10 Tests to Figure Out How Healthy And Fit Your Body is!

10 Tests to Figure Out How Healthy And Fit Your Body is:

Fitness is a great way to stay healthy. Exercising on a regular basis has countless benefits for the body and the mind. A study done on 25,000 volunteers has shown that physical exercising is more important to health than losing weight. Tests

Overweight people who are fit have lower chances of developing heart problems, diabetes, or osteoporosis. Who can practice fitness? Is fitness for you? The good news is that anybody, regardless of age, can benefit from fitness. Fitness exercises range from developing flexibility, to building up strength and losing extra pounds. Tests

On the other hand, it may be difficult to measure your fitness level if you wish to understand how healthy you are, or if you are starting a new workout regimen. Everyone’s fitness level is different and is personalized 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 you can run, how much weight you can lift or what your body looks like in a bathing suit. If you want to know how healthy and fit your body is, try assessing your fitness level with these tests. Tests

What is BMI?

BMI is a way to figure out your approximate level of body fat in an easy, inexpensive way. It’s a number based on your weight and height that can help you tell if you are at a healthy weight for your height. In general, the higher the number, the more body fat a person has.

Body Mass Index is a simple calculation using a person’s height and weight. The formula is BMI = kg/m² where kg is a person’s weight in kilograms and m² is their height in meters squared. A BMI of 25.0 or more is overweight, while the healthy range is 18.5 to 24.9. BMI applies to most adults 18-65 years.

Ideal body weight (men) = 50 kg + 1.9 kg for every inch above 5 feet. Ideal body weight (women) = 49 kg + 1.7 kg for every inch above 5 feet.

How to Measure Body Fat?

What we all need to find out is how to measure body fat. Because if you know what the problem is, you can find ways to deal with it. Fortunately, there are several techniques to help us measure our body fat. Here are the top seven methods available – and some are easier than others!

1. The Toes Test:

The one-second test needs no equipment and anyone can do it at home.

• Stand up straight and look down at the floor – no bending over – can you see your toes?
• If you can’t, you probably should lose a few pounds!
• Although women with impressive bosoms may need to allow for their shielding effect on the feet (or peer down through their cleavages).

2. Body Mass Index (BMI):

This is the most widely used measure of whether you need to lose weight. BMI is easy to calculate, all you need is some bathroom scales and a tape measure.

• So weigh yourself in kilograms and measure your height (in bare feet) in meters.
• Then you can calculate your own BMI by dividing your weight by your height squared.

 

Alternatively, lots of leisure centers, doctors’ surgeries, chemist shops, and websites have charts where you can look up your BMI once you know your height and weight. If you are a healthy weight, your BMI should be between 20 and 25. More than that and some action is required.

 

3. Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR):

All you need for this one is a tape measure. WHR compares the fat around your middle with the fat on your hips, and it’s healthier to have big hips rather than a thick waist!

• Measure your waist at its narrowest and your hips at their widest, and divide the waist by the hips.
• Women should aim for a WHR of 0.8 or less and men a WHR of 0.95 or less.
• The closer to, or greater than, 1.0 your WHR is the more you should worry.

 

Apart from weight issues, there are health implications for having lots of fat around the middle; mainly because it can mean that there is fat coating the vital organs.

4. Measuring Body Parts:

It’s probably not as much fun as it sounds. There are two ways to measure body fat in a hands-on kind of way:

• Either with a tape measure or with a pair of calipers, although the tape technique is not as accurate as the caliper technique.
• But they both will give you an estimated percentage of body fat.
• The tape method relies on measuring the circumferences of your wrist, forearm, waist, hips, thigh, and calf.
• These measurements, or some of them, together with your age, weight, and gender are used to calculate your fat percentage.
• The method is described in several books and is available to try out on various websites, where you enter the appropriate numbers and the answer pops out.
• The caliper method measures what are known as skinfolds, pinch a bit of skin and fat – not the muscle – around your waist and you get the idea.

 

Using some manual or digital calipers instead of fingers to do the nipping, you measure the thickness of what’s being pinched on the chest (men only), biceps, belly, hips, thighs, calves, shoulders, triceps, and lower back. Then you add up all these measurements, divide the answer by your weight, and multiply by a factor to give your fat percentage. Some gyms will have calipers, or you can buy them to use at home.

