Fitness Self-Tests?

beabria

I'm looking for ideas/resources for a self-evaluation of fitness, to use as a progress tracker during my fitness journey. I've been marking progress on specific tasks (like weight lifted or push-up progressions), but would really like something a little more comprehensive and appropriate for a wide range of fitness levels. I've found a few online, but they seem to either be for folks who are already quite fit or they are behind a paywall. Any ideas/experiences/or suggestions for an adaptable - and broad - and free - fitness test?

Letsdothis749

You could do the presidential fittness test. (It was made for kids.) You could use an armed forces admissions test.

AnnPT77

There is a book titled "Norms for Fitness, Performance and Health" by Jay Hoffman, that has information and norms for many dimensions of fitness, along with tests for those. The norms are generally in the form of tables by age/sex about what is normal or typical in various sub-populations.

It may be somewhat dated (copyright 2006 in my edition), but maybe your library has a copy you could look at, or could get one for you via interlibrary loan. Some of the tests are very doable on one's own, some require more specialized equipment, setup, or measurement devices.

Google has an overview and sample pages here:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Norms_for_Fitness_Performance_and_Health.html?id=3TzwC4likFoC

There are other similar books, and I'm sure Amazon or some other such site would be happy to suggest some. 😉

NorthCascades

Time to run a mile. 20 minutes mean maximal power on a bike.

beabria

@Letsdothis749 Thanks, the presidential test is fairly broad and something I can do myself. Though, I'm sorry to say I've only ever done a single unassisted pull-up in my life: when I was 8 years old, doing the presidential test. I like the broad range of things tested by the military tests, but I don't think I can't do those all on my own (not sure how to measure the height of my own ball toss, for example!)
@AnnPT77 Thanks, I'll check that one out!

beabria

@NorthCascades Thanks! I'm shooting for a canned test that looks at a range of things including cardio - but I may end up designing my own "franken-test". These are great ideas for some cardio things to add in if I decide to go the route of building my own test. Actually, this youtube video of a woman using a timed mile as a measure was one of the things that made me realize how valuable a fitness test could be as a form of process tracking. Such an incredible change! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqapW-_VGrY

michael6186

Here's an attached file, something I use. It's just a general all around assessment. Could work for you depending what you're into.

It looks at a few different categories such as strength, power, aerobic capacity and power, and muscle endurance.

You can always change out the exercises to suit your goals.

NorthCascades

beabria wrote: »

@NorthCascades Thanks! I'm shooting for a canned test that looks at a range of things including cardio - but I may end up designing my own "franken-test". These are great ideas for some cardio things to add in if I decide to go the route of building my own test. Actually, this youtube video of a woman using a timed mile as a measure was one of the things that made me realize how valuable a fitness test could be as a form of process tracking. Such an incredible change! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqapW-_VGrY

I prefer to think of these as "personally relevant tests." 😁

AnnPT77

If you have a fitness tracker or even just a heart rate monitor, you can also look at the trend in morning resting heart rate (before getting out of bed, ideally with a natural wake-up vs. an alarm, if you you don't have a device that tracks this automagically). A tracker/HRM also enables you to note stats such as average or peak heart rate for a given activity at a given pace, such as a one-mile run at X mph. As you get cardiovascularly fitter, you'd expect resting heart rate to decline, and the heart rate required for a consistent activity to be lower as well.

Some of the more sophisticated fitness trackers will also measure or estimate other fitness metrics, too.

michael6186

Sorry. I guess my attachment didn't attach so here's a link to the Google Sheet directly.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hyzwQcG2duzVjic5ssqP7Mreo-DMP2Qii6dgrOeCN6k/edit?usp=drivesdk

Onedaywriter

Hard to find because there are too many ways to define “fitness.” Who’s more fit a Major League Baseball pitcher or a fast marathon runner?

Maybe try a body fat measurement and assume that a good body fat percentage reflects good general fitness.

beabria

AnnPT77 wrote: »

If you have a fitness tracker or even just a heart rate monitor, you can also look at the trend in morning resting heart rate (before getting out of bed, ideally with a natural wake-up vs. an alarm, if you you don't have a device that tracks this automagically). A tracker/HRM also enables you to note stats such as average or peak heart rate for a given activity at a given pace, such as a one-mile run at X mph. As you get cardiovascularly fitter, you'd expect resting heart rate to decline, and the heart rate required for a consistent activity to be lower as well.

Some of the more sophisticated fitness trackers will also measure or estimate other fitness metrics, too.

