Why the Real Markers of Midlife Health Have Nothing to Do with Your Max Bench

Relative strength might be the clearest window into your future health — learn how to improve it before the clock runs out.

The Uncomfortable Question

It was a Tuesday morning in the gym.

One of my clients — let’s call him Mark — was grinning like a schoolboy as he loaded another plate onto the bar.

“New PB,” he said, nodding at the bench press. He’d been chasing this number for months.

He smashed the lift.

We high-fived.

Then, almost as an afterthought, I asked him to jump on the pull-up bar.

Three shaky reps later, Mark’s smile faded. 

Mark is not unusual.

In fact, if you’ve spent time in gyms, you’ve seen this play out a hundred times: people who can deadlift a small car, but can’t lift their own bodyweight more than a handful of times.

And here’s the kicker — the latest science suggests that when it comes to predicting how well you’ll age, your ability to move your own body might tell us far more than your one-rep max ever will.

Peter Attia calls this “training for the Centenarian Decathlon” — building the capacity today to do the things you want to do decades from now.

But unlike a 200kg squat, relative strength exercises like chin-ups and push-ups force you to maintain both muscle and a healthy body composition — two of the most critical levers for living longer, better.

The question is:

If we stopped measuring fitness by what we can lift off the floor, and started measuring it by how well we can lift ourselves, what would that change?

By the end of this article, you might never look at your training — or your longevity — the same way again.

The Big Misunderstanding — We’ve Been Measuring Fitness Wrong

The fitness industry loves big numbers.

Big lifts. Big mileage. Big calorie burns.

And for decades, that’s how most people — from weekend warriors to pro athletes — have defined success:

“How much can you lift?”

“How far can you run?”

“How many calories did you burn?”

The problem?

These metrics are performance snapshots. They tell us how you performed today, in a controlled environment, with ideal conditions. They say nothing about how resilient your body will be when life throws you a curveball — illness, injury, or just the slow creep of age.

Think about it like this:

If your health and fitness were a savings account, your one-rep max is the flashy deposit you made this week. Relative strength — your ability to move and control your own body — is the steady compound interest that quietly determines your wealth years from now.

And the science is catching up. 

The Longevity Blind Spot

In 2019, a study from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed something fascinating:

Men who could perform more than 40 push-ups had a 96% lower risk of cardiovascular disease over 10 years compared to those who managed fewer than 10.

Not VO₂ max.

Not cholesterol scores.

Push-ups.

Why? Because being able to do a lot of push-ups means you have the muscle mass, joint integrity, cardiovascular fitness, and healthy body composition to support repeated full-body movement against gravity.

It’s the same story with chin-ups, bodyweight squats, or the “get-up test” (where you sit on the floor and stand up without using your hands). These aren’t just “party trick” exercises — they’re whole-body stress tests. Fail them, and it’s an early warning sign. Pass them, and it’s a green light for healthspan.

The Science of Strength and Survival 

When you strip away the noise, human longevity boils down to a deceptively simple equation:

Stay strong, stay lean, stay moving — and you radically improve your odds of living longer and living better.

Peter Attia calls muscle “the organ of longevity.”

Not because biceps win you extra years, but because skeletal muscle is a metabolic powerhouse — a living tissue that influences almost every system in your body.

Muscle Mass: Your Biological Buffer 

One of the clearest findings in longevity research is that people with higher levels of muscle mass live longer.

A 2014 UCLA study analysing over 3,600 older adults found that muscle mass was inversely associated with all-cause mortality — meaning more muscle, less risk of dying from any cause.

Why? Muscle acts like a biochemical vault:

• Glucose Disposal: Muscle tissue is the primary site where your body stores and burns glucose. More muscle → better insulin sensitivity → lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

• Inflammation Control: Contracting muscles release myokines — signalling proteins like IL-6 and irisin — which act as systemic anti-inflammatories.

• Metabolic Flexibility: Muscle allows you to efficiently shift between burning carbs and fats, a key factor in avoiding metabolic diseases.

 Think of muscle as your body’s pension plan. Every training session is a contribution. Skip too many payments, and you find yourself broke when you need it most.

Strength as a Lifespan Predictor

Grip strength, of all things, has become one of the most reliable predictors of mortality.

In a massive 2015 study spanning 17 countries, each 5kg decrease in grip strength was associated with a 16% increase in all-cause mortality. That’s more predictive than systolic blood pressure.

Why? Grip strength is a proxy for overall neuromuscular health. If your grip fades, chances are your whole system is deconditioning — from muscle fibres to motor neurons. 

The Fat Factor

The other side of the equation is body fat — specifically visceral fat, the kind that wraps around your organs.

It’s not just a storage depot; it’s an active endocrine organ that pumps out inflammatory cytokines and disrupts hormonal balance.

The problem is, you can’t out-cardio visceral fat once muscle loss kicks in. Without resistance training, every decade after 30 sees you losing 3–8% of muscle mass. Combine that with creeping fat gain, and you’ve set the stage for insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and frailty.

