When you start an exercise
program, you need to test more than the strength of your muscles. It’s also
important to evaluate your cardiovascular fitness (on a stationary bike or
treadmill, for example) as well as your flexibility. These additional
evaluations provide you with a more complete picture of your fitness instead of
only looking at your level of strength. Record the following information in
your fitness journal before you begin weight training:
- · Height
- · Weight
- · Resting heart rate
- · Blood pressure
- · Cholesterol levels
- · Waist measurement
- · Body composition
- · Body mass index
- · Blood glucose levels
·
All these factors give
important metabolic indicators of your overall health. Recording the above
information helps you track your progress and see proven, documented results,
even when you may not be seeing your waistline decrease or biceps
increase as quickly as you want. When you do a weighttraining program
consistently, you’ll see improvement in three areas:
- · Body composition
- · Body mass index
- · Blood pressure
All three of these
improvements reflect overall in your health. Most fitness facilities offer
fitness assessments for their members for a fee. Some clubs include these
assessments as part of your introductory membership package. The term strength testing is somewhat of a misnomer.
Strictly speaking, your strength refers to the maximum amount of weight that you can lift one time — also
called your one-rep
max. For
example, if you squeeze out only one shoulder press with 45 pounds, that’s your
one-rep max for that exercise. In general, it’s not such a hot idea to go
around testing your one-rep maxes, especially if you’re a beginner. Some
veterans like to go all out sometimes, but they typically test their one-rep
max for just one or two exercises in a given workout. Pushing to the max places
a lot of stress on your body parts and can cause extreme muscle soreness even
in experienced weight lifters. A safe alternative to testing all-out muscle
strength is testing your muscular endurance;
you
use a lighter-than-max weight and perform as many repetitions as you can. Most
health clubs choose to do this type of testing. You can safely test your
muscular endurance at home, too. Table 3-1 contains a list of exercises that
you can use to test the muscular endurance of each muscle group. We haven’t included
a machine option for abdominals because exercises performed on the floor are
more effective. The results simply give you a reference point. Strength
improves quickly after you begin lifting weights regularly. We can’t tell you
how much weight to use for your strength tests because everyone’s abilities are
different, but here is a helpful guideline: For each
exercise, choose a weight
that you think you can lift at least six times. If the weight still feels
exceptionally light after six repetitions, put it down and rest a couple of
minutes. Then try a weight that’s a few pounds heavier. For exercises that use
no weight — such as the abdominal crunch and the push-up — simply perform as
many repetitions as you can.
