Fitness assessment results

Dom_m

I had a fitness assessment this morning. The basic routine was to take my height and age (gender is obvious I think), blood pressure and girth measurements, then load me up with a HRM and take my resting heart rate, then put me on a stationary bike and record heart rate at different workloads, measured in Watts/Kg, then use a bottom half electrical resistance body composition scale, then take a sit and reach measurement (best of 3).

So the results are:
Age: 29
Sex: Male
Height: 182.5cm (damn it - they robbed my of half a cm!!!)
Blood Pressure: 136/66
Weight: 82.3kg
Resting Heart Rate: 54

Girth:
Hip: 105cm (over b'ball shorts)
Waist: 82cm

Body fat: 8.2%
Hydration: 62.7%
Flexibility: +9 (I think this is cm past my toes with vertical feet and knees on the floor)

Heart Rate Response
Target heart rate: 220-Age * 0.75 = 143
Workload (watts) / Heart Rate (bpm)
25 / 67
50 / 71
75 / 78
100 / 91
125 / 100
150 / 104
175 / 111
200 / 122
225 / 130
250 / 138
275 / 146
300 / I reached target heart rate already (143), but this was the final workload level available on the record

Summary:
Score: 3 (EXCELLENT)!! (yes, its in all caps with 2 exclamation points, 3 is the top end of excellent with 3.4 being Elite)
Heart rate is very good
Fitness score is EXCELLENT!
Body fat is good.


My thoughts:
Body fat seems so low. He recons all the flab is just full of water, but its a bit hard for me to believe. I do a lot of cardio, so I'm going to change up my fitness regime and do more weights and HIIT and only a moderate amount of cardio. I'll still do plenty of taigalates / balance classes (I do 3-4 per week).

I wonder if its safe to reduce my hydration? Obviously that would be purely for image and not at all for health (unless you count mental health) but I'm sick of being flabby - I want to be toned. He had no advice about this, unless I was willing to pay AU$60 per hour, 2-3 times / week for 2 months for a serious body changing routine. He advised against it because I'm a graduate student and he assumed I couldn't afford it (it's certainly a luxury good, but not unaffordable for me, but I didn't go into that because I want to see what I can do on my own first).

So that's that. I'd love to hear what other people think I should do in terms of changing diet or fitness routine. Happy to email 25 days worth of eating / drinking / exercise diary to anyone who's interested (I put it in excel, so its more easily accessible).

I can guarantee I was far below this a month ago when I started with MFP, and not even ball park last August when I resumed regular exercise after 1.5 years with none.

Thanks for your interest in reading this far

gym_rat

I really don't have any advice but just wanted to say congrats on having such a great assessment!

gym_rat

Oh, but your blood pressure. 136/66 seems a little high. Mine usually hovers around 105/60. I really don't know and am in no way a health expert but that just caught my attention. Maybe mine is on the low end? Then again, there are so many factors that impact blood pressure in any given moment.

lilchino4af

How much water are you actually drinking? I've heard the rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces, more if you work out, and more if you take in too much sodium. This article does a pretty good job at explaining it: http://www.colonhealth.net/free_reports/h2oartcl.htm. So your problem might not be needing to reduce water intake but to increase it. Just a thought.

Dom_m

Thanks for the congrats
Yep, my blood pressure was a bit up. I had to jog about 600m to get there cause I was a bit late. I think that can raise it pretty quickly.

The question on my water intake, I get about 10-12 glasses per day, plus the food I eat is very watery (lots of vegetables). I don't think my problem is low water intake, but I'll have a look at that article anyway. I need to understand this stuff and I've never thought about it before.

Dom_m

lilchino, neat article, thanks. Seems to agree with other stuff out there. Maybe I'm not drinking enough - I guess its quite hot where I am and I sweat A LOT, especially when I exercise (you could probably wring 8 cups of water out of my gym clothes after the first hour, and I usually do 2 hour sessions).

I'll try a combination of aiming for 18 glasses of water and reducing my coffee intake to one plunger. I'm a student, and I've established a psychosematic connection between coffee and study, but I find once I've brewed the pot the effect works even if I don't drink it, just from the smell, so I might do that and then drink hot water! Hah!

If it works it will be before / after picture time, so I'll be sure to announce it to the world
If it doesn't, I"ll just keep doing what I'm doing and accept that progress comes to those who don't give up.