A growing array of high-tech devices and machines promises to tell you how healthy you are, and how far you’ve come. But for decades trainers have used simple tests to do roughly the same job: just go carefully and seek advice if anything hurts or feels too challenging.
1. The cardio test
The gold standard test for aerobic fitness — the VO2 max — measures the maximum rate at which you can consume oxygen. The notorious test involves rigging you up to breathing apparatus while you use a treadmill or exercise bike; the more oxygen you can take in, the better shape you are in.
A simpler proxy is the three-minute step test. To do the step test, find a solid step about 40cm high (two steps on the average stairs can work). For three minutes, step up and down in time with a metronome set at 96 beats per minute for men (Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You); for women, go for 88bpm (Christina Aguilera’s Genie in a Bottle). After you’re done, immediately take a heart-rate monitor reading (or place your fingers on your neck for 15 seconds and multiply by four).
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The slower your post-test heart rate, the better your cardiovascular health. A pulse of 96 or below for men, or 103 or below for women, is considered “good to excellent” for people aged 56-65, while a rate of 116 (men) or 127 and above (women) would be “poor to fair”. Anything in between is “average to above average”. Pulse count ratings for other age groups can be found here.
“To conquer the stairs we must have strong leg muscles and glutes [buttocks],” says Lex Sharp, my personal trainer at FitFor in southeast London. “The ankle, knee and hip joints are all used and balance plays an important role. We must also have a good cardiovascular system.”
Repeat the test every month to track your progress.
2. The strength test
There are multiple ways to test strength, from the wall squat (back against the wall, legs bent at 90 degrees, hold for as long as possible) to the dead hang to determine one’s grip strength (simply hang from a bar; 30 seconds is a decent target). Sharp favours the simple press-up, which is, he says, “the go-to upper-body functional strength movement We push more than we pull, and this fundamental movement will strengthen the muscles of the anterior shoulder, chest and triceps.”
Sharp says a proper press-up should involve straight arms at the top, with hands shoulder-width apart. At the bottom your arms should bend to 90 degrees at the elbow. The goal is to go until you can’t squeeze another one out.
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A good result for people in their twenties would be 40 for men and 24 for women, according to Sharp, dropping to 30 and 15 respectively in one’s forties. The Mayo Clinic is more generous, suggesting “good” targets of 20 down to 10 press-ups for women as they age from their twenties to their sixties, and 28 down to 10 press-ups for men across the same age scale.
Whatever you can do, the point is that you have your own benchmark. The best way to improve? More press-ups: Sharp suggests dividing your maximum by three and performing that number four times daily with a break in between, increasing your reps per set by a quarter each week and retesting every month.
3. The balance test
On paper this test is as simple as they come but it can be tricky to carry out. To start with, try standing on one leg. Before long, balancing for more than ten seconds without letting your raised leg touch the floor should be achievable. The real test is then to do it with your eyes closed.
“Balance can be a really good indicator of various things,” says Simon Inman, fitness director at Surrenne, a health club in Mayfair, where new members do this test. Poor balance, he says, can be a sign of muscle wastage as well as postural and skeletal issues. “It might be injury, it might be body alignment or neurological issues,” he says. Your synapses need to be firing fast to instruct the muscles in your feet, ankles and legs to resist gravity in a way that maintains balance (you’ll feel them all twitching frantically before you lose balance).
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Inman says anyone who can stand on one leg with their eyes closed for more than 10 seconds is doing well, and that 30 seconds would be “amazing”. Doing exercises to improve balance such as yoga, Pilates or even simple moves such as the tandem stance (feet facing forwards in line, the toes of your rear foot touching the heel of your front foot) should help improve your time and reduce your susceptibility to falls later in life.