Fitness Assessment: The Truth revealed

If you are like me and you want to know if “you are reaching your goals?” or “if you are succeeding in reaching your desired level of fitness?” than you will benefit from regular fitness assessments. There are lots of ways one can benefit from regular assessments. For instance:

1. Your first assessment can provide a baseline value for you to measure your coming results against.
2. If you are not sure what your goals are an assessment can tell you in what areas you are defiant and help one define their goals
3. It can provide a means to develop program based around your goals
4. Can help see how far you have come in your program
5. Regular assessments can help you and your trainer alter your program to help speed up your results
6. Identify plateaus in your program and the need to change
7. Easier way to determine body composition without hydrostatic weighing or getting a dexa-scan

What does a fitness assessment consists of? How does one quantify fitness or test it no less? The answer depends on your overall goals. For a more health based approach it may be necessary to look at body composition, healthy back fitness, Vo2max. If your goals are more sports oriented then you may find it useful to know your anaerobic power loss ratio, peak leg power, and your 1 rep max. All these aspects can be assessed by a qualified individual and are important to know when trying to reach or set a goal.

- Robert J. Pearce