I’m Fit, Right?

What does it mean to “Be Fit”?

To assess “being fit” we view overall health as three legs of the same stool; Health Markers, Fitness Performance Markers and Body Composition Markers. Without each of those being taken into consideration, overall health and fitness is compromised. Two legged stools are pretty hard to sit on!

For instance we have seen members in the first responder community who can pass a base line fitness test which is all about numbers, but who are overweight, have high blood pressure and cholesterol levels out the roof. They could hardly be considered fit. Not picking on first responders, as many of us are in the same boat. Just saying there is more to it than “passing the test”.

At Get Fit NH Bootcamp we also perform a physical fitness test, but this is not a test you can fail. During a one minute time frame each client will do a certain exercise to the best of their ability. We do this with five different exercises in order to get a good judge of overall physical fitness abilities. (Some might be great at squats but have a difficult time with push ups, so one exercise will not be an overall judge) We repeat this test every four to six weeks, with the goal being to see improvement.

This improvement might come in way of the amount of the exercises being done or how they are done. But in real life most will not give two hoots how many pushups and situps they can do or how fast they can run, but they will care that they are improving.

We use these tests to demonstrate the efficacy of the program as well as show our members how much their hard work is paying off. If you have a women who could do no pushups the first time around but 8 weeks later can do 5 rock solid pushups, that is more important than being able to push an arbitrary number just to pass a test. We can then set goals for the next phase of training.

But fitness tests are just one leg of the stool. We also need to consider health markers such as blood pressure and cholesterol. It is more critical from a health standpoint for these numbers to be in line, as they are predictors of health challenges such as diabetes and heart disease.

Here are the baselines we use.

Blood Pressure: <120/80

Cholesterol:
Recommended Total: <200 mg/dl
Recommended LDL: <100 mg/dl
Recommended HDL: >50 mg/dl
Fasting Blood Glucose: <100 mg/dl

Triglycerides: Recommended: <150 mg/dl

Finally Body Composition Markers. We need to know a bit about how our body is put together- The ratio of our lean body mass to fat percentage. An easy way you can do this at home is with a quick trip around our middle.

Waist Circumference:
Women: <35″
Men: <40″

So don’t just look at one set of numbers. When we are looking for accurate predictors of overall health, all these factors should be considered. 

So what do you think now? Do you know all your “numbers”?

Do they tell you that you are “Fit”?

To your overall health,
Nancy and Dean