Fitness from a one-mile walk
Estimates your VO2 max, the fitness measure most strongly tied to how long people live.
What you'll need
Walk, don't run, and stop if you get chest pain, feel faint or can't catch your breath. If you have heart or lung disease, ask your clinician first.
- Warm up with a few minutes of easy walking.
- Walk one mile as fast as you can without running, and note the time.
- Straight away, count your pulse for 15 seconds. The page multiplies it by four.
- Enter your time, pulse, weight, age and sex.
Your result
Nothing you enter leaves this page unless you save your result.
What the research found
Across 33 studies of 102,980 people, each step up in fitness of one MET (about the difference a 1 km/h faster jog makes) went with 13% lower risk of death. People with low fitness (under 7.9 METs) had 70% higher risk of death than those with high fitness (10.9 METs or more). The walk test's estimate tracks a treadmill test closely in adults 30 to 69.
Studied in: 343 healthy adults aged 30 to 69 (the walk test); 102,980 people in 33 studies (fitness and death rates).
- Kline GM et al. Estimation of VO2max from a one-mile track walk, gender, age, and body weight. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1987;19(3):253-9. PubMed
- Kodama S et al. Cardiorespiratory fitness as a quantitative predictor of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events in healthy men and women: a meta-analysis. JAMA. 2009;301(19):2024-35. PubMed