Your body and the way it performs has been broken down to a science by the experts that came before you. Today there are several different fitness tests that can gauge so many of your body’s systems and the way that they perform.

Understanding these variables will let you know your strengths and deficiencies so you can then go on to fix them. Keep reading to see exactly how a fitness test can help you.

1. A Fitness Test Gauges Your Heart Health

Your heart is arguably the most important organ in your body. Running through fitness tests that gauge your heart performance will tell you a lot about your overall health.

Matters like your resting heart rate and exercise heart rate test the strength and performance of your cardiovascular system with concrete data. You can read on here to learn more about heart health testing and why it matters.

2. You Find Out About Your Body Composition

Body composition testing cuts out speculation and tells the story of the body you worked so hard to sculpt.

When you turn on sports of any kind, you’re going to hear the commentators break down certain metrics. In boxing, they call it the “Tale of the Tape”, where they explain measurables that could give one athlete an advantage of disadvantage over the other.

Metrics like your body fat percentage, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference measurement point to your physical composition, and how it might affect your total health. For instance, a large waist circumference doesn’t just point to pants and dress size, it indicates whether you’re at risk for diabetes and heart disease.

Getting body composition testing lets you know without questions whether you’re in “fighting shape” for life.

3. It Helps You Set Goals

You’re better able to reach peak physical fitness when you have goals. You don’t know how far you can go until you begin studying your performance and deciding how far you want to go.

Perhaps you’d like to train for a marathon and want to see where you stand. You can put yourself through several tests on day one to figure out the rate you should start increasing your mileage.

Likewise, a person that wants to get stronger can test their bench press and squat max and work toward increasing it little by little. Starting with the right information makes it easier to begin setting and breaking personal records.

4. Tests Can Gauge Your Cardiorespiratory Endurance

Cardiorespiratory endurance tests explain how long you can last during extended periods of exertion. A VO2 max test measures your oxygen uptake. The more you can take in, the healthier and more seamlessly your heart and lungs are working together.

High-level athletes run through these kinds of tests to make sure that they’re able to make it through long seasons or championship fights without tiring out.

5. You’ll Learn How Flexible You Are — Or Aren’t

Fitness tests also teach you about your flexibility levels. People today are more interested than ever in yoga for the total body health benefits.

So much of yoga involves holding strenuous positions that require flexibility and muscle endurance. Becoming more flexible helps you to improve blood flow to your joints and muscles. This can help you with pain relief so that you’re not dealing with swelling and back pain issues.

Some examples of flexibility testing include the sit and reach, trunk lift, and zipper test. People age gracefully and without toil when they don’t carry around excess tension in their bodies.

Testing your flexibility lets you know whether you’re within a normal range for your age, sex and body type. This will help point you toward the activities that can make you more flexible and limber.

6. Muscular Endurance is a Core Physical Fitness Test

Plenty of people lift weights, but you get to know true strength with muscle endurance tests. For example, pullups test pure total body strength, since it shows how many times you can control and lift your own body weight.

Pull-ups area total body exercise that tone and strengthen everything from your neck and shoulders to your core, back, glutes, and grip strength.

Some other forms of muscular endurance tests include pushup tests and timed planks. You can also one-rep max multiple types of weight lifting exercises — such as the bench press, squat, power cleans, and overhead press.

7. Tests Can Help You to Ward Off Serious Health Problems

While fitness testing shows your current athletic prowess, it’s also valuable in helping you to prevent serious health problems. A weak heart indicates a lower life expectancy or a higher likelihood of heart attack and stroke.

The healthier you build your body, the less likely you are to suffer Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other potentially deadly issues. Many people have taken fitness tests and used them to create lifelong changes.

8. They Will Get You in Peak Condition for Your Job or Sport of Choice

Finally, fitness tests can help condition you for any activity or job that requires physical exertion. For instance, emergency responders need to be able to climb flights of stairs and carry other people’s body weight.

A person applying for the military or police academy will need to pass certain minimums. Running these tests on your own will help you make the needed changes so you can train smarter.

Take Advantage of Fitness Testing and Make the Improvements You Need

A fitness test will go a long way toward explaining where your health stands. Let these tips point you toward life improvements that will revolutionize your health.

Consider these tips and check out more health information from us regularly.