Help! 2 weeks to get my fitness level up
skinnyrev2b
Posts: 400 Member
Hi MFP! 👋
I'm looking for advice.
I'm a UK scuba diving instructor and thus, even though it's a volunteer position, I need an HSE medical.
In preparation, I've been exercising 6x per week - 3 swims for 30- 45 mins and 3 Resistance bands workouts with the occasional cardio dance fitness workouts instead. I also yoga once a week. I burn (according to my garmin) 400 calories for the RB and 250 for the swims.
I also walk the dog every day.
I've been doing this for about 3 months. My RHR is 55.
I failed in the step test with an average HR of 120, (max 134), RPE of 9(light) to 13 (somewhat hard) and SATS of 99 to 95 over the time.
I apparently scored 31 and the pass limit is 40.
If it helps, I'm female, 41, 5.4 and 11 stone.
Soooo... since I failed the blimmin thing, I've got 2 weeks to "do some exercise that raises my heart rate " so that I can somehow pass...
Any advice on how to increase my fitness in those said 2 weeks?!
(Oh, I've just started a spin class. I've only done 2 sessions so doesn't really count in my 'history' above.).
I'm looking for advice.
I'm a UK scuba diving instructor and thus, even though it's a volunteer position, I need an HSE medical.
In preparation, I've been exercising 6x per week - 3 swims for 30- 45 mins and 3 Resistance bands workouts with the occasional cardio dance fitness workouts instead. I also yoga once a week. I burn (according to my garmin) 400 calories for the RB and 250 for the swims.
I also walk the dog every day.
I've been doing this for about 3 months. My RHR is 55.
I failed in the step test with an average HR of 120, (max 134), RPE of 9(light) to 13 (somewhat hard) and SATS of 99 to 95 over the time.
I apparently scored 31 and the pass limit is 40.
If it helps, I'm female, 41, 5.4 and 11 stone.
Soooo... since I failed the blimmin thing, I've got 2 weeks to "do some exercise that raises my heart rate " so that I can somehow pass...
Any advice on how to increase my fitness in those said 2 weeks?!
(Oh, I've just started a spin class. I've only done 2 sessions so doesn't really count in my 'history' above.).
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Replies
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Generally speaking, increased fitness results in a lower HR for the same work performed.3
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What do you have to do exactly to pass the test?1
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It's called a step test. Basically, step up an aerobics box to the beat. Beat one, first leg up. Beat 2, second leg. Beat 3 - 1 leg down, 4 - 2nd leg down.
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Sooooooo step aerobics?
But, yeah, normally the fitter you are, the lower your resting heart rate. It sounds like they want you to...er...step it up while actually doing the exercise. Can you get them to change the beat??? 😀 2 -
If it is that, first of all it sounds a bit suspect depending on a totally artificial max heart rate of 180-age, secondly it seems the goal is to reach higher stages of the test without your heart rate rising too much. For that you need to improve your cardio fitness typically by doing things like running and cycling. I'm not sure how much you're going to be able to improve in two weeks, but if it were me, I'd be running as much as I could sensibly do in the time available.1
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You won't get much of a genuine fitness improvement in two weeks so you need to concentrate on maximising your test performance.
To perform at your best if you have low fatigue levels on the day of your test. You will get a better return on being fresh, rested, recovered than exercising hard right up to the day before the test.
Unfortunately, that means you have less than two weeks to work on your fitness as you should taper before the day. Two or three easy days depending on how hard you work up to that point.
Think of peaking for the event as a combination of fitness versus fatigue, in less than two weeks you won't improve fitness much but you can shoot yourself in the foot by being fatigued.
With so little time I'd concentrate on replicating as close as possible the test itself rather than just doing general cardio conditioning. Familiarity and correct pacing is again a good return on investment.
Are you breathing well during the test as your SATS declined? Filling your lungs from the diaphragm or panting?
Must say I'm not at all clear how your score is worked out!!
Are you failing to keep up with the pace?
Are they really taking RPE into account? (Surely you could just say it felt easy?)
