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How far can you run in twelve minutes?
One number, and it carries more weight than almost anything else you can measure about yourself. Cardiorespiratory fitness has one of the strongest relationships with long-term mortality in the literature.
The Cooper test
- 01 — Warm up properly. Ten minutes easy, then a few faster strides.
- 02 — Run for exactly twelve minutes, covering as much ground as you can.
- 03 — Record the distance. A track, a measured route, or any phone GPS.
Pace it. Most people go out too hard in the first three minutes and walk the last two.
Read this first
This is a maximal effort, and the hardest thing on this site. If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, chest pain, or you have not run in years, speak to your doctor before attempting it. Stop if you feel chest pain, dizziness or unusual breathlessness.
Sex
Where the numbers come from
Source — Cooper normative tables, decades of use. Cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly linked to long-term mortality (Mandsager et al., JAMA Netw Open 2018).
Your endurance score sits on the same 0–100 scale as the capability screen: your age-graded standard at 40, the target at 90. It is kept out of the capability score because it needs a track and a spare twelve minutes.
Mandsager, K., Harb, S., Cremer, P., et al. Association of cardiorespiratory fitness with long-term mortality among adults undergoing exercise treadmill testing. JAMA Network Open 1(6), e183605 (2018).
Read the sourceCooper, K. H. A means of assessing maximal oxygen intake: correlation between field and treadmill testing. JAMA 203(3), 201–204 (1968). The 12-minute run and its normative tables.
More on how scoring works in the methodology.