5. Bioelectrical Impedance:

You do need special equipment for this one – either a hand-held device or one a bit like scales. You can buy them (often quite expensive) to use at home or you can find these monitors at some gyms. Bioelectrical impedance measures the time taken for a very weak electric current to pass harmlessly through your body. Fat and muscle have different characteristics, muscle is denser, so it will take longer for the current to pass through it.

Comparing the time taken with your gender, height, and weight enables your fat percentage to be estimated. One note of warning – the amount of water in your body can affect the reading; so use the bathroom first, and don’t have a drink or do exercise for a couple of hours before you measure. And the readings tend to be more accurate if you are naked, although this might not be ideal in a gym situation!

6. Hydrodensitometry or Hydrostatic Weighing Tanks:

This is the most accurate way to measure your body fat, as used by professional athletes. But you definitely can’t do it at home, as you need to find somewhere that has the tank (and the willing staff to operate it)!

Hydrodensitometry means immersing yourself completely in water and measuring the amount of water displaced, and in a hydrostatic weighing tank, you are weighed on underwater scales while submerged.

 

In either case, you have to expel all the air from your lungs and remain fully underwater for several seconds, so it’s not for the fainthearted. Your body’s density is based upon the amount of water displaced, and a formula converts that into your fat percentage. Unless you intend to join the Olympic team, this one is probably not practical.

7. Infrared Interactance:

This technique involves shining colored lights onto the skin surface and analyzing the wavelengths of the reflected light with a computer. It sounds suitably techno-geeky, but is unlikely to give an accurate result – and you can’t do it at home.

Women need more body fat than men, older people have more than younger ones, and athletes have less than the rest of us. Our bone structure and even our ethnicity affect how much fat is healthy for us. But take the figures below as a guide:

• Healthy men 12-18% body fat.
• Overweight men >25% body fat.
• Obese men >28% body fat.
• Healthy women 19-25% body fat.
• Overweight women >32% body fat.
• Obese women >40% body fat.

 

And if this all sounds too onerous, remember you don’t need to measure your body fat that often – once or twice a month is aplenty, otherwise, you’ll just be picking up natural fluctuations in your body. But do keep a note of your statistics, and then you can compare readings. This should give you a good idea of how much body fat you are losing – and it is very motivating to see the figures changing!

Here are Ten Tests to Assess Your Fitness Level: 

1. Resting Heart Rate (RHR):

• Your resting heart rate can be a good, simple indication of your overall fitness level. The number of times your heart beats each minute, assess your aerobic fitness capacity.
• When your body is at rest and relaxed, count the number of heartbeats you feel in a 60 second time period.
• A lower RHR corresponds to a stronger cardiovascular system and higher aerobic fitness level.

2. Mile Run (or brisk walk):

• This test indicates the level of your cardiovascular fitness is at.
• Using a flat and measurable route, see how long it takes you to complete a 1-mile run, or if you have to, walking quickly.
• If you don’t get winded or dizzy you are in a good 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. Tests

3. Push-Ups:

Push-ups are a great exercise for overall fitness and can be a good indicator of upper body strength and endurance levels. There are many people that have trouble performing even one proper push-up.

This exercise involves the shoulders, chest, triceps, abdominals, and some legs, and is a great way to assess your upper body fitness. See how many you can do in the row, women should aim for 12 and men should aim for 20.

4. Wall Sit:

• This exercise is used to assess the lower body and leg strength and endurance.
• “Sitting” in an invisible chair with your back up against a wall for as long as possible is a good way to gauge your lower body fitness, as well as the endurance in your leg muscles.
• With your knees at a right angle, breathe freely while seeing how long you can hold the position.

 

5. Flexibility:

Fitness is also a measure of how flexible your body is. To assess flexibility:

• Sit 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 definitely need to work on this area of fitness if you can’t reach much further than your knees.
• Flexibility is important to overall health, so work on stretching each day to improve flexibility and fitness.

6. 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 of injury and broken bones from falls increases drastically with age.

