Gauge Your Fitness Level Against Other Adults

by Allie Comeau on June 5, 2008 Leave the first comment

If you’ve ever seen or heard of Denise Austin, you know she’s in extremely good shape. A famous fitness and aerobics instructor, Austin has made countless workout DVD’s and conjures up images of health and well-being.

It’s quite fitting, so to say, that she helped the Presidential Fitness Council develop a new adult fitness test to gauge physical fitness. Not unlike the Presidential Fitness Test we used to take in gym class as kids, the test will tell you where you stack up against other adults your age. The adult fitness test measures things like how fast you can walk a mile or run a mile and a half, how many sit-ups you can do in a minute, how flexible you are, and more.

Strength, endurance, and flexibility, according to Austin, are the three pillars of fitness. To be in top physical shape, you need to be strong in all three areas. This test will help identify your strengths, weaknesses, and areas where you could use a little improvement.

From the article in the Denver Post…

Though the test itself involves such old standards as push-ups, the council hopes that putting instructions and a calculator online will motivate people to take stock of where they stand on key dimensions of fitness. There’s a weight-management component as well.

“Think of it as a personal best,” Austin said. “It should be an incentive to improve.” The emphasis on measurement, I think, is an important one. It may be hard to get to the gym, but once there, it’s easy to stick to routine: Set the treadmill at the same speed or the elliptical at the same resistance, open a magazine and slog away.”

As for Austin, you can probably imagine she did pretty well on the fitness test - she places in the 96th percentile. Where does your body stack up?