Think you're pretty fit? These suggestions should reveal if you're right, or if you've neglected one of the three core areas of fitness: strength, flexibility and cardio.
Maybe you've trained for a while without seeking new challenges or perhaps you're a casually committed lifter, dancer or runner wondering how your fitness compares outside your comfort zone. Regardless, you'll likely find these challenges useful.
Strength: Are you as powerful as you think? Try moving at least one workout per week to the triple overload principle. Instead of focusing on only the weight lifted and repetitions performed (which is a double overload system), also focus on maximizing the length of time for which the muscle remains contracted.
To do this you'll have to slow way down, taking about 10 seconds to complete each repetition, while ensuring you never allow the targeted muscles to relax during the set.
Perform as many as you can, but increase the weight if you're able to do more than 15 reps, or more than two and a half minutes of sustained contraction.
If done with truly perfect form, the triple overload system should create a muscle burn like you've never felt before. Often called the HIT, or High Intensity Training, method, this technique is extremely challenging and a great test of overall strength.
Flexibility: Are you as limber as you think? Shoulders: Hold a ruler in one fist, making note of the thumb position, and reach that arm behind your head and down your back as far as you can without causing pain. Next, reach up your back with the opposite hand and grasp the ruler as high up as you can with the other fist. Calculate the distance in inches between your two thumbs when the ruler was transferred. A good score is not more than four inches, ideally a bit less.
Hamstrings: Lie flat on your back with one leg completely stretched out and the upper half of the other leg pointing to the ceiling. Now lift the lower half of the raised leg as high as possible without moving the extended leg. A good outcome is to straighten the lifted leg completely.
Calves: Sit on the floor with the soles of your feet against a wall, legs and back straight. Keeping your heels on the wall, pull your toes toward your knees. Estimate the distance between the balls of your feet and the wall, or have a partner measure. An excellent score is three inches away or more. n Cardio: Are you as fit as you think? Have you been running mainly on treadmills? Try heading to the local running track for a quite literal change of pace. One thing you can do there much easier than on a piece of gym equipment is effective interval training. Once you've warmed up, try running 100 metres straightaway at a maximum, full-out sprint, then jogging the next 300 m before sprinting again, without ever stopping or walking for at least three laps. If that becomes easy, try sprinting both straight lengths and jogging the curves for at least two laps.
What's that? You want another test? Try running the 400 m dash in at least one minute flat.
Remember, while not necessarily supreme athletes, those who pass these challenges surely possess above average fitness. If you're new to exercise or are significantly deconditioned, start with a beginner exercise routine and give these a try once your conditioning has improved.
Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer and owner of Karp Personal Training and Rehabilitation in North Vancouver. Reach him at 604-420-7800 or karpfitness.com.
