At Supra Human, we have always believed that building an elite physique matters. But aesthetics are only one expression of elite fitness. If the goal is not simply to look better, but to live longer, perform at a higher level and remain physically capable for decades to come, we need to look beyond the mirror.
That thinking led us to create something new.
The Supra Human Score.
The Missing Piece: Physical Performance
Within the world of health and fitness, we collect all kinds of data to assess progress. For our body composition, we collect scale data, progress pictures and DEXA scans. To see what is going on internally, we can analyze biomarkers through comprehensive blood panelling. Then we have modern devices that allow us to track sleep, nutrition and recovery metrics, such as HRV.
All of these provide valuable information, but one of them completely answer a fundamental question:
How physically capable are you?
This matters because health isn’t simply the absence of disease. For us, health means having the physical capacity to fully participate in your life. It’s having the aerobic fitness to hike a mountain without wondering whether your body can handle it. It’s having the strength to carry your child without being concerned about throwing your back out.
Research has consistently reinforced just how important these qualities are. A systematic review and meta-analysis found that better physical capability, such as muscular strength, walking speed and balance, was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (Cooper et al., 2010). More recently, an overview of meta-analyses found cardiorespiratory fitness to be a strong and consistent predictor of health outcomes, with higher fitness associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and several chronic diseases (Lang et al., 2024).
Additionally, the benefits of maintaining physical capability extend beyond simply living longer. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis found that greater physical capability was significantly associated with greater life satisfaction in older adults, reinforcing the importance of remaining physically capable as we age (Sulandari et al., 2024).
The evidence supports the notion that what your body can do matters for how long, and how well, you live.
The Goal Is Not Just To Add Years. You Must Protect What You Can Do With Them.
Most conversations about longevity focus on extending lifespan. However, we think there is a more important question:
What do you want those additional years to look and physically feel like?
Living longer is one thing, but living longer while remaining strong, mobile, independent and capable is another. Because one of the defining features of aging isn’t simply that we get older. It’s that, without intervention, many of the physical qualities we take for granted begin to decline.
- Strength
- Power
- Aerobic capacity
- Balance
- Mobility
When physical capacity declines far enough, your world can start getting smaller. The activities you once loved become harder, everyday tasks demand more effort and independence can gradually disappear. This is why we don’t believe the goal should be to simply accept physical decline as an inevitable consequence of getting older.
The goal should be to build such a high level of physical capacity that the ageing process is not something to fear.
What Makes a Supra Human?
This became the philosophy behind the Supra Human Score. We wanted a single performance metric that looked beyond how someone appears and instead asked how comprehensively fit they actually are. That meant looking across multiple dimensions of human performance.
Aerobic capacity reflects the ability of your cardiovascular and respiratory systems to deliver oxygen during sustained physical activity. It is one of the most consistently supported fitness markers in longevity research, with higher cardiorespiratory fitness associated with substantially lower risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.
Strength gives you the physical reserve to interact with the world around you. Strength is not just the ability to lift, carry, and move against resistance, but also reduces the risk of injury as we age. The stronger we are, the better our body can tolerate the physical stress we put it under.
Muscular endurance represents your ability to repeatedly produce and tolerate effort. Being strong once matters. Being able to sustain physical work matters too.
Power is your ability to express force quickly. It becomes increasingly important as we age because everyday physical function isn’t purely about how much force you can produce, it is often about how quickly you can produce it. Research examining older adults has identified muscle power as an important contributor to maintaining functional performance.
Movement quality, mobility and stability determine whether you can actually use those physical qualities effectively. Your ability to control your body, maintain balance and move confidently becomes increasingly important for preserving physical independence.
There is no single physical quality that tells us the whole story, and quite often we will be caught out by our achilles heel. You could be incredibly strong, but struggle under any sustained physical exertion. You may have exceptional cardiovascular fitness, but your lower back muscles tear when put under physical strain. You may look elite, but your body can’t live up to its physical expectations.
Elite fitness is multidimensional.
Your New Benchmark
That is what the SHS is designed to uncover. This is not another number to obsess over. Or some kind of novel fitness challenge of who can suffer the most. It is an objective benchmark of your current physical capability across the qualities we believe matter for performance today and maintaining that performance for decades to come.
The SHS will give you a starting point by which you can assess your physical capabilities. It will provide you with your strengths and weaknesses, whereby you can use this information to plan your next training phase. Making sure that you are able to keep your strengths a strength, and close the gap on your weaknesses.
The goal is to build a body that is stronger, fitter, resilient and capable, for decades to come.
Coming to SHX26
This October, we’re bringing the Supra Human Score to SHX26. For the first time, attendees will have the opportunity to experience the assessment and discover exactly where their physical performance currently stands.
The aim is to optimize your longevity through physical performance.
References
- Cooper, R., Kuh, D., & Hardy, R. (2010). Objectively measured physical capability levels and mortality: Systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 341, c4467.
- Lang, J. J., et al. (2024). Cardiorespiratory fitness is a strong and consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality among adults: An overview of meta-analyses representing over 20.9 million observations from 199 unique cohort studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 58(10), 556–566.
- Sulandari, S., Coats, R. O., Miller, A., Hodkinson, A., & Johnson, J. (2024). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between physical capability, social support, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and life satisfaction in older adults. The Gerontologist, 64(11). .
