A Fitness Test for Everyone

Test Your Fitness

This blog entry is going to show a short fitness test for us to give ourselves a fitness ranking in different areas! There are six different areas and the idea is that we perform each test and record our results. We can then analyse what our results mean. (Test taken from Men’s Health Magazine)

1)      Perform as many press-ups as you can in a row. Record the result.

2)      Stand up and see how many seconds you can balance on one leg.

3)      Now see how long you can hold the plank position for.

4)      Now stand by a wall and jump as high as you can to tap it. Record the height in cm.

5)      Now hang from a pull-up bar, keeping your arms straight. See how many seconds you can hang for.

6)      Finally, run 1K as fast as possible and record the time in minutes.

Analysing the results

The first test is one of strength-endurance. If you scored over 60, this is strong, 40-60 is good, 20-39 is average, and below 20 is weak.

The second test is of the stability of the core. For a strong rating you need to have scored over 120 seconds, good is 60-120 seconds, average is 30-59 seconds and less than 30 seconds is weak.

The third test is simply about the strength of your core. Over 120 seconds is considered a strong core, 60-120 is good, 30-59 is average and any less than this is weak.

The fourth test is about explosive power. To gain a strong rating you need to tap at over 50cm, 36-50cm is good, 25-35 is average, and less than this is weak.

The fifth test is all about the strength of our grip. To hold your grip, in this test, for over 120 seconds gains a strong rating, for 60-120 seconds is good, 30-59 seconds is average and anything below is weak.

The final test is all about cardiovascular fitness. In completing the run in less than 4 minutes is strong, 4.5-5mins is good, 5.5-7mins is average and any longer than 7 minutes is weak.

In completing this test and looking at the results it is important that we do not take them ratings too seriously. However, this can give us a good guide of our fitness levels and can also give us goals to try and achieve.

Yo-Yo (Bleep) Tests

Yo-Yo Tests

The yo-yo test, also referred to as; yo-yo intermittent recovery tests, beep/bleep tests, and shuttle runs, is a test designed to examine the endurance and aerobic power of athletes in regards to running. These tests can be used by both men and women alike and are very simple to perform.

How To Set Up Yo-Yo Tests

The basics of yo-yo tests is simple. First of all, a CD (or other recording) is required for these tests, but these are readily available. The CD contains a series of beeps, and the gap between this beeps decreases as the recording goes on. The second part of the set up involves setting up two markers, 20 metres apart. The test is now set up.

The Test

The basic idea of the test is to run from one marker to the other, arriving at the same time as the beep. We then turn around and run to the other marker. This continues, from one marker to the other until the test is over. As the gap between the beeps gets shorter as we progress, the difficulty increases. If we fail to make it to the marker before the beep, we lose a life. We get two lives so when we fail to reach the marker twice the test is over. We measure our total time for our final result.