The last couple of days have been seriously hot. 41ºC yesterday and 38ºC the day before, which has slightly hindered my plans to do the first round of my fitness testing. Hopefully the Australian summer will soon give me a few cooler days so that I can do the Bleep Test I’ve been planning without killing myself in the heat.
I’ve decided to take 4 measurements relating to my fitness, and 3 for my general health. I’m not really planning to obsess over the results, however I thought it would be good to track how my health and fitness changes over time to help me to assess how my training and diet are going, and to try to identify anything that may need improving over time.
To track my general health, I’ll be looking at my weight, hip and waist measurements. With these 3 values and also my age and height, I can calculate a number of health related values, such as BMI, Hip to Waist Ratio, Waist to Height Ratio, VO2 Max, and an estimate of my Body fat Percentage.
As a guide to my fitness, I’ve decided to use the following:
- 60 Second Press Up Test – to track upper body strength
- A timed Plank – to track core strength
- 20 meter Shuttle Run (Beep/Bleep Test) – to track aerobic fitness
- Resting heart rate – mostly out of curiosity, but also to help me gauge if my SCUBA air time will be likely to increase.
So in spite of the hot weather creating difficulties, I’ve gone ahead with every measurement and test I wanted to do, except for the Beep Test which I hope to knock over tomorrow morning if I can convince a helper to meet up with me early in the morning. In the meantime, here are the inaugural measurements of my Bod in it’s present and less than perfectly fit state:
For better or worse this is my starting point. Clearly I am overweight with an increased risk of heart disease which I am going to want to do something about. The good news is that I’m not really as unfit as I thought I was. Sure I’m not going to complete any half-marathons today, but that’s something I know I can work on. The really pleasing result was to see my resting heart rate so low, which is a good place to start in terms of my cardio health, and which I plan to improve as I build up my strength and stamina over the coming months. I know that my core is shot, but it’s not all as bad as I thought and can only get better.
I’ll post updated test results and photos in at least a month or two, once I’m in the full swing of things.
Diary of a Personal Trainer 