Health-related Physical Fitness Testing
Some key measurements can help you (and your personal trainer, if you have one) to know your present fitness level and to record a baseline against which to monitor your progress. The profile also helps in helping you to decide how to train and to set reasonable and attainable goals. None of the "tests" requires any more than a moderate effort. You will also learn more about your body's endurance, muscular fitness, and flexibility.
Cardiorespiratory endurance - VO2 75 ™
Some resting measurements are taken first, followed by an assessment of cardiorespiratory endurance using a sub-maximal exercise test, so called because it does not require you to give an all-out effort which would be the case for an athlete taking the test in an exercise or physiology laboratory
• VO2 max is the maximum capacity of an individual's body to transport and use oxygen.
Accurately measuring VO2 max involves an all-out physical effort and special equipment to analyse the oxygen and carbon dioxide in your breath. In general clinical and athletic testing, it can be estimated from a graded exercise test in which exercise intensity is increased every few minutes while measuring your heart rate.
We use a new, efficient, method to estimate VO2 max from a sub-maximal cycling that takes your heart rate to no more than 75% of your heart-rate reserve. It takes about 3 minutes to warm-up on the cycle, followed by about 8 minutes of cycling, and a further 3-5 minutes to cool-down. Total time is usually 14-16 minutes. You will exercise at a level that is moderately hard, and you are able to stop at any time if you wish. If you prefer, you can also do this on a treadmill, or on one of the StairMaster climbers.
Here's an example of the data table from a sample test. For this test we only need age; body weight; resting heart rate; the workload (in Watts); and the heart rate during the cycling. The estimated VO2 max in this example is 48, which puts it in the top 10% for a male aged 59.
Further details are provided when you do the fitness test. Because some medications will affect how you respond to some fitness test you should be sure to let us know of any medications or conditions.
Muscular strength and endurance
Some tests measure your upper and lower body strength, for example a bench press (barbell or dumbbell) and a leg press. Some measure your muscular endurance, for example push-ups or partial curl-ups. For the adventurous we can add pull-ups.
Flexibility
We use a standard estimate of trunk flexion, called the sit-and-reach or forward-flexion test. We can also measure flexibility of your major articulations (joints) using a visual inspection and/or a digital goniometer.
Sample fitness profile
Here's an example of the data table from a sample series of tests. Not all the testa were done on the same day. Usually a cardiorespiratory test can be done together with an upper body and lower body strength test in one session. The results are "normalised" and expressed as a ratio, with "1" being the average for a man or woman of the same age. The results are also plotted in a "radar" plot, and an example is shown above. Your future results can be compared to your own baseline, and if you wish, you can compare some of the results with published results of world-class athletes.
Fitness profile
The example at the top shows that the person is above average in all the tests. The "Average" number shown at the top is a simple numeric average of all of the tests. As identified in this person's annual "ningen dock" done (comprehensive annual medical check) at St. Luke's hospital, the only factor that they suggested improving is BMI - and a loss of 1.5 kg would fix that. His upper body strength is good, but less developed than lower body strength and cardiovascular endurance. However his body fat measurement of 13.2% means that it is well within a healthy range.
We have other tests to assess muscular power, speed and agility.
