Heart rate. One other important measure to be aware of is your “maximum heart rate.” This can be a great metric in any of your fitness training. There are more precise ways to calculate it, but the simplest is 220 beats per minute (bpm) minus your age. So, if you’re thirty years old, your “maximum heart rate” is 190 bpm.
Your maximum heart rate becomes important because during different kinds of training, you may have a goal of pushing to 80–90% maximum heart rate, 50–60% heart rate, etc., depending on what skills you’re trying to develop.
When you’re training, if you do have a heart-rate goal, you’ll need to check it. To do so, pause what you’re doing and place two fingers on your carotid artery on the right side of your neck. Count how many beats/pulses you feel in 20 seconds, then multiply by 3. You can do a 10-second count and multiply by 6, but 20 seconds is a little easier to be accurate. Obviously the most accurate way is to get a heart-rate monitor that you wear, but you can do that if and when you feel ready for it.
II. Strength
A. The Pull-up/Push-up/Squat test. These three movements serve as a great way to gauge where your strength level is, because together they work pretty much every muscle in your body.
1. Female Beginners:
a) 0–1 pull-ups
b) 0–5 pull-ups
c) Squat < 50% bodyweight for 8 reps
2. Male Beginners:
a) 0–2 pull-ups
b) 0–10 push-ups
c) Squat < 50% bodyweight for 8 reps
3. Female Intermediate
a) 1–5 pull-ups
b) 5–15 push-ups
c) Squat 50–75% bodyweight for 8 reps
4. Male Intermediate
a) 2–10 pull-ups
b) 10–30 push-ups
c) Squat 50–100% bodyweight for 8 reps
5. Female Advanced
a) > 5 pull-ups
b) > 15 push-ups
c) Squat > 75% bodyweight for 8 reps
6. Male Advanced
a) > 10 pull-ups
b) > 30 push-ups
c) Squat > 100% bodyweight for 8 reps
B. As in the general fitness section, you should also factor in frequency of workouts into your calculations.
III. Speed
A. 1-mile time. If we’re talking overall fitness, your 1-mile time is a pretty good measure of the speed component. It doesn’t really take into account your starting/stopping/plyometric speed, but it gives us an idea of how well your body is processing lactic acid buildup (an acid that your body produces when you exert yourself, that makes it more challenging to continue to exert yourself) and your current level of cardiovascular fitness.
1. Female Beginner
a) Can’t complete a mile — 12-minute mile
2. Male Beginner
a) Can’t complete a mile — 10-minute mile
3. Female Intermediate
a) 12-minute mile — 8-minute mile
4. Male Intermediate
a) 10-minute mile — 6-minute mile
5. Female Advanced
a) Sub 8-minute mile
6. Male Advanced
a) Sub 6-minute mile
IV. Endurance
A. Time. The most consistent metric to use to measure your endurance level is how long you can maintain an elevated heart rate without needing to rest. I tend to use 75–80% of maximum heart rate (oh, look, it’s already becoming important!). Here the time is the same for both males and females. You’ll see there is a large range, and that’s because we’re talking endurance, the ability to exert yourself for a long time. You could even divide up the advanced section into multiple brackets, but these serve as good starting places.
1. Beginner
a) < 1 minute — 20 minutes
2. Intermediate
a) 20 minutes — 90 minutes
3. Advanced
a) > 90 minutes
V. Flexibility
A. In the included workouts, flexibility will be the only component that doesn’t categorize you as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Wherever you start, you will end up doing the same amount of flexibility work. But it is important to get a clear idea of where you’re starting from, so here are good ways to check. Bonus: most of them double as pretty good stretches for flexibility training when we get to workouts!
1. Single Leg Floor Touch Test (100); Two-Legged Variety (101) With this test, you are checking for imbalance between your hamstrings and back — and the ability to hold a position, rather than getting there by bouncing or quick movement. In the case of flexibility, bouncing is both dangerous and can lead to muscle pulls, strains, and tears.
a) Find a short stool (6–10 inches high)
b) Put one foot on the stool, keep the other leg straight, and reach slowly for the foot on the floor with both hands
c) Hold the stretch for 10 seconds at a time
d) Switch sides
2. Groin Flexibility Test (102)
a) Sit on the floor, with knees to each side and feet together
b) Pull your heels back toward your groin, keeping your feet together
c) See how close to your groin you can pull your feet without significant discomfort
3. Trunk Twist (103)
a) Standing in a bent over position, place your left hand on the outside of your right leg
b) Reach your right arm up toward the ceiling while opening up your body to the right side
c) Hold where you begin to experience discomfort for 10 seconds
d) Switch sides
4. Back Scratch Test (104, 105)
a) Reaching back over your shoulder with one arm, place your fingertips on your back
b) Reaching the other arm behind your back, place the knuckles on the back
c) Try to bring both hands to touch
d) Preferably, have a partner measure the distance between your hands so you can gauge it
e) Switch sides and repeat
Okay, so those are ways to discern where you are starting from. Again, each one, the point is just to get a clear idea