Bottom Line 

Lean muscle and functional strength don’t just make you look good — they buy you decades of independence, resilience, and disease resistance.

In other words:

Your 1RM might impress your mates.

Your relative strength might save your life.

Why Relative Strength Wins — Even Over Cardio

Let’s be clear — cardio matters.

VO₂ max, the maximum rate at which your body can use oxygen during exercise, is one of the strongest predictors of longevity we have. Peter Attia goes as far as to call it “the single best marker of cardiovascular fitness.”

But here’s the twist:

When researchers compare VO₂ max to relative strength — your ability to move your own bodyweight — something fascinating happens.

The strongest people often aren’t the fittest on paper in the endurance sense… yet they still tend to outperform weaker individuals in survival statistics.  

The Relative Strength Advantage

Relative strength is the marriage of muscle mass and body composition.

It’s being able to:

• Pull yourself over a wall (chin-ups)

• Push yourself off the ground (press-ups)

• Carry heavy shopping without pausing for breath (loaded carries)

If you’re good at these, it means you’ve got:

1. Enough muscle mass to move your body efficiently

2. Low enough fat mass that you’re not lugging unnecessary weight

3. Neuromuscular coordination to make movement smooth and efficient

All three are independent predictors of better aging outcomes. 

The Push-Up Paradox

Consider a 2019 Harvard study of 1,104 male firefighters.

Researchers found that those who could complete 40 or more push-ups in a single attempt had a 96% lower risk of cardiovascular events over the next 10 years compared to those who could do fewer than 10.

Push-ups are essentially a free, accessible cardiac stress test — and they double as a measure of relative strength. You can’t fake your way through 40 if you’re carrying too much fat or lacking muscle endurance.

Why This Beats “Big Lifts” for Longevity

Big gym numbers — a 200kg deadlift, a 140kg bench — tell you about peak strength in a single, prepared effort.

Relative strength tells you about real-world capability.

If you trip and need to push yourself up, climb stairs while carrying something heavy, or get out of a pool without a ladder — that’s relative strength in action.

It’s functional. It’s repeatable. And unlike your 1RM, it holds its value well into your 70s and 80s.

Bottom line:

A high VO₂ max may help you live longer, but relative strength ensures you can actually live well during those extra years. 

The Physiology of Staying Strong for Life

Strength training isn’t just about “bigger muscles.”

It’s a biological broadcast — a signal that tells your body: stay young, stay capable, stay alive.

When you stop sending that signal, your body assumes you’re done with the heavy lifting of life — literally — and starts dismantling the systems you no longer “need.”

Muscle. Bone. Hormonal output. Neuromuscular coordination. All quietly downgraded. 

Hormones: The Body’s “Youth Messages”

Every time you lift something challenging, you spark a hormonal conversation:

• Growth Hormone (GH) surges during and after training, repairing tissues and helping build lean mass.

• Testosterone — critical for both men and women — rises transiently, maintaining muscle protein synthesis and mood stability.

• IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor) acts as a master switch for cellular growth and repair, especially important for bone density and connective tissue. 

The kicker? These hormones naturally decline with age… unless you keep reminding your body that you still need them through resistance training.

The Muscle-Brain Connection

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Contracting muscle releases a cocktail of biochemical messengers called myokines — think of them as text messages from your muscles to the rest of your body.

Some of the VIPs in this group:

• BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) — fertiliser for your brain cells, keeping neurons firing and forming new connections.

• IL-6 — in the chronic inflammation context, it’s bad news. But when released in pulses from muscle contractions, it actually has anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body.

• Irisin — promotes the browning of fat tissue (making it more metabolically active) and supports neuroprotection.

In other words, lifting weights literally changes your brain chemistry in ways that protect against cognitive decline.

Mitochondria: The Power Plants of Aging

As we age, our mitochondria — the tiny engines inside our cells — become less efficient.

That means less energy, more fatigue, and higher risk for metabolic disease.

Resistance training acts like a tune-up for these engines:

• Stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis (the creation of new mitochondria)

• Improves ATP production efficiency

• Reduces oxidative stress, a key driver of cellular aging 

A 2020 study from McMaster University found that older adults who strength trained reversed many of the gene expression patterns associated with aging — in some cases resembling those of much younger individuals.

The “Use It or Lose It” Principle, Made Real 

Imagine you’re the manager of a factory, and half the machines stop being used.

Would you keep maintaining them at full cost? No — you’d shut them down.

Your body is no different. Stop using muscle? Your brain starts shutting down its expensive maintenance.

Train regularly? Your body is forced to keep the machinery — and the whole factory — in good working order.

Bottom line:

Strength training isn’t just building muscle. It’s maintaining the infrastructure that keeps you alive, sharp, and mobile decades into the future.

The Strength & Longevity Training Toolkit

You don’t need to train like a powerlifter or live in the gym.

But you do need a plan that sends the right biological signals, consistently.

This is your “minimum effective dose” for strength, healthspan, and cognitive longevity 

Training Frequency: The Sweet Spot

2–4 strength sessions per week is enough for most people to keep muscle, bone, and metabolic function thriving.

