22/04/2026
How fit is fit enough?
The first part of this to unpack is the difference between engaging in fitness activities for health, and engaging in fitness activities for performance-based reasons.
On the health side of things, we already have guidelines for this, and they're more about how much time we spend time DOING active things and the type of active things we spend time doing, than they are about what we should be able to DO ie perform per se.
I note that there are sometimes studies that come out claiming that being able to do this or that is correlated with greater longevity, but they often have so many confounding factors or such niche study groups that they're rarely very helpful (eg do you live longer if you can do more pushups or are you more likely to live longer if you're well and able-bodied enough to be able to train to do more pushups? And is data from the New York Fire Brigade really relevant to your 90yo nan?)
On the performance side of things, we can think of fitness as something akin to "suitable capacity". This is of course going to vary from person to person, because what we will need the suitable capacity for will vary wildly.
Competitive rock climber? Long distance swimmer? Person who enjoys gardening? Community firefighter? Parent of three small children? Hobby iceskater? Regular person who wants to reduce their risk of tripping over? About to go on an overseas trip that will involve lots of walking and stairs? Someone who just really wants to do chinups? Someone who wants to be ready to go on a hike at a moment's notice?
Basically, the key is to work out what tasks you need to perform, and what skills and strengths you'll need to perform those tasks - both for your everyday life and for whatever you do for fun and work, and that will help you determine what "fit enough" will look like for you.
Some things need you to be strong enough to lift a heavy thing a few times, some things need you to be able to hold a small weight in position for a long time, some things require you to balance precariously while performing complex motor tasks and so on. If you give your body progressively scaled versions of the things it needs to be able to do, it will adapt over time and develop that capacity (oversimplification but that's the gist).
Of course, with some exceptions, there are ways we can modify not just our capacity but also the tasks - and decide whether we want to be strong enough to lug 4 bags of sand to the other end of our backyard by hand, or whether we want to buy a wheelbarrow or a dolly, or pay someone else to do the task for us.
You get to decide what "fit enough" looks like for you, and that also includes deciding how much time and effort you want to or are able to put into developing your physical capacity.
Unfortunately that's not as catchy as "the 5 fitness benchmarks you should be able to hit by 40" but it is also a lot more empowering because after all, it's your body and your life.
