Crushing the Myth of Aging as Decline

Super Age Games Founding Athlete Vanessa Chu, 43, wants to nail the basics — and she’s creating space for others to do the same.

Before Vanessa Chu taught her first yoga class in 2009, she and her students pushed heavy mahogany furniture into the corners of the room, where portraits of scowling, long-dead men glared down at her sun salutations.

Chu was a business school student at Columbia University at the time, running something she called the Healthy Living Club. “There were two other girls in my MBA program who had just done a yoga teacher training, too,” she says. The school gave the newly-certified trio a room for their free classes: “It was this storied, old library-looking room they gave us. I think it’s where they did board meetings. And that was the first ‘yoga studio’ where I ever taught.”

In the decades that have followed, Chu, now 43, has built and grown wellness and fitness businesses in spaces better suited for their missions: a sauna-and-meditation practice in San Francisco, corporate wellness companies on both coasts, and Stretch’d, a chain of one-on-one assisted stretching studios in New York that was sold in 2025.

But to get from that first studio to her position today as a serial wellness entrepreneur, Chu did the same things she did for that first class: She pushed the dusty, fussy expectations to be a consultant or banker after business school out of the way, and made room for what really got her going: health and fitness.

“I had this passion, and the idea that health and wellness was a trend that was going to be something big,” she says. “I needed to be a part of that.”

For several years, she’s been chasing her next big thing: Longevity, both in her business and her own life. And that chase has led the fitness founder to the inaugural Super Age Games, where Chu will be a Founding Athlete this November. 

Nailing the Fundamentals of Longevity

For Chu, healthy longevity means she can “live to 100 and not break a hip. That’s my only goal really at this point.” And in her view, hitting the century mark with her bones intact is all about the fundamentals.

“I’m always on top of what the next trend is, or what the next innovation or medical technology might be, but I fall back on the basics,” she says. “Your foundation is pretty simple: It’s exercise, good sleep, good diet, a balanced lifestyle, healthy relationships… that gets you 95 percent of the way.”

When it comes to the exercise portion of her foundation, Chu says that she, and other people in her age range, have been left behind by the fitness industry. This generation grew up with boutique classes — barre workouts, yoga studios, mat pilates, and more — but she says those options aren’t addressing the needs of 40-something class lovers today. 

“I don’t necessarily want to be going to a workout where it’s super dark or lit up red, the music’s super loud, the instructor’s yelling in my face… and everyone next to me is in matching sets taking TikTok videos in the mirror,” she says. 

But it’s not just about the atmosphere, she adds. It’s that these workouts stop short of building up your body for the long-haul. “I know I’m supposed to be strength training[strength tray-ning]nounResistance-based exercise to build muscle and support healthy aging.Learn MoreClose. I know I’m supposed to be doing these various aspects of cardio and mobilitymoh-bil-i-tee]nounThe ability to move freely and easily through a full range of motion.Learn MoreClose and training functionally, but I don’t know where to get it all in one place.”

She nails a lot of those “supposed-tos” with her weekly trio of yoga classes, twice-weekly strength sessions, a pilates class or two, and mini trampoline sessions in her living room. But she and her business partner, fellow Super Age Games Founding Athlete Amanda Freeman, wanted to combine all the aspects that longevity-seekers need into a single workout. So they’re launching FuncFit, a studio-based training designed for people 35 and older.

FuncFit’s five-station workout will help participants build the same age-defying fitness that Super Age identifies as key biomarkers of aging. They’ll work on VO2 max[vee-oh-too maks]nounA measurement of how much oxygen your body can use during exercise.Learn MoreClose with 10 minutes of intense cardio, endurance under load with weighted treadmill walking, functional strength[fuhngk-shuh-nl strength]nounStrength that translates to everyday tasks and movements.Learn MoreClose with a series of dumbbell moves, and balance and agility with work on vibration plates, pilates reformers, and plyometric stations. The complete workout can be finished in 50 minutes, and lets busy, middle-aged participants jump in at the start of any 10-minute block, rather than at set class times.

“So if you’ve got kids in school, and you have to drop them off at 8:30, then you want a workout that starts at 8:40. That doesn’t always exist,” she says. With this format, longevity-defying classes start when you’re ready, rather than waiting another hour and potentially missing the moment.

Defying the Myth of Inevitable Decline to Achieve More Than Ever

As Freeman and Chu have developed FuncFit, they’ve been focused not just on building the fitness that will help clients live longer and stronger, but on finding ways to measure how much stronger and more capable they’re becoming. So when she learned about the Super Age Games, Chu says it was an instant “yes.”

“I think it’s really the best measurement of what our enduring health and wellness will look like,” she says. “It’s a fun test, and a good way to get people thinking about their fitness and longevity. I can’t wait to test my own.”

As she looks forward to that test, the 43-year-old feels confident about several of the trials she’ll face at the Games: She was a gymnast and diver in her youth, so she’s confident in her balance. And she hangs from a bar each day in her home, so grip strength[grip strength]nounA key marker of strength and predictor of longevity.Learn MoreClose’s a cinch.

She does note one weak point, though: As is the case for many who came of age in the high-intensity-obsessed 2000s fitness culture, Chu says her cardio endurance is lagging behind. Now she’s training for it, her focus fixed on building what’s next.

“The biggest myth about aging is that you can’t learn and you can’t develop and you can’t progress,” she says. “There is a whole long timeline ahead of us… if we give it our best and focus our efforts, we can continually achieve greater goals than we ever thought possible.”

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