I actually have been monitoring this, and find it fascinating - but I'm not sure how much it is really reflecting my general fitness. I started a (very small) daily minimum exercise in January, and my resting heart rate went down (though I didn't lose any weight). Then in late May, I started changing my diet too, and started losing weight - and my resting heart rate plummeted. It's now bouncing around in the mid-to-upper 50s. But, I'm far from fit. I'm still (just) in the class 3 obesity area. I exercise regularly, but really doubt I could even run a slow mile (yet). So, I can't help wondering what's going to happen as I continue down this path because there's not really a whole lot of room to go! So - it's a really neat thing to see, but probably isn't going to be a good long-term indicator for me?

AnnPT77

beabria wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

If you have a fitness tracker or even just a heart rate monitor, you can also look at the trend in morning resting heart rate (before getting out of bed, ideally with a natural wake-up vs. an alarm, if you you don't have a device that tracks this automagically). A tracker/HRM also enables you to note stats such as average or peak heart rate for a given activity at a given pace, such as a one-mile run at X mph. As you get cardiovascularly fitter, you'd expect resting heart rate to decline, and the heart rate required for a consistent activity to be lower as well.

Some of the more sophisticated fitness trackers will also measure or estimate other fitness metrics, too.

I actually have been monitoring this, and find it fascinating - but I'm not sure how much it is really reflecting my general fitness. I started a (very small) daily minimum exercise in January, and my resting heart rate went down (though I didn't lose any weight). Then in late May, I started changing my diet too, and started losing weight - and my resting heart rate plummeted. It's now bouncing around in the mid-to-upper 50s. But, I'm far from fit. I'm still (just) in the class 3 obesity area. I exercise regularly, but really doubt I could even run a slow mile (yet). So, I can't help wondering what's going to happen as I continue down this path because there's not really a whole lot of room to go! So - it's a really neat thing to see, but probably isn't going to be a good long-term indicator for me?

It will tend to level out someplace, but it's hard to say where. It can still be a useful thing to pay attention to. For example, one sign that one is persistently overdoing can be a persistent small rise in resting heart rate. (If you track it, you'll notice some other patterns in it, too, I suspect - mine will go up a bit the day after I eat substantial excess calories, for example.)

Also, even though resting heart rate does tend to level off eventually, the "heart rate for same activity" metric is still interesting/useful. It doesn't matter much what the activity is, as long as it's the same one you're using as a benchmark over a period of time. I just used running a mile as a random example. (I don't run at all, in fact 😉 - my bad knees won't take it!)

For myself, something like 2k on the rowing machine at a given fixed pace would be an example of a thing I could repeat periodically, see where my average heart rate and peak heart rate are trending for that workout. It could be walking a quarter mile or half mile at some particular mph/kph pace, if that's doable at this point for you.

As fitness keeps improving - assuming that's your goal and trajectory, as it sounds like - eventually the things you find manageable but a slight challenge now will become easy. (That's kind of the definition of fitness, y'know?) In that sense, the workout you use to track progress might want to change, gradually, over time - I don't think that makes picking one now, and tracking it for a while, useless, even if you don't use that same workout as your benchmark forever. Fitness evolves, goals evolve, etc.

AnnPT77

Onedaywriter wrote: »

Hard to find because there are too many ways to define “fitness.” Who’s more fit a Major League Baseball pitcher or a fast marathon runner?

Maybe try a body fat measurement and assume that a good body fat percentage reflects good general fitness.

Mmm, I dunno. I agree that there can be many forms and dimensions of fitness (strength, endurance, mobility, power, flexibility . . . .). But I think fitness and bodyweight are interrelated, not identical.

People can be low body fat, and not at all fit, in terms of strength, cardiovascular endurance, etc.

Personally, I've been thin and not very fit; fat and not very fit; fat (obese, technically) and reasonably fit (low resting heart rate, good CV endurance, decent rowing machine pace and stronger than average for my age group, etc.); now thin and reasonably fit.

MikePfirrman

A very good one, if you can get your hands on an Assault Bike (Rogue Echo, Assault Bike brand or AD Pro are the main brands) is to do a one-minute all out Watts test or similar. What is the average Watts you can do in one minute, as hard as you can. The more popular online version (on YouTube) is to see how many calories you can burn in one minute.

It's short enough that it won't likely kill you. And it's very intense, to test both your cardio and (somewhat) strength.

But if you're doing any kind of fitness test, please make sure you're medically/physically capable of handling it first.

2tryharder

Several years ago I did a fitness assessment at the local YMCA. They have a (trainer/specialist?) who administers it for free - I guess hoping you'll join after you find out how out of shape you are lol. It included cardio on a treadmill, strength, and flexibility. I don't know if all YMCA do this, but it's worth a check.