To assess your fitness level in this area:

• Try standing on one foot with your arms at your sides for a period of one minute.
• If you feel as if you may fall, stand close to a wall, table or chair.
• Work on improving fitness levels in balance, try practicing exercises that focus on and promote good balance like yoga or Pilates.

7. Plank:

This is a great exercise to assess your core strength and stability. Your fitness level relies on those deep, stabilizing muscles that are in the trunk of your body. Your core strength and fitness can be assessed by practicing holding the plank position for as long as you can. Tests

Proper planks are held with the forearms on the floor, toes curled under, and your back straight and parallel to the floor. Doing this exercise each day will increase core muscles and overall fitness.

8. Vertical Jump:

As kids, this part of our fitness level was certainly up to par and used often. However, when you get older it is a much looked over part of overall health that can indicate the power exertion your body possesses as well as the power in your muscle fibers. See how high you can jump with markings on a wall or a 2-foot tall box.

9. Waist to Hip Ratio:

This fitness test is used to assess body fat distribution. The waist to hip ratio indicates the proportion of fat stored around the waist compared 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, as well as a lower fitness level.

To calculate your waist to hip ratio,

• measure the circumference of the widest part of your hips, and the smallest part of your waist.
• Then divide the waist measurement by the measurement of your hips.
• For women, a healthy ratio is less than 8, and for men, it’s less than 9.

10. Burpees:

This full-body exercise is a good way to indicate your fitness level if you can do even a few in a row. A burpee is an intense workout that challenges your muscular fitness, cardiovascular fitness, endurance, and body power. Perform as many as possible in one minute to really test and push your fitness level.

Enhance Your Workout Routine Using These Suggestions:

Most people start a fitness program because they want to lose some weight. Your fitness is very important. If you are in top shape, you will lead a more fulfilling lifestyle.

Your average push-ups are excellent for fine-tuning your triceps:

• An ideal angle at roughly 45 degrees with your palms is much better practice.
• By doing this, you can tone up the muscles you normally don’t work.

Spend no more than one hour at a time lifting weights:

Muscle wasting also becomes a problem if you exercise for more than an hour. For these reasons, you want to try to stick to under an hour with strength training.

Get started with the exercises you loathe the most:

• Generally, people avoid their weakest exercises.
• Practice your weak exercise.

You can maximize your workouts by controlling your breathing:

• Try to exhale hard as your shoulders come to their peak during sit-ups.
• Because your muscles contract when you exhale, your abdominal muscles get a better workout than they would without the exhalation.
• If you want to eat healthy and exercise, it’s important to plan your day in advance.
• If you find yourself out and about or in the midst of an important meeting during lunch, you will be far more likely to choose fast food or unhealthy, sugary snacks in order to maintain your energy.
• Know your schedule and pack healthy snacks and meals when you know you’ll be out and about.

Box squats make your quadriceps gain bulk:

• Box squats can improve your regular squats.
• If you find a sturdy box to exercise with, you can do box squats.
• Then you do a normal squat, except that you include a pause where you let your weight rest on the box.

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Exercise muscles lightly if you worked them out before:

• Make sure you exercise the muscles that are the most tired first.
• Work out the muscles in the front and back of your body equally.
• You’re going to hurt your back if you’re only working out your front.
• Make sure you exercise both regions to ensure that your back stays healthy.
• Avoid wrapping your thumb as you do lat pulldowns or pull-ups during your workout routine.
• Place your thumb next to the index finger, this will cause you to use your arm muscles less and put the focus on the main back muscles.
• While it may feel weird at first, it is a more efficient way to target your muscles.

Getting yourself some rollerblades is a great way to get more physically fit:

• While rollerblading is not as popular as in the past, it remains an excellent method of burning calories.
• Rollerblade skates can still be found in many sporting good shops.

 

As mentioned before, working out and eating properly to gain fitness is necessary to help you live longer and more robustly. It’s crucial that you don’t make your own health for granted. Utilize the tips found above to be on the right track towards improving your well-being through fitness. Tests

 

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Disclaimer: “Nothing in this article makes any claim to offer cures or treatment of any disease or illness. If you are sick please consult with your doctor.”

Sources

Excellent nutrition is the basis of a healthy lifestyle!

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