3 exercises that will test your fitness level

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How do you know you’re fit? Or at least fit enough? And how do you know your fitness is improving?

You have to test yourself. And while most people haven’t participated in a fitness assessment since their high school President’s Physical Fitness Test, it’s a good idea to check in on your progress every once in a while.

“It’s very important to know that what you’re doing is working,” said Matt Fitzgerald, trainer and author of Run Like a Pro (I if You’re Slow). “Then of course you can fix if what you’re doing isn’t working.

In fact, some experts say that testing yourself every three to six months can tell you more about your fitness than looking at your daily performance, which often varies significantly. While fitness can be measured—and expressed—in many ways, here are three tests designed to track strength and cardiovascular fitness that can be performed with little or no equipment.

• Dead Hang for grip strength

• Cooper Cardiovascular Fitness Test

• Plank for core strength

Greater grip strength is associated with lower rates of heart and respiratory disease, cancer, and reduced all-cause mortality. The correlation is so strong that one group of experts recently called for it to be considered a way to measure overall health, like blood pressure or heart rate.

Grip strength is not only important for countless everyday tasks like opening jars and carrying groceries, but it’s also a good measure of your overall strength. “As you train and improve the rest of your muscle conditioning, your grip strength should move with it,” said Luke Baumgartner, a stress testing expert at the University of Memphis.

You only need a pull-up bar and stopwatches to perform the test.

Anything from zero to 30 seconds should be considered beginner level for men, said Mathias Sorensen, an exercise physiologist at the Human Performance Center at the University of California, San Francisco. Between 30 and 60 seconds can be considered intermediate and more than 60 seconds as advanced. For women, Mr. Sorensen said, zero to 20 seconds for beginners, up to 40 seconds for intermediates and more than 40 seconds for advanced.

If you can’t hang from a pull-up bar at all or don’t have access to one, you can also test your grip strength with the Farmer’s Carry, which means taking a dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand and going for a Walk. Start with whatever you can lift for 90 seconds – and increase the weight as you get stronger. A very good score for men and women, Mr. Sorensen said, is carrying 70 percent of your body weight for 90 seconds.

Since your grip will improve with your overall strength, you can also develop it by doing free weights, using barbells, barbells or kettlebells.

Aerobic fitness correlates with longevity and lower levels of cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality, and cancer.

The best way to measure this is to test your VO2 max, or how much oxygen your body uses during exercise. This generally means going to the lab and working out to exhaustion.

But you can get an idea of ​​it yourself using the Cooper test.

Getting your VO2 max estimate requires a bit of math. Take your distance (in miles), multiply it by 35.97, then subtract 11.29. This is your VO2 max estimate. You can also plug your distance into an online calculator and compare your results to those in your age group.

For example, 1.5 miles in 12 minutes equates to a VO2 max of about 43. That would be an excellent score for a 65-year-old man, good at 45 and average at 25. For a woman, a score of 35 would be excellent at 65, good at 45, and average at 25.

To find out more about your own age group, check here.

If you want to improve your score, Mr. Fitzgerald recommends slightly increasing what experts call your training volume, or the number of workouts in a typical week. For example, run four times a week instead of three, but at a low intensity instead of a moderate one. Then, about once a week, kick into a shorter, high-intensity run. Spending more training time at a slower pace means your body can fully recover before the next run, leading to better overall performance, he said.

That way, when it’s time to pick up the pace, “you have more to give, so you get more out of the session,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.

A strong core can prevent injuries, reduce back pain and help you perform better at sports. One of the easiest ways to test core strength is to simply hold a plank for a time.

You only need a flat surface to perform the test. But a yoga mat can make it more comfortable.

A good goal for men and women of any age, Mr. Baumgartner said, is to hold a plank for at least a minute. More than three minutes is exceptional.

If you can’t hold a plank for even a minute, it’s a good idea to start working on your core strength, Mr. Baumgartner said.

To build your core, start by figuring out your maximum holding time. Then do two to three sets of plank holds a few times a week, adding 5 to 10 percent of that time for each until you consistently hit one minute, Mr. Sorensen said. Then slowly add time to further increase your strength.

You can also incorporate squats, push-ups, and bridges into your workouts two to three times a week to improve your core strength, or try activities like biking, kayaking, dancing, bar classes, or swimming.

Whatever your result, it’s important not to fixate on your score, Mr. Baumgartner said. The point is to keep testing yourself to track improvement.

“The result is not a judgment on you,” he said, “it’s a snapshot in time.”

Hilary Achauer is a freelance health and fitness writer.

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