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Summary
In episode 741, Coach Allan sits down with Scott Fulton, an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Delaware and past president of the National Aging in Place Council, to discuss his book Function: Turn Your Blind Spots into Strengths. Scott builds his approach around one core idea: your weakest link, not your strongest, determines your future. Rather than leaning into what we are already good at, he argues we need to find and address our blind spots. He breaks function into 5 domains: strength and power, cardio and recovery, mobility and balance, flexibility and structure, and cognitive and neuromotor function, and shows how to assess each against normative data for people your age rather than against elite athletes.
Scott organizes the assessments into 3 tiers so you can start where you are and progress, and he notes most people are strong in 4 domains and weak in just 1, which is the low hanging fruit worth targeting. Using examples like a club champion golfer who lost the flexibility to tee up his ball and Scott’s own torn hamstring rehab, he reframes fitness as an investment with a return: the everyday activities you measure now have straight line associations with your healthspan later. He closes with a call to bring more intention to what you already do, keep an end game in mind, and play more, pointing to games like pickleball that combine a physical and cognitive load to build neuroplasticity.
Links
- FUNCTION: Turn Your Blind Spots into Strengths by Scott Fulton
- Get FUNCTION on Amazon
Key Takeaways
- Your weakest link determines your future: We naturally lean into our strengths and avoid our weaknesses, but it is the blind spots, not the strong points, that shape how well we function as we age.
- Function spans 5 domains: Strength and power, cardio and recovery, mobility and balance, flexibility and structure, and cognitive and neuromotor function, and cognition is the one people most often forget.
- Measure against normative data in 3 tiers: Compare yourself to what other people your age can do, start at tier one to find where you are, and progress, knowing you may sit at tier three in one domain and tier one in another.
- Speed matters more than step count: How fast you walk tells you far more about cardiovascular fitness and lower body strength than shuffling through 10,000 steps, so bring intention rather than just adding volume.
- Add a cognitive load to physical activity: Dual task training, like balancing while counting backward from 100 by 7, challenges the brain and drives neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.
- Train for a return on function: The work is an investment of time, effort, and ego, and aiming for the 75th percentile across domains keeps you well within range, with weak areas offering the biggest, easiest gains.
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 0 – An Introduction to the 40+ Fitness Podcast
Episode Notes
Podcast: 40+ Fitness
Episode: 741
Published: 2026-04-07
Host: Allan Misner (aka Coach Allan), author of The Wellness Roadmap
Guest(s): Scott Fulton, an internationally recognized redefiner in the positive aging space, FUNCTION: Turn Your Blind Spots into Strengths
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