The first goal of a fitness and health program should be to achieve optimal body composition.

I define this with my clients as 10% and 15% body fat for the guys and 18 %—25 % for the ladies.

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Although you won't see too many 40+ people walking around with these levels, this is more due to the ill health so rampant in our society than it is that these standards are unreasonably high.

Achieving these body fat percentages will land you squarely in the sweet spot between health and aesthetics, and they won't require you to live a monk's life.

But these are far from the only goals we get after.

Because what use is looking lean and defined unless you can perform as well as you look?

If your goal is to excel in a particular sport, you'll need to invest heavily in developing the skills and physical attributes required for excellence in that endeavor.

But this often requires athletes to compromise their health and fitness profile.

For example, there are powerlifters capable of deadlifting 4 X their body weight but who can't run a mile without gassing out.

Conversely, some runners can clock impressive marathon times but can't lift anything much heavier than a pencil.

However, if your primary goal of training is to promote optimal levels of health and longevity along with a more balanced type of fitness, it is crucial that you place equal emphasis on strength, conditioning, and mobility.

The goal is to be good to great in all three categories without focusing on any one specifically.

Being balanced enough to run a solid 5K, deadlift double your body weight, and hang in a yoga class makes you elite in real-world functional fitness. 

This is the way I focus my training. I want to be in good enough shape to do whatever I like without fitness being an obstacle.

If I want to go for a trail run overlooking the beautiful California coastline, compete in a Spartan Race or drop into an open mat at a local BJJ school, I have the conditioning, flexibility and strength to do so without breaking myself in the process.

(Now I just need to learn how to deal with that damn new school leg lock game..)

To give you some goals to shoot for, I've put together a realistic set of standards that just about anybody with a work ethic and patience should be able to achieve.

These are the same goals I like my clients to hit within the first 90 days of us working together, assuming they have the body fat piece taken care of first.

And if you can do all of these, rest assured that being "fit enough" is no longer your problem.

First up is a push-up standard based on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study found that middle-aged men who could do 40 push-ups had a 98% reduced risk of heart disease compared to fellas who couldn't do ten good reps.

So the goal for men is to bang out 40 quality reps, and for women, it's 12 reps. The ladies' number is lower because of the difference in upper body muscle between genders.

Next up is chin-ups—a fantastic measure of both upper body pulling strength and muscle-to-weight ratio.

The goal for men is to complete ten clean reps, and for women, three reps is a great goal.

And because you don't wanna be the person who obviously skips leg day, there are also some lower body goals.

For a guy, being able to deadlift one and a half times your bodyweight for five reps and squat your bodyweight for 5 are fantastic first-tier goals. 

More advanced but still doable goals would be a double bodyweight deadlift and a 1.25 X BW squat.

For the ladies, the goal is to deadlift to your bodyweight X 5 and squat .75 bodyweight for 5.

When it comes to cardio, I like the 12-minute run test.

Military units use it to assess a candidate's conditioning level. It's also a great way to estimate your VO2 max, which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during intense exercise.

This metric is very much associated with longevity and health, with a higher VO2 max indicating superior cardiovascular fitness.

The test itself is super simple: Run as far as you can in 12 minutes.

If you're past 40, the gold standard is to complete 1.5 miles in that time, but honestly, if you can do 1.3 miles, you're still doing great.

Finally, here are three simple mobility standards for which to shoot for.

These should be performed cold without any warm-up: Perform a standing toe touch, a head-to-wall couch stretch and hang from a pull-up bar for one minute.

Nailing those won't make you a Cirque Du Soliel contortionist but will illustrate that you have a decent mobility baseline.

Anyone who can hit all the above standards should consider themselves fitter than 99% of the population out there.

Stay Hungry,

Adam

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