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📊 Before you start · Baseline
Your Baseline
Six tests. Fifteen minutes. No blood draw, no lab, no doctor. Do them today, write the numbers down, and do them again on Day 30, 60, 90 and 120. This is how you find out whether any of this worked.
1🎯 Why we make you do thisthe honest reason
If you don't measure the start, you will never know whether you got better — you'll only know whether you remember feeling better.
Four months from now you'll feel different, and you'll have no idea by how much. Memory is a terrible instrument. People routinely forget how bad they felt, then decide the program "didn't really do much" — while doing things in month four they physically could not do in month one.
These six aren't a "biological age." Anybody selling you a single number for that is guessing. What they are is six honest, repeatable measures of how your body actually functions, every one of which is linked in the research to how long and how well people live. They cost nothing, they take fifteen minutes, and the only equipment on the list is a twenty-dollar hand gripper.
2✅ The six testsdo them in this order, write down every number
✓1. Heart rate recovery ⭐ — the most important oneExercise hard enough to be breathing heavily. The moment you stop, note your heart rate. Sit still for exactly 60 seconds, then check it again. Subtract. If you went from 160 down to 130, your score is 30.
Why it matters more than the rest: in a study of over 2,000 people, a poor recovery score predicted a four-fold higher risk of dying over the following six years. It's an early warning that shows up long before anything hurts. Any watch, chest strap or a finger on your neck will do.
✓2. Sit-and-riseFrom standing, sit down cross-legged on the floor, then stand back up — without using your hands, knees, forearms or elbows.
Scoring: start at 10. Take off 1 point every time you use a hand or a knee, going down or coming up. Take off half a point for a real wobble. Aim to hold 8 or better. This single test bundles lower-body strength, balance and mobility — it's the "can I get off the floor by myself" measure.
✓3. One-leg stand, eyes closedStand on one foot, hook the other ankle behind it, arms at your sides, close your eyes, and time how long you last. Best of three tries. Do it next to a wall.
Seventeen seconds is around average for a healthy 30-year-old. Balance with your eyes shut is one of the better predictors of overall mortality in people over 40, because it needs your inner ear, your nerves and your muscles all working together.
✓4. Push-ups to failureHands about shoulder width, chest touches the floor, arms fully straight at the top. Count until you can't do another clean one.
Full range or the number is meaningless. Half-reps give you a bigger score that measures nothing, and you're only competing with your own Day 1.
✓5. Waist-to-height ratioMeasure your height. Measure your waist at its narrowest point between your ribs and your hips, relaxed — don't suck in. Divide waist by height.
Target: under 0.5. This is a better read on the fat that actually matters — the kind packed around your organs — than BMI, and it's the number most likely to move in the first two months.
✓6. Grip strength — the only one that costs moneyA hand dynamometer runs about $20. Arm down at your side, squeeze as hard as you can, best of three. Test both hands and note the difference.
Grip strength is one of the most reliable single predictors of all-cause mortality we have — not because your hands matter, but because they're a clean readout of total-body strength.
🟡 Two rules that make the numbers real. Technique beats score — cheat the depth on a push-up and you've measured nothing. And test the same way every time: same time of day, same shoes, same rested-or-not. A number you can't reproduce isn't a measurement, it's a mood.
3📝 Write it downon paper, on your phone, anywhere you'll find it in four months
DAY 1 · ______ / ______ / ______
Heart rate recovery ______ bpm in 60 sec
Sit-and-rise ______ / 10
One-leg stand, eyes closed ______ sec
Push-ups ______
Waist ÷ height ______
Grip ______ lb left / ______ lb right
Retest: Day 30 · Day 60 · Day 90 · Day 120
💬 Don't be discouraged by a bad first score. That's the point of a baseline — it's a starting line, not a verdict. Nearly everyone scores badly on at least one of these on Day 1, and the ones that look worst are usually the ones that improve fastest. Send us your Day 1 numbers in the group chat. Four months from now we'll pull them up next to your Day 120 set, and that comparison will tell you more than any way you happen to feel on the morning you read this.
4🎓 If you want moreoptional, and genuinely optional
➕Two extras worth tracking dailyonly if you already wear something
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✓Resting heart rateIf you own any watch or ring, this is the single most useful number to watch day to day. It rises when you're under-slept, fighting something, drinking, or overtrained — often before you consciously notice. You're watching the trend, not any one morning.
✓Time awake during the nightMost sleep trackers report it. Under 30 minutes is the normal range. It's a far better read on sleep quality than total hours in bed.
🚫What not to spend money on yetbefore you've done the free version
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✕A "biological age" testThe ones sold direct to consumers vary wildly between labs and even between runs on the same sample. Even the people who use them clinically say they're not sufficient on their own. Do the six free tests first.
✕A full-body scan or a giant panelNot because they're useless — because the six tests above cost nothing and will move first. Spend money on testing once you've run out of free things to measure.
✕Anything you won't repeatA number with nothing to compare it to is trivia. If you won't do it again on Day 120, don't bother doing it on Day 1.
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Post your Day 1 numbers in the group.We'll hold them for you — and pull them back up on Day 120.
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