It may be difficult to measure your level of fitness if you wish to understand how healthy you're, or in case you are starting a fresh workout regimen. Everyone's fitness level is different, and so are personally predicated on factors in a few different categories including aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility and body composition. Fitness is a lot more than how fast or long you can run, just how much weight it is possible to lift or what your system appears 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 Heart Rate (RHR)- Your resting heart rate can be a good, simple indication of your overall fitness level. The amount of times your heart beats for each minute, asses your aerobic fitness capacity. When your body is at rest and relaxed, count the number of heart beats you feel in a 60 second time period. Less RHR corresponds to a stronger cardiovascular system and higher aerobic fitness level.
- 1 Mile Run (or brisk walk)- This test indicates the level your cardiovascular fitness reaches. Utilizing a flat and measurable route, observe how long it takes one to complete 1 mile running, or if you have to, walking quickly. Unless you get winded or dizzy you are in an excellent fitness position; if you do, you need to work on improving your cardiovascular fitness. Ideally, you should be able to complete one mile in 9 minutes or less.
- Click here for more - Push ups are a great exercise for overall fitness, and can be a good indicator of upper body strength and endurance levels. There are several people that have trouble performing even one proper push-up. This exercise involves the shoulders, chest, triceps, abdominals plus some legs, and are the best way to asses your chest muscles fitness. Observe how many that 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 body and leg strength and endurance. "Sitting" within an invisible chair together with your back against a wall for as long as possible, is a superb solution to gauge your lower torso fitness, plus the endurance in your quads. Together with your knees at the right angle, breathe freely while seeing how long you can hold the position.
- Flexibility- Fitness is also a measure of how flexible your body is. To asses flexibility, take a seat on the floor with your legs stretched out, and then try to reach and touch your toes. If you can't touch your toes this does not mean you are not fit, many people can't reach this far. However, you certainly need to work on this section of fitness if you cannot reach much further than your knees. Flexibility is important to general health, so work on stretching each day to improve flexibility and fitness.
- Balance- Like flexibility, balance is also an important factor in good fitness. An overall 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 in this area, try sitting on one foot with your arms at your sides for a period of one minute. If you feel just like you may fall, stand close to a wall, table or chair. Additional resources on improving fitness levels in balance, try practicing exercises that focus on and promote good balance like yoga or Pilates.
- Plank- This is usually 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 one's body. Your core strength and fitness can be assessed by practicing holding the plank position so long as you can. Proper planks are held with the forearms on to the floor, toes curled under, and your back straight and parallel to the ground. Doing this exercise every day will increase core muscles and overall fitness.
- Vertical Jump- As kids, this part of our level of fitness was certainly up to par, and used often. However, once you get older it is just a much looked over part of overall health that may indicate the power exertion the body possesses plus the power in your muscle fibers. See how high you can jump with markings on a wall or a 2-foot tall box.
- Waist to Hip Ratio- This fitness test is used to asses body fat distribution. The waist to hip ratio indicates the proportion of fat stored around the waist compared to hip girth. Those that hold more weight in their midsection as stomach fat, will experience health problems like heart disease and diabetes, in addition to a lower fitness level. 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 one's hips. For women, a healthy ratio is significantly less than .8, and for men it's less than .9.
- Burpees- This full body exercise is a good solution to indicate your fitness level if 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 a single minute to really test and push your fitness level.