How to measure your true fitness

Hi Guys, its been sometime since I posted. Of late I have been little busy and distracted from writing :D

This one was on horizon for a quite sometime now. In this post I will talk about how to measure your fitness.

Measure Your Fitness

Scenario: Is your workout really working?

If you are a beginner who started working out recently you may have feelings like,

• Its been few months but I don't seem to loose\gain weight!
• I don't see/feel any different in last couple of months.

Or if you are a regularly active person, have been working out for sometime now you would feel like,

• I have been working our for a long time, I don't see any changes to my body.
• I am not improving even thou I am working out consistently.

Here is where regularly tracking and measuring your fitness is important.
If you looking for some insight on how to measure your fitness, this post is for you.

Its important to know and understand the effect of exercise on your body for two reasons.

1. Improvement in your fitness will provide the right kind of motivation to continue to work harder and strive for better results.
2. If there is no improvement, you need to modify your fitness routine to help you achieve your goals. (Post on Goal Setting coming soon)

Now the question is how do I measure my fitness, lets look at different elements of fitness and their measurements. List of measurable fitness elements are as follows.

External
Internal
Pathological
Performance

External: These are tangible measurements that we can see\touch and we normally check. External elements of fitness are Weight and Size, lets look at the details below.

• Weight: 

• This is your overall body weight. First thing that most of us check in the gym or at the sight of the weighting scale is weight, its very important to keep track of your weight. You should keep track of your weight on monthly or fortnightly basis ideally.

There is a calculator which shows indicative ideal weight for your height and gender. click here

Note: As you keep track of your weight, please remember that weight is not the only indicator of your fitness. What is your body weight made of matters(muscle mass, fat mass, bone mass, water mass etc). So loosing weight may not be always good and gaining weight may not be always bad.

• Size: 

• This is another indicator of your fitness. You should check your size measurements monthly or fortnightly. This will help you keep track of the impact of the exercise on different body parts. There are chances that your weight is same but the size would have changed. You would have added few millimeters to some body parts and may have lost few millimeters from another. Is this good or bad, that will depend on your goals. Adding and loosing size should be inline with your goal and routine.
• These are the body parts you need to measure, all you need is a measure tape and help from a friend.

• Neck
• Chest
• Upper Arm
• Abdomen
• Waist
• Hip
• Thigh
• Calf

Internal: These are the elements of the fitness which cannot be necessarily seen. They are little difficult to measure and more complex.

Body Weight Composition:

• Now a days most of the popular gyms have these fancy weighing scales which helps to measure body weight composition. Most of these scales provides below details.

• Weight: Overall body weight
• Fat: Percentage/Amount of body fat 
• Muscle Mass: Amount of muscle mass
• Bone: Amount of bone mass
• Visceral Fat: Rating of fat on internal organs
• Water: Amount of water content
• Base Metabolic Rate (kcal): Number of calories required for basic functions of your body
• Metabolic Age: This is calculated based on percentage of body fat.

You should check these details on monthly\fortnightly basis. Changes to these factors should be inline with your fitness goal and routine.

• Blood Pressure: 

• You should get your blood pressure monitored as well on quarterly or monthly basis based on your medical condition. Regular exercise will help you regulate your blood pressure. For a well conditioned individual blood pressure will be slightly on lower side. 80/120 is considered to be ideal by most physicians. 

You can go to a local physician or use automatic Blood pressure monitor yourself.

• Resting heart rate: 

• This is one of the indicators of your fitness. number of times your heart beats per minute is your Heart Rate. You should keep track of your resting heart rate on regular basis preferably monthly or fortnightly basis. If you have an injury or if you are suffering from illness, your RHR will be higher than normal. If you haven't recovered from a intense training, your RHR will be higher than usual. 72 beats per mins is considered to be ideal. For a well conditioned individual RHR will be lower. 

Measuring RHR is easy, all you need is to press your finger on the neck, at the angle of the jaw, behind your ear and check the pulse, count it for 60 seconds.

Pathological: These elements of the fitness require you to get a blood check at path lab.

• Lipid profile: 

• A simple blood test can help you check your lipid profile. If you workout regularly for 12 weeks you should a positive change in your lipid profile. 

You can get your lipid profile done from nearby lab and consult a physician and your trainer for help.

• Blood Sugar level: 

• Another simple blood test can reveal your blood sugar level. Regular exercise and balanced diet will help you regulate your blood sugar level and insulin supply. Consult your trainer or physician for any help.

You can get your blood sugar level checked from any nearby certified pathological lab.

• Hormone levels: 

• There are many different hormones that our body produces to help with bodily functions. One of the hormones is Testosterone, this hormone helps with growth and building muscles. Regular exercise and strength training will help boost production of testosterone. 

You can get a blood test to check the testosterone levels.

Performance: Measuring performance can be bit tricky. Its tricky because we first need to define performance. 

This is directly inline with your goals and routine that you follow. I will give few examples of measuring performance below.

• Strength: 

• This is your ability to lift heavy weight. This is measured by single repetition maximum weight that you can lift. Weight exercise like Bench Press, Squats and Dead lifts can be used to measure your strength. 

Single Rep Max is quite theoretical so the best way to determine is "Maximum weight that you can lift for 10 reps" this weight is ~80% of your single rep max. If you are doing strength training use this to measure your progress.

• Muscular endurance: 

• This is your ability to repetitive anaerobic task for a longer time. I can give you couple of examples of measuring your muscular endurance.

Maximum number of push-ups, pull-ups, dips or elbow plank(hold) you can do without dropping, there is no time limit, limit is your ability to hold. Track the number of reps and repeat the test after 12 weeks.

• Cardio-vascular endurance. 

• This is your ability to do cardio\aerobic exercise for a longer duration. 

Start jogging\running(you cannot take break\walking intervals) measure the distance covered and the time taken before you are out of breath. Next time around(after 4 to 12 weeks) check the distance covered in same time.

• Flexibility: 

• This is another trick one. Flexibility of different body parts is different. Forward bend\Sit n Reach is usually most used measure to check your flexibility. There are many ways to do this test, I would suggest the simplest one.

Sit with your legs straight, legs should be shoulder width apart, take a scale and put it to your heel. Scale should start from 0 at your Heel and number should go high as they move towards knees. Now bend forward and touch the scale. measure the distance between your heels and fingers. This distance should be reduced as you gain flexibility.


Hope this post helps you measure your fitness and help in achieving your goals. Feel free to like, comment, share, ask questions and provide your feedback.

Dhaval Bhadeshiya

Certified Fitness and Lifestyle coach

https://www.facebook.com/dhavalbhadeshiya