How to Evaluate Personal Fitness

By eHow Sports & Fitness Editor

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Properly evaluating your personal fitness is essential to maintaining good health. Many experts consider body mass and body composition to be the most important factors in determining future health risks.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

A watch with a second hand
A tape measure

Evaluate Personal Fitness

Step1

Evaluate personal fitness through a professional. Testing will show blood pressure, heart rate, muscular strength, flexibility and body fat. Many trainers and gyms, including YMCAs, will conduct these tests for a fee.

Step2

Stay on top of personal fitness after your initial consultation by conducting tests on your own. Test blood pressure with home kits and evaluate flexibility and endurance with fitness tests like those at the Top End Sports Web site (see Resources below).

Step3

Evaluate your target heart rate and calculate body mass index (BMI), metabolism rate and calorie burn rate, or take an energy self-assessment with tests found at WebMd (see Resources below).

Step4

Find your resting heart rate. Find your pulse at your wrist or throat and count the beats for 30 seconds and double it. The average resting heartbeat for a man is 70 beats per minute and 75 for a woman.

Step5

Find your maximum heart rate. Subtract your age from 220.

Step6

Find your target heart rate. After 10 to 15 minutes of exercise, take your pulse for 30 seconds and double it. Your target heart rate should be between 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate to achieve the most effective fat burning results. Calculate the target heart rate for your age at LiveSTRONG.com and find out more about fat burning zones at TheWalkingSite.com (see Resources below).

Step7

Test your body composition. An easy way is to measure your hips at the widest part and your waist at the smallest. Divide your waist size by your hip size. If the score is 1.0 or higher, you may be in a high-risk health category. A score of .7 or lower is a low-risk category.

Tips & Warnings

If you are over the age of 35 or have been sedentary for an extended period of time, have a complete physical before starting a workout or diet program.
Test your blood pressure with a home blood pressure kit. If it's consistently high see a doctor.