Entrepreneur and “ultimate trier of things” Amanda Freeman, 49, is becoming a Super Age Founding Athlete to see how smart her training has been.

Success often boils down to boiling things down: Do fewer things, and do them better. Amanda Freeman is taking the opposite approach.

“I have a general philosophy I came up with at business school: I call it ‘more, worse,’” the serial health and fitness founder says. The idea: “Not to be the best. To be good enough at many things.”

Freeman has put this “more, worse” philosophy into practice while building businesses like SLT, a 22-location, pilates-inspired workout studio. She says it’s allowed her to be a present single mom and maintain a vibrant social life, all while launching (and selling) a second fitness-focused business, Stretch’d. And it’s given her the time and energy to get excited about training for longevity — strapping on weighted vests, hopping on vibration plates, and developing FuncFit, her soon-to-launch studio workout that takes into account the best science-backed knowledge on exercise and healthspan[helth-span]nounThe number of years you live in good health, free from chronic illness or disability.Learn MoreClose.

“I’m the ultimate trier of things,” she says. “So when I heard about the Super Age Games, I was like, ‘I need to do this. This is what I train for.”

At November’s inaugural event, the 49-year-old will be one of the Super Age Games’ Founding Athletes.

Being Better Older Means Working For It

Before she was a fitness founder, Freeman was a fitness finder: She worked as a trends forecaster, known popularly as a “cool hunter,” aiding businesses by finding the freshest products and ideas before they became fads. 

It’s what led her to found her first business, Vital Juice, a daily newsletter that surfaced the newest ideas in health and fitness to thousands of readers. This gave Freeman a front-row seat to what Gen Xers and elder Millennials were thinking about and responding to in the world of wellness.

“It’s a generation that’s grown up with preventive health, and so it’s become ingrained in them,” she says. That mindset, plus advancements in science, is what’s driving the longevity boom, in her trend forecasting opinion. “They’re taking things into their own hands and saying, ‘we don’t have to age the way generations before us did.’”

In her own life, not aging in the old way means “being better older than I was younger,” she says. At the very least, “it means being able to keep doing the same things I’ve been doing.”

Those “same things” include exercise classes, Freeman’s preferred fitness format. It’s why she launched SLT in the first place: After participating in Sebastian Lagree’s high-intensity pilates classes in California, she wanted to do the same in New York. When the company wouldn’t let her franchise there, she created her own model.

“I’m the person who comes up with an idea and actually does it. And the only reason I do it is because I want it personally,” she says.

She’s doing the same thing with her latest venture, FuncFit: Freeman says she loves training for longevity and the emerging, healthspan-increasing science of building VO2 Max[vee-oh-too maks]nounA measurement of how much oxygen your body can use during exercise.Learn MoreClose, functional strength[fuhngk-shuh-nl strength]nounStrength that translates to everyday tasks and movements.Learn MoreClose, balance, and endurance under load, but couldn’t find those ideas incorporated into a workout class. So she’s starting one herself.

“I thought there should be a group workout that checks all the boxes of all the things the experts are telling us to do, but in one 50-minute circuit,” she says. “There’s some jumping, some grip strength[grip strength]nounA key marker of strength and predictor of longevity.Learn MoreClose, some balance, some Zone 2, some strength, some stretch.” Freeman notes that she kept each exercise element simple, “for the average, health-conscious person.”

When it opens this fall, FuncFit will have five stations, each performed for 10 minutes. The stations include weighted treadmill walking, dumbbell strength moves, work on a vibration plate, time on a Pilates reformer, and plyometrics. Instead of starting at a specific time, clients can drop in at any 10-minute slot to start the circuit, what Freeman calls a “modern-day Curves” approach.

The Super Age Games: Testing How “Smart” Her Workouts Really Are

As she’s developed and tweaked FuncFit’s circuit with doctors and trainers, Freeman has been focused not just on how she and her clients can work on their fitness for longevity, but how they can track it. 

“We say it’s the smartest workout,” she says. To really know that, the founder notes, “you have to test yourself.”

But she’s not a person who wears a watch or tracking ring; instead, she’s all about markers you can assess yourself. Her current goal, for example, isn’t to look better in a bikini, but to farmer’s carry 75 percent of her bodyweight.

To get there, she trains almost every day, combining FuncFit and twice-a-week SLT classes.  She also lifts at a studio called Liftonic, and does a 40-minute strength circuit called Sweat440 one each week. And at the Super Age Games, where she’ll test measures of V02 max, grip strength, balance, and more, she’ll get a chance to assess how “smart” her training’s really been. 

“I’m a small person. I’m like five-foot-one-and-three-quarters. And I used to pride myself on being fragile,” she says. “Now I don’t want to be fragile. I just want to be strong.”

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