What is the best way to measure your fitness? How can I tell

From Sophia :

What is the best way to measure your fitness? How can I tell if I am becoming fitter--through measuring my heart rate? Does it have to do with how high my heart rate is after exercise and how fast it returns to normal?

Improvement in recovery heart rate--the time it takes your heart rate to return to normal--is one way to gauge your improving fitness. Another is to check your heart rate after the same activity, for instance walk a mile in 15 minutes and check your heart rate, then try it again 3 or 4 weeks later. If it's lower, you're improving. Another way is if you could only last 10 minutes on the exercise bike, for instance, and now you can go 15 at the same level, your aerobic fitness is improving. Test yourself with the kind of aerobic exercise you usually do. There are other, more sophisticated tests, but any of these will let you know how you're doing. If you can do your activity longer, faster, easier, your fitness is improving. (That's aerobic fitness. There's also muscular strength and endurance, but that's something else.)

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That's it for this time,

By: Joann Bally

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