"I burn (according to my garmin) 400 calories for the RB"
By the way using heartrate for estimating your resistance band workouts is a bad idea, HR only really works (to a degree) for aerobic exercise and not resistance work.
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Here's the scoring system: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/chester.htm
Discussion links:
http://firenetforum.org.uk/index.php?topic=310.0
https://www.vwt4forum.co.uk/threads/anyone-good-with-fitness-i-need-to-improve-my-v02-rating.63041/
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/chester-step-test.262185/
Some tips on improving: https://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=1115
Basically google "chester step test" and improvement or training or whatever2 -
Thanks so much guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Yeah, we're not sure about the use of the rpe either. 1 is I'm asleep, 6 is very light exertion, 13 is somewhat hard (then "very hard (heavy)", "extremely" etc up to "severe - can't continue".
I was giving mine as 6 ,very light, to - eventually, 13. My OH (who also failed) was much the same.
We're going to start running- well, given my performance this eve, walk/staggering - for the next week or so, but I take your point @sijomial about being rested. We WERE wondering if the fact that neither of us slept well last night, and had a busy day, effected the heart rate component.
Oh, and yes, easily able to talk (had to keep reading out the hr, sat and rpe numbers for her!) as well as easily keeping up. Maybe we DO need to ask her to speed it up. It did feel like we could keep going forever.
Oh, she was also testing our lung capacity pre and post exercise and also heart rate recovery, so that may play into the calculations.
But still, yeah, perhaps we just need to work out the test instead of trying to do the impossible of increasing fitness in 2 weeks.1 -
Are you sure the "40" wasn't referring to the VO2 max requirement? That may be a hard cutoff. Maybe ask the tester if they can perform an alternative test like the treadmill test if you think it may be inaccurate. If so, if you're at 31, even assuming a 15% error, you may be at about 35-36, so it may be difficult to get to 40 in 2 weeks.1
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Thanks @iamscuba, yeah, it seems it's a chester step test for vo2 max.
Unfortunately, there isn't a treadmill available. It seems I'm stuck with doing what I can and crossing my fingers.0 -
skinnyrev2b wrote: »about being rested. We WERE wondering if the fact that neither of us slept well last night, and had a busy day, effected the heart rate component.
Oh, and yes, easily able to talk (had to keep reading out the hr, sat and rpe numbers for her!) as well as easily keeping up. Maybe we DO need to ask her to speed it up. It did feel like we could keep going forever.
Oh, she was also testing our lung capacity pre and post exercise and also heart rate recovery, so that may play into the calculations.
But still, yeah, perhaps we just need to work out the test instead of trying to do the impossible of increasing fitness in 2 weeks.
It's a bit of a strange and flawed test but you are stuck with it. No you can't ask the operator to speed it up, the pacing and duration is fixed.
In such a short time there's not much on the fitness level you can do (but do what you can!) but you can come off or substantially reduce your caffeine and make sure you haven't eaten just before the test to avoid elevating your HR through factors other than the exercise itself. Staying as cool as possible for the ten minutes will also help.
You can influence your heart rate recovery by over-breathing and ensuring you fill your lungs well - ever notice athletes after maximal efforts resist the urge to collapse or bend over and will remain standing with an open chest posture? Not that it seems to be part of the score (a sub-maximal effort VO2 max estimate based on HR response).
Longer term it's a bit of a conflict that for true VO2 max improvements you would be looking towards high intensity work (and losing weight!) but for this test it's biased towards a lower exercise HR which long steady cardio influences more.4 -
Another vote for what I'll call breathwork here. This is part my philosophy of quality of life extension, second only to adequate fibre intake 😂
While I tend to use/practice breathing techniques for pain management, it's also obviously handy for cardio and endurance efforts like your upcoming retest. And you can practice even when you're not exercising, per se!
Sounds like you really want to ace this test so all the best to you! Keep us posted!4 -
Thanks for all your help guys - just reporting back to say "I PASSED!!!"
It goes to show how flawed the test is, that I can go from 31 (average fitness for age, but a fail for the HSE requirements) to 56 (Goddess like).
