Top 10 10 Ways to Gauge Your Fitness
It could be difficult to measure your level of fitness if you wish to understand how healthy you are, or should you be starting a fresh workout regimen. Everyone's level of fitness is different, and so are personally based on factors in a few different categories including aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility and body composition. Fitness is more than how fast or long it is possible to run, just how much weight it is possible to lift or what your system looks like in a bathing suit. If you need to know how healthy and fit your body is, try assessing your level of fitness with these tests:
- Resting HEARTRATE (RHR)- Your resting heartrate can be quite a good, simple indication of one's overall fitness level. The amount of times your heart beats each minute, asses your aerobic fitness capacity. When your body is at rest and relaxed, count the quantity of heart beats you are feeling in a 60 second time frame. A lower RHR corresponds to a stronger heart and higher aerobic level of fitness.
- 1 Mile Run (or brisk walk)- This test indicates the level your cardiovascular fitness is at. Utilizing a flat and measurable route, see how long it takes you to complete 1 mile running, or when you have to, walking quickly. If you don't get winded or dizzy you are in a good fitness position; should you choose, you need to work on improving your cardiovascular fitness. Ideally, you have to be able to complete one mile in 9 minutes or less.
- Push Ups- Push ups are a great exercise for overall fitness, and will be a good indicator of chest muscles strength and endurance levels. There are numerous people that have trouble performing even one proper push-up. This exercise involves the shoulders, chest, triceps, abdominals and some legs, and are a terrific way to asses your upper body fitness. See how many you can do in row; women should aim for 12 and men should aim for 20.
- Wall Sit- This exercise is used to asses lower torso and leg strength and endurance. "Sitting" in an invisible chair together with your back up against a wall for as long as possible, is a superb way to gauge your lower torso fitness, along with the endurance in your quads. Together with your knees at the right angle, breathe freely while seeing how long you can hold the position.
- Athletic Coach - Fitness can be a measure of how flexible the body is. To asses flexibility, take a seat on the floor together with your legs stretched out, and try to reach and touch your toes. If you cannot touch your toes this will not mean you aren't fit, lots of people can't reach this far. However, you definitely need to work on this area of fitness if you cannot reach much further than your knees. Flexibility is essential to general health, so work on stretching each day to improve flexibility and fitness.
- Balance- Like flexibility, balance is also a key point in good fitness. A standard healthy body relies heavily on being well balanced, and the risk or injury and broken bones from falls increases drastically with age. To asses your fitness level of this type, try sitting on one foot with your arms at your sides for a period of one minute. In the event that you feel as if you may fall, stand near a wall, table or chair. Focus on improving fitness levels in balance, try practicing exercises that focus on and promote good balance like yoga or Pilates.
- Plank- This is a great exercise to asses your core strength and stability. Your level of fitness relies on those deep, stabilizing muscles that are in the trunk of your body. Your core strength and fitness could be assessed by practicing holding the plank position for as long as you can. Proper planks are held with the forearms on the floor, toes curled under, and your back straight and parallel to the ground. Doing this exercise each day will increase core muscles and overall fitness.
- Vertical Jump- As kids, this part of our fitness level was certainly right, and used often. However, once you get older this can be a much looked over section of overall health that may indicate the power exertion the body possesses and also the power in your muscle fibers. Observe how high it is possible to jump with markings on a wall or perhaps a 2-foot tall box.
- Waist to Hip Ratio- This fitness test can be used to asses surplus fat distribution. The waist to hip ratio indicates the proportion of fats stored around the waist compared to hip girth. Those who hold more weight within their midsection as belly fat, will experience health problems like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as a lower level of fitness. To calculate your waist to hip ratio, measure the circumference of the widest part of your hips, and smallest part of your waist. Then divide the waist measurement by the measurement of your hips. For women, a healthy ratio is significantly less than .8, and for men it's significantly less than .9.
- Burpees- This full body exercise is a good way to indicate your level of fitness when you can do even a few in a row. A burpee can be an intense workout that challenges your muscular fitness, cardiovascular fitness, endurance and body power. Perform as much as possible in one minute to really ensure that you push your level of fitness.