Exercise & FitnessNine Fitness Tests Every Adult Should Know to Measure and Extend Healthspan
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, exercise physiologist Dr. Andy Galpin revisits a landmark guest series to outline the nine major components of physical fitness and how ordinary people can assess them at home or in a gym. The framework covers movement quality, speed, power, grip strength, lower-body strength, muscle mass, muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, and VO2 max. Each component comes with a practical field test — standing broad jumps for power, dead hangs for grip, push-up holds for muscular endurance, and walking or running protocols for VO2 max. Galpin also explains how to sequence testing sessions, how frequently to retest, and how to identify which fitness gap to prioritize for the greatest long-term health and performance return. Because VO2 max is one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality, this framework is directly relevant to longevity planning.