But I don't care. I passed. Yippee!13 -
So did you do any particular exercise to improve your result?2
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So did you do any particular exercise to improve your result?
My husband and I did a lot of consecutive daily walk/runs (20min max per day, 1.66 measly miles!), interspersed with cycling (aver 12 miles) on days we really couldn't face staggering around the route again.
Not recommended for obvious reasons, but it seemed to work.
However... my OH and I - and the Dr herself - were all puzzled at the discrepancy in the readings (my OH also failed first time, passed second, albeit not quite so spectacularly). Jon and I are now thinking the equipment was probably at fault, either first or second - or both - times.
Either way, I'll continue to stagger around, cycle and swim. I'll also throw in some weights and yoga. Who knows. This time next year I may even do a Triathlon - if I can stop feeling like death warmed up on the runs!2 -
Kudos for getting it done!!1
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skinnyrev2b wrote: »So did you do any particular exercise to improve your result?
My husband and I did a lot of consecutive daily walk/runs (20min max per day, 1.66 measly miles!), interspersed with cycling (aver 12 miles) on days we really couldn't face staggering around the route again.
Not recommended for obvious reasons, but it seemed to work.
However... my OH and I - and the Dr herself - were all puzzled at the discrepancy in the readings (my OH also failed first time, passed second, albeit not quite so spectacularly). Jon and I are now thinking the equipment was probably at fault, either first or second - or both - times.
Either way, I'll continue to stagger around, cycle and swim. I'll also throw in some weights and yoga. Who knows. This time next year I may even do a Triathlon - if I can stop feeling like death warmed up on the runs!
That. Is. Fabulous!
Giant congratulations on passing, and respect for all the hard work you put in to get there.
Inspiring!
P.S. Thanks for coming back and reporting results. I didn't post earlier, because others had covered the territory, but I did read the thread at the time. I always wonder how these things turn out! 😉3 -
Glad you were able to pass the test.
When I first joined the USAF in the late 90's, the fitness test given annually was to sit on a stationary bike with a heart-rate monitor strapped across the chest, then ride as the test administrator progressively increased the resistance on the pedals. Theoretically, the test was supposed to measure how well your heart responded to the change in intensity in a predictable fashion to determine fitness.
In reality, it was a complete joke which the USAF thankfully got rid of a couple years later. The failure rate was astronomically high, like in the 90% range. The stories surrounding it were plentiful... one person weighing 350+ pounds who smoked two packs a day passed, while a guy in my unit who finished in the top 100 overall in the Boston Marathon the previous year failed. One guy failed the test in the morning, then passed with flying colors that same afternoon. Ah, memories...1 -
skinnyrev2b wrote: »Thanks for all your help guys - just reporting back to say "I PASSED!!!"
It goes to show how flawed the test is, that I can go from 31 (average fitness for age, but a fail for the HSE requirements) to 56 (Goddess like).
But I don't care. I passed. Yippee!
Well done!
:flowerforyou:2 -
skinnyrev2b wrote: »
[/i].....
My husband and I did a lot of consecutive daily walk/runs (20min max per day, 1.66 measly miles!), interspersed with cycling (aver 12 miles) on days we really couldn't face staggering around the route again......
.....Either way, I'll continue to stagger around, cycle and swim. I'll also throw in some weights and yoga. Who knows. This time next year I may even do a Triathlon - if I can stop feeling like death warmed up on the runs!
Congrats on passing your test!!
And re: the bolded: That's how you're supposed to feel during a triathlon run.
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skinnyrev2b wrote: »
[/i].....
My husband and I did a lot of consecutive daily walk/runs (20min max per day, 1.66 measly miles!), interspersed with cycling (aver 12 miles) on days we really couldn't face staggering around the route again......
.....Either way, I'll continue to stagger around, cycle and swim. I'll also throw in some weights and yoga. Who knows. This time next year I may even do a Triathlon - if I can stop feeling like death warmed up on the runs!
Congrats on passing your test!!
And re: the bolded: That's how you're supposed to feel during a triathlon run.
Ha ha ha ha
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