It may be difficult to measure your fitness level if you want to understand how healthy you're, or when you are starting a new workout regimen. Everyone's level of fitness is different, and so are personally predicated on factors in several different categories including aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility and body composition. Fitness is a lot more than how fast or long it is possible to run, just how much weight you can lift or what the body appears like in a swimwear. In order to understand how healthy and fit your body is, try assessing your fitness level with these tests:
- Resting HEARTRATE (RHR)- Your resting heart rate could be a good, simple indication of one's overall fitness level. The amount of times your heart beats for each minute, asses your aerobic fitness capacity. Whenever your body is at rest and relaxed, count the amount of heart beats you are feeling in a 60 second time period. A lesser 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're in an excellent fitness position; should you choose, you need to focus on improving your cardiovascular fitness. Ideally, you should be able to complete one mile in 9 minutes or less.
- Push Ups- Push ups are a great exercise for overall fitness, and may 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 upper body fitness. Observe how many that can be done in row; women should shoot for 12 and men should shoot for 20.
- Wall Sit- This exercise can be used to asses lower body and leg strength and endurance. "Sitting" within an invisible chair together with your back up against a wall so long as possible, is a wonderful way to gauge your lower torso fitness, and also the endurance in your quads. With your knees at a right angle, breathe freely while seeing how long you can hold the position.
- Find more information - Fitness is also a measure of how flexible your system 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 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 beyond 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. A standard healthy body relies heavily on being sensible, and the risk or injury and broken bones from falls increases drastically with age. To asses your fitness level in this area, try standing on one foot together with your arms at your sides for a period of one minute. If 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 concentrate on and promote good balance like yoga or Pilates.
- Plank- This is a great exercise to asses your core strength and stability. Your fitness level 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 for as 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 increase core muscles and overall fitness.
- Vertical Jump- As kids, this part of our fitness level was certainly up to par, and used often. However, when you get older this can be a much looked over section of overall health that can indicate the energy exertion your system possesses and also the power in your muscle fibers. Observe how high it is possible to jump with markings on a wall or a 2-foot tall box.
- Waist to Hip Ratio- This fitness test can be used to asses body fat distribution. The waist to hip ratio indicates the proportion of fats stored around the waist in comparison to hip girth. Those who hold more weight in their midsection as belly fat, are more likely to 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 an excellent solution to indicate your fitness level 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 many as possible in a single minute to really ensure that you push your fitness level.