. Check your smartwatch’s VO2 max estimate (Apple calls it Cardio Fitness), which ranks you against people your age. No watch? Run as far as you can in 12 minutes and note the distance. In a Cleveland Clinic study of 122,007 people, the least fit had about five times the death rate of the most fit, with no upper limit to the benefit | The study
Move Your Score
- Floor: Practice sitting and rising a few times a day. The test is also the training.
- Balance: Brush your teeth standing on one leg.
- Push-ups: Spread a few easy sets through the day instead of one max set.
- Grip: Hang from a bar 2 to 3 times a week, adding a few seconds each time.
- Cardio: Once a week, try the “Norwegian 4x4”: four hard 4-minute efforts with 3 easy minutes between.
Retest in 90 days.
OUR TAKEAWAY
None of These Measure How You Look
Notice what’s missing from this list: your weight, your waist, your max bench.
Every test measures something you’ll need decades from now. Getting up off the floor after playing with your grandkids. Catching yourself when you miss a step. Carrying your own groceries. Holding on.
Attia calls this training for the “ centenarian decathlon :” pick the physical things you want to still be doing in the last decade of your life, then train backward from there.
Most of us train for the next vacation photo. These tests ask a better question: what will your body let you do at 85? Write down your five numbers today. They’re not a verdict. They’re a starting line.
GO DEEPER
- Why 1 in 5 adults over 50 fail a 10-second test
- Why your grip starts slipping around 50
- The 2 simple tests that predicted survival in older women
- How to get better at the 10-second balance test