Whether you are starting out on a new fitness program or you want to check how well an existing program is working for you, checking your fitness levels can be a good idea, and here is how you can go about it.
Check your flexibility
Flexibility is an important determinant of fitness – try and touch your toes by leaning forward (unless you have a medical condition that makes this unsuitable for you), set your feet apart and try and touch the right foot with your left hand and so on.
Then mark your progress as both your fitness and flexibility improve.
Measure your aerobic fitness
You can measure this with some simple brisk walking and measuring your pulse rate. Check your pulse rate before and then after a one mile walk – out of doors or indoors, it doesn’t matter where.
This will give you an idea of how much your pulse rate speeds up after some brisk activity and if you continue to do this as your fitness increases, you should see a change in this, particularly the speed at which you complete that one mile circuit.
Keep track of your waist circumference as well as BMI
Some say that you have to step on the scales and calculate BMI to gauge fitness while others will say that only the waist hip ratio; or your physical measurements are indicative of your fitness. The fact is that a combination of both should give you an accurate idea of where your fitness is at.
The Pushup
This is a simple but foolproof way to check how strong and muscular you are. If at first you cannot perform the regular pushup, perform the pushup off your knees and then try and work it up to a regular pushup.
Then see how many you can perform – as your fitness increases, so will your ability to do pushups.
