We have just finished the Fitness Testing module at course and I am now more than ever a bit dubious about some of the forms of fitness testing which can be performed.
My personal least favourite is the BMI testing which can be done, essentially BMI is a calculation of your weight and height which spits back a number and tells you if you are ‘normal’, ‘overweight’, ‘obese’ etc.
This is a very old measure and I’m not sure that I would ever encourage anyone to use it as it doesn’t take into account muscle mass and also isn’t indicative of our growing population (both upwards and outwards). Given a large percentage of our society is overweight or obese I don’t think we need a calculator to spell out those facts.
Then there are the people that have a lot of muscle but end up in the overweight category. Don’t even get me started on this one!
The next one I’m not so sold on is the Body Fat testing using Callipers. I have had these done in the past and noticed a huge drop in Body Fat % which is all well and good when you have the same person testing you, performing the test the same every time as it does show that you are making progress.
My issues with this test comes in when people get their body fat done by someone and then at a later stage have it done by a completely different person and are either overjoyed or underwhelmed if not embarrassed with a slight touch of guilt for their lack of exercise and shitty food choices since the time elapsed from the first test being done.
Whilst I’m not saying that these readings are not accurate, they are just perhaps not indicative of the changes that have actually occurred between the two points in time given the fact that someone different is taking the readings.
With the callipers if you take the reading on a slight different angle or 1cm different to the place you took them the last time you will come up with vastly different readings!
Whilst it is hard to keep every single factor the same in fitness testing I think if we keep these points in mind we will be less worried about the results and less inclined to beat ourselves up about them.
Moral of the story, focus more on the results you can see!
Are your favourite jeans snugger or looser?
Are you sleeping through the night?
Do you feel energised during the day?
Are you progressing in your lifts or your runs (or whatever it is you do!)
Are you feeling less stressed?
Have you ever had any of the above tests done before? What was your experience?