Your best fitness years might come later than you think

For years, the idea that physical fitness peaks somewhere in your late 20s or early 30s has gone largely unchallenged.

Athletic performance, recovery, and even motivation have often been framed as a downhill slope once you pass that point.

But new data from Polar suggests that narrative no longer holds up, at least not when it comes to how much people actually train.

According to Polar’s 2025: Reflected report, which analyses millions of workouts logged using the brand's running watches and triathlon wearables over the past year, training volume steadily increases with age rather than declining.

Users aged 20–29 averaged 248 minutes of weekly exercise, but this figure rises steadily across age brackets, peaking at 383 minutes per week among those aged 60–69.

It’s a fundamental shift in who is putting the most time into movement, and it challenges long-held assumptions about motivation, longevity and what modern fitness actually looks like.

Time on feet, not time to peak

What’s striking is that this increase isn’t driven by extreme or elite behaviour.

The average run logged by Polar users is just 7.7 km, the average walking workout lasts 65 minutes, and even marathon finish times sit firmly in the committed-amateur () range at 4 hours and 12 minutes on average.

In other words, older users aren’t training more because they’re chasing podiums. They’re training more because they’ve built habits that stick and fit around life rather than dominating it.

The quiet rise of sustainable training

This shift isn’t unique to Polar’s ecosystem – Garmin’s own end-of-year data tells a remarkably similar story.

Its 2025 annual report highlights a growing emphasis on consistency, recovery and long-term load management, rather than short bursts of peak performance.

Strava’s latest annual insights echo that pattern too, showing that most athletes prioritise regular movement and manageable training volumes over chasing personal bests week after week.

Different platforms, different audiences, but the same conclusion: sustainable training is becoming the default.

It’s also reflected in how people move. While running remains the single most popular activity on Polar devices, nearly three-quarters of users practised more than one sport during the year, and almost one in five logged five or more.

Even the resurgence of racing fits this broader pattern. More than half of Polar users plan to take part in organised races next year, with late April emerging as the busiest period thanks to major marathon weekends.

Fitness doesn’t peak in your 30s. As people age, they train more consistently, diversify their activities and prioritise health outcomes over short-term gains.

Wearables are actively shaping it by rewarding behaviours that hold up over years, not weeks.

If there’s a takeaway here, it’s not that getting older magically makes you fitter. It’s that experience, routine, and perspective matter more than raw performance, and the data is finally catching up.

Read the full Polar report here.