The Super Age Games: A Coach Reads the Eight Trials, and the Evidence Behind Them

By Dai Manuel. Published October 6, 2026.

A longevity fitness competition runs 7 November in New York. A Vancouver coach breaks down the eight trials, the science, and what actually holds up.

The short version

• The Super Age Games runs 7 November 2026 at The Armory Track in Washington Heights, New York City. Eight trials, one day, 960 founding athletes aged 29 to 80.
• It was built with Dr. Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, and Dr. Andy Walshe, former Head of Performance at Red Bull.
• Six of the eight trials sit on genuinely strong mortality research. Grip strength, balance, aerobic capacity and social connection are among the best evidenced markers we have.
• It is not quite the first event of its kind, despite the marketing, but it is comfortably the best resourced.
• The part I would push back on is the “healthspan forecast” in the post event report. Individual markers are well validated. Rolling them into a single predictive number is a different claim, and a much shakier one.
• You do not need a plane ticket. Six of the eight markers can be tested in any decent gym in about twenty minutes. The protocol is at the bottom of this article.

What the Super Age Games actually is

For about fifteen years, the fitness industry has measured one thing: output. How fast, how heavy, how many. CrossFit measures work capacity. HYROX measures your ability to run and push and pull under fatigue. Both are honest tests of what you can do today.

Neither tells you much about what you will be able to do at 78.

The Super Age Games is the first event I have seen that goes at that question directly. It runs on 7 November 2026 at The Armory Track in Washington Heights, and the framing is right there in their own copy: most fitness events measure how fast you can run or how much you can lift, and this one is trying to measure how long you will live well.

The inaugural field is 960 founding athletes, ranging from 29 to 80 years old. Registration closes 7 October or when it sells out. Tickets run $399 for the Athlete Pass, $1,299 for the Champion Pass, and $30 to spectate. The event is HSA and FSA eligible in the United States, which tells you something about how they are positioning it.

The credibility here is real. Super Age took the markers to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and to Andy Walshe, and both were involved in validating the science and shaping the trials. Their stated selection criteria for a marker were that it had to be testable in under five minutes without expensive equipment, supported by peer reviewed research linking it to mortality or healthspan, and trainable in weeks rather than decades.

That third criterion is the one I want to underline. It is the difference between a health assessment and a fitness event. If a marker cannot be improved, testing it just makes people anxious.

The eight trials, and what the research says

1. The Over Under, for agility

Four gates set 10 metres apart, alternating crawling under and climbing over, out to a turnaround and back.

Why it is there: Gait speed is one of the most validated longevity metrics in medicine. A pooled analysis of 34,485 adults found roughly a 12 percent reduction in mortality risk for every 0.1 metres per second increase in walking pace. The Over Under adds change of direction and body position, which straight line walking speed misses.

My read: Solid. Gait speed research is deep. Whether an obstacle course is a better proxy than a simple 4 metre timed walk is unproven, but it is a defensible extension and it makes for a better event.

2. The Synapse, for cognitive processing

Tracking multiple moving objects on a screen as difficulty climbs, immediately after the agility trial. Powered by NeuroTracker, a founding partner of the Games.

Why it is there: Working memory is one of the earliest markers of cognitive ageing. Research from Northwestern's Mesulam Center identifies preserved working memory as what separates “SuperAgers,” adults over 80 whose memory matches people decades younger, from typical decline. A 2008 analysis of more than 3,000 people in the Cardiovascular Health Study found lower cognitive processing scores predicted significantly higher mortality, and that when low cognitive scores appeared alongside slower gait, mortality rates were close to four times higher.

My read: The marker is legitimate and the combined gait plus cognition finding is genuinely striking. Worth noting that the testing tool belongs to a sponsor of the event. That is not disqualifying, and 3D multiple object tracking is a real research method, but it is a fair thing to know.

3. The Tightrope, for balance

A 12 foot low beam, walked forward and then backward, carrying a water filled tube in a front rack position. Falls send you back to the start.

Why it is there: This is the trial with the most quotable evidence behind it. A 2022 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that failing to hold a 10 second single leg stance was associated with 84 percent higher all cause mortality risk over the following seven to ten years.

My read: Strongest single marker on the list from a cost to signal ratio. It requires no equipment, takes ten seconds, and carries mortality data comparable to tests people pay thousands for. Adding load and movement makes it harder to score but arguably more informative.

4. The Net, for functional strength

A 40 foot horizontal cargo net, crawled across, suspended a few feet off the ground. No rolling.

Why it is there: The WHO's Healthy Ageing framework treats loss of functional capacity, meaning the ability to handle real world physical challenges, as the threshold event that ends healthspan. Strength in a single plane does not predict that the way coordinated whole body strength does.

My read: Conceptually right, hardest to standardise. A cargo net crawl is heavily influenced by body mass, limb length and technique. Fine as an event, weak as a repeatable benchmark you retest every six months.

5. The Hang, for grip strength

A dead hang from a bar. No kipping, no movement. Time ends when you let go.

Why it is there: The PURE study followed 139,691 participants across 17 countries and found grip strength was a stronger predictor of mortality than systolic blood pressure, with every 5 kg reduction in grip associated with roughly a 16 percent increase in all cause mortality risk. A February 2026 study in JAMA Network Open of 5,472 women found the strongest grip group had 33 percent lower mortality than the weakest, and that held even among women not meeting aerobic exercise guidelines.