Less than that? You risk drifting toward the muscle loss and insulin resistance that define frailty.

More than that? Possible, but only if recovery — sleep, nutrition, stress — is rock solid. 

Exercise Selection: Big Leverage Lifts

Prioritise compound movements — the ones that use the most muscle, move the most joints, and create the most systemic adaptation:

• Lower Body: Squats, trap bar deadlifts, split squats

• Upper Body Push: Bench press, push-ups, overhead press

• Upper Body Pull: Chin-ups, rows, pull-downs

These moves create hormonal surges, load bone tissue, and challenge balance and coordination — all of which become more important with age, not less. 

Programming: The Longevity Rep Zone 

For pure strength and muscle preservation, the 5–12 rep range is the golden zone.

Here’s why:

• Below 5 reps = great for maximal strength but increases joint stress

• Above 12 reps = endurance and hypertrophy benefits, but less optimal for strength retention in later decades

Aim for moderate-to-high effort — about an RPE of 7–9 (meaning 1–3 reps left in the tank). 

Power & Speed: The Missing Link for Aging Well

Most people stop moving explosively after their 30s — and that’s a problem.

Loss of power (strength × speed) is a bigger predictor of falls and frailty than loss of strength alone.

Once a week, add a power element:

• Jumps (bodyweight or light load)

• Medicine ball throws

• Kettlebell swings, snatches &/or cleans

Think quick, crisp, and controlled.

Supportive Strategies: Stack the Odds

Creatine Monohydrate: 3–5g/day — improves strength, supports brain health, and may even protect against neurodegenerative disease.

Protein Intake: 1.6–2.2g/kg/day — critical for muscle repair, immune health, and satiety.

Spread across 3–4 meals for maximum synthesis.

Sleep: 7.5–9 hours — growth hormone, testosterone, and neural recovery all depend on it.

Zone 2 Cardio: 1–2×/week — improves mitochondrial density and keeps the cardiovascular system efficient, complementing your lifting. 

Practical Framework: The “3x3 Longevity Lift”

• 3 Sessions Per Week

• 3 Main Lifts Per Session

• 3 Sets Per Lift

  Each session is full-body, covering push, pull, and legs.

  Add accessories or finishers only if recovery allows.

This is the signal your body needs to hear, week after week:

“I’m still capable. Keep everything switched on.”

Integration: Why This Needs to Become a Baseline

Most people think of strength training as optional — a “nice to have” if they have time, or something you do for appearance.

That thinking is what accelerates aging.

The truth?

Strength is the biological foundation of independence, resilience, and cognitive clarity.

When muscle mass drops, everything else follows — balance, bone density, insulin sensitivity, and even brain function.

Aging doesn’t announce itself with grey hair.

It shows up the moment you:

• Struggle to stand up from the floor without using your hands

• Avoid stairs because your knees ache

• Forget the last time you picked something heavy up from the ground 

Those aren’t inconveniences. They’re signals — telling you your body is quietly decommissioning systems you’re not using.

Think of lifting as your retirement plan for the body and brain.

You invest now — not for a short-term return, but so that 20, 30, 40 years from today you can:

• Carry your own bags without a second thought

• Play with your grandchildren at full speed, not from a chair

• React fast enough to avoid a fall that could end your independence

Strength training doesn’t just make you look better in the mirror today.

It buys you time — functional, vibrant, fully lived time.

And here’s the kicker:

Once you fall below a certain strength threshold, clawing it back is possible — but it’s harder, slower, and often incomplete.

That’s why the baseline matters.

The goal isn’t to train like a competitive athlete forever.

It’s to build and maintain a reserve of capability — a safety margin — so you can absorb life’s shocks without breaking.

 If you don’t set this baseline, your body will set one for you.

And it will be much lower than you’d like. 

Strength is the Signal 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Muscle is harder to build after 40, but easier to keep — if you protect it.

Strength is not just for today’s workouts.

It’s the currency your future self will spend on independence, confidence, and time.

Every rep you lift now is a deposit into the account that pays out for decades.

And the cost of doing nothing?

You don’t get the luxury of deciding when you stop being strong. Your body makes that call for you — and it rarely gives notice. 

Here’s my challenge to you:

If you’ve read this far, you already know this matters.

The only question left is whether you’ll take action now, or wait until the gap between where you are and where you should be is too wide to close.

So here’s my no-fluff offer:

📞 Book a free 15-minute Performance Audit with me.

In that call, we’ll:

1. Run a quick, science-backed check of your current strength, recovery, and resilience markers

2. Identify the exact gaps holding you back from the body, energy, and healthspan you want

3. Give you a simple, actionable 90-day plan you can start immediately — no guesswork, no fluff

You’ll walk away with absolute clarity on:

• What to start

• What to stop

• And how to ensure you’re not just getting older… you’re getting better

💡 If we decide it makes sense to work together after that, great. If not, you’ll still leave with a plan worth thousands in avoided mistakes and wasted time.

This is your signal. Don’t scroll past it.

Click here, pick a time, and let’s build the future-proof version of you.c