Knowing your fitness level is important when it comes to working out and starting a plan.
Michelle Dunaway was back with a friend of ‘the four’, registered dietitian Grace Derocha of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to learn more.
Regular exercise, especially aerobic exercise, has many benefits:
- Strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system
- Improve your circulation and help your body use oxygen better
- Improve your heart failure symptoms
- Increase energy levels
- Increase endurance
- Lower blood pressure
- Improve muscle tone and strength
- Improve balance and joint flexibility
- Strengthen bones
- Help reduce body fat and help you reach a healthy weight
- Help reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and depression
- Boost self-image and self-esteem
- Improve sleep
Plus she recommends taking a fitness test. Here are the instructions:
- One mile run test– You will time yourself to test your cardiovascular ability by walking, jogging or running one mile. The goal is to do it as quickly as possible.
- Sit and reach test– This test is as simple as it sounds. You will sit on the ground with your legs straight in front of you, feet hip-width apart and flex them. From there, you will stretch your fingers as far past your toes as possible and measure it. The heel of your flexed foot will be the zero mark of measurement. This will test your flexibility.
- Push up test– During this test, you will do as many traditional push-ups as possible in proper form without stopping. You decide the pace you want to do the push-ups, but be sure to keep counting. This will test your strength.
- Crunch test– This is a timed test. You will do as many crunches as quickly as possible with proper form in a 60 second time period. This will test core strength.
There are a few other tests you can do, including a plank test to further test your core; a functional test where you go from sitting on the floor to standing without touching the ground to test your balance. There are a variety of tests that you can include besides the standard four tests above, depending on what you want to focus on with your fitness goals.
To learn more about Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, click here.