My read: Excellent marker, imperfect test. Grip strength research is built on dynamometer readings in kilograms. A dead hang measures grip endurance and is confounded by body weight, so a 95 kg athlete and a 60 kg athlete are not being asked the same question. Better as a spectacle. If you want the number the research is actually about, squeeze a dynamometer.

6. The Inferno, for aerobic capacity

Four minutes on a bike at your strongest sustainable effort. Estimated VO2 max calculated from body weight adjusted power output.

Why it is there: VO2 max is the single strongest modifiable predictor of longevity we have. A 2022 analysis of more than 750,000 people in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found each one MET improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness was linked to 13 to 15 percent lower mortality risk, regardless of age, sex or BMI.

My read: If you only train one thing on this list, train this. A four minute all out effort is a rough estimate rather than a lab measurement, and it will underrate anyone who is not a practised cyclist, but as a field test it is reasonable and repeatable.

7. The Sync, for relational capacity

Reading and responding to a series of facial and emotional expressions, scored on accuracy and response time. Methodology based on the micro expression research of Eve and Paul Ekman.

Why it is there: Julianne Holt-Lunstad's meta analysis of more than 308,000 people found strong social relationships were associated with a 50 percent increased likelihood of survival, an effect size comparable to quitting smoking.

My read: This is the most interesting and the most contestable trial on the list. The underlying finding, that social connection is a first tier longevity variable, is about as solid as anything in this field. But the trial does not measure your social connection. It measures your accuracy at reading faces on a screen, which is a related but separate construct. I admire that they included it. I would not read a low score as a prediction about your relationships.

8. The Super Age 800, for endurance under load

800 metres, run or walked, carrying a sandbag at 10, 25, 40 or 50 lbs. Finish time adjusted by a weight multiplier.

Why it is there: UK Biobank data from more than 50,000 participants confirms walking pace independently predicts mortality regardless of total physical activity volume. Adding load turns it into a measure of functional independence rather than just pace.

My read: Strong finisher and a fair test. This is the closest thing on the list to a HYROX station, and anyone who has done farmer carries under fatigue knows exactly what the last 200 metres feels like.

Three things they got right

They picked trainable markers. Every one of these eight improves with weeks of consistent work. Nobody leaves with a number they cannot change. That single design decision separates this from most longevity testing on the market.

They included connection. Social fitness is arguably the best evidenced longevity variable there is, and the entire fitness industry ignores it because it does not fit on a leaderboard. Putting it in the format, imperfectly, is braver than leaving it out.

They kept the equipment cheap. A beam, a bar, a bike, a cargo net, a sandbag. Nothing here requires a lab. That means the markers are testable in a normal gym, which makes the whole thing repeatable by people who will never buy a ticket.

Where I would push back

The healthspan forecast. The Athlete Pass includes a Longevity Report with per trial scoring, peer ranked results, a healthspan forecast and an action plan. The first three of those are straightforward. The forecast is a different kind of claim.

Every study cited above is a population level association. Grip strength predicts mortality across 139,691 people. It does not predict your date of decline. Combining eight validated markers into one forward looking number is not the same as having eight validated markers, and I could not find published validation for the specific model being used. The honest version of that report says “here is where you sit against your peers, and here is what to train.” That is genuinely useful. Anything that reads as a prediction about your individual future is doing more than the evidence supports.

To be fair to Super Age, they say plainly that the score is a map and not a judgment. I would just want the report itself to hold that line as clearly as their editorial does.

One day is a snapshot, not a trend. You cannot know whether a number is good or bad in isolation. You can only know whether it is moving. A single test day, however well produced, tells you where you stand. The retest is where the value is, and the retest is not part of the ticket.

The Champion Pass bundles a lot. $1,299 gets you 65 clinical biomarkers via WHOOP Advanced Labs, two pairs of shoes, a NeuroTracker membership and a training consult. It might well be worth it. But bundling clinical lab work into a fitness event ticket blurs a line I would rather stayed clear, and unexplained biomarker panels have a habit of generating anxiety rather than action.

“The first” is doing some work. Super Age bills this as the first competition designed to measure and extend human healthspan. It is not quite that. The Longevity World Cup already ranks competitors on the gap between their chronological and biological age using bloodwork. The LT Games and the UK's Longevity Games both test real world physical capability through a longevity lens. The National Senior Games have been showcasing what older athletes can do for decades. What Super Age has that none of them do is the Buck Institute, a serious production budget and a million subscriber list. That is a genuine differentiator and they did not need the “first” claim to make the case.

None of this makes it a bad event. I think it is a good one, and I think the category needed a well funded entry. I would just read the report as a starting line rather than a verdict.

You do not need a plane ticket to test this

Here is the part that matters for most people reading this in Vancouver. Six of the eight markers are testable in about twenty minutes, in any gym with a pull up bar and a stopwatch.

The two you cannot easily replicate are The Synapse and The Sync, because both need specific software.

Write the six numbers down with today's date. That is the whole exercise. A number you have not written down is not a benchmark, it is a memory.

Then retest in 90 days. That is where every bit of the value lives.

Why I am writing this

I turn 50 in November, the same month the Games runs, and I have spent most of this year moving from one question to another one. For twenty years I trained to hit numbers on a whiteboard. Now I am considerably more interested in what I will be able to do at 80.

In October we are publishing our own version of this, called The 50 Standard. Eight benchmarks, scored by decade, testable in a normal gym, no composite score and no forecast about your future. Just where you sit, what the floor should be, and what to train next. I will be posting my own results, whatever they say.

If you want it when it lands, get on the list below.

And if you would rather just come and get tested by a human, that is what we do at 278 East 1st Avenue seven days a week. First three classes are free.