One of the best ways of determining someone's over-all health and fitness is through a physical fitness test.
This does not involve just one exercise but a series of test workouts that are performed so that a person's endurance, strength, agility and flexibility are measured.
This has become a standard part of institutions that put a premium on physical abilities.
These include the branches of the military and the police.
Recruitment for athletics also employs physical fitness tests in order to gauge the recruits' potentials.
Endurance is usually tested through cardiovascular exercises such as jogging for several distances or running stationary on the treadmill for a given period.
Lifting weights or by simply doing push-ups and pull-ups that deal with body weight alone is the usual tests for measuring strength.
Agility and flexibility are often displayed through short sprints and runs through an obstacle course.
The ideal physical fitness test would have all four factors included in order to find out in which area would one need to develop.
Through a physical fitness test, one is able to point out his strengths and weaknesses.
Because there are different routines to be done depending on the four factors, one can see which area he must develop.
Of course, one can start a fitness program even without it.
However, he may just be putting emphasis on the areas he already is good in while neglecting those that needs to be developed.
After a conclusion is reached regarding one's fitness in the different factors, a fitness program can be designed or developed to suit one's condition.
If the test shows that one has to work more on his endurance, then his fitness program would naturally put emphasis on cardiovascular training.
If his strength, on the other hand, needs to be enhanced then weight training would be given importance.
This does not, however, mean that other routines will no longer be necessary.
Physical fitness tests are also conducted for medical purposes.
As a form of diagnostic testing, doctors sometimes prescribe a patient to perform some routines in order to find out how vital organs such as the lungs and the heart react to exertion.
They would let a patient run on the treadmill for a certain time while they monitor the heartbeat rate and blood pressure.
There are also cases when a patient recovering from bone or muscle injury will be asked to lift weights in order to find out the degree of healing.
Schools have been carrying out these tests to help them design fitness programs that would suit the particular conditions of students.
They need it to check also the limitations of students with ailments and avoid including them in exercises that could worsen their situation.
The practice has become more important nowadays since the incidence of obesity has been rising among pre-teens and teens.
Fitness programs are necessary to combat this among the youth and to introduce them to a fit and healthy lifestyle early on.
This does not involve just one exercise but a series of test workouts that are performed so that a person's endurance, strength, agility and flexibility are measured.
This has become a standard part of institutions that put a premium on physical abilities.
These include the branches of the military and the police.
Recruitment for athletics also employs physical fitness tests in order to gauge the recruits' potentials.
Endurance is usually tested through cardiovascular exercises such as jogging for several distances or running stationary on the treadmill for a given period.
Lifting weights or by simply doing push-ups and pull-ups that deal with body weight alone is the usual tests for measuring strength.
Agility and flexibility are often displayed through short sprints and runs through an obstacle course.
The ideal physical fitness test would have all four factors included in order to find out in which area would one need to develop.
Through a physical fitness test, one is able to point out his strengths and weaknesses.
Because there are different routines to be done depending on the four factors, one can see which area he must develop.
Of course, one can start a fitness program even without it.
However, he may just be putting emphasis on the areas he already is good in while neglecting those that needs to be developed.
After a conclusion is reached regarding one's fitness in the different factors, a fitness program can be designed or developed to suit one's condition.
If the test shows that one has to work more on his endurance, then his fitness program would naturally put emphasis on cardiovascular training.
If his strength, on the other hand, needs to be enhanced then weight training would be given importance.
This does not, however, mean that other routines will no longer be necessary.
Physical fitness tests are also conducted for medical purposes.
As a form of diagnostic testing, doctors sometimes prescribe a patient to perform some routines in order to find out how vital organs such as the lungs and the heart react to exertion.
They would let a patient run on the treadmill for a certain time while they monitor the heartbeat rate and blood pressure.
There are also cases when a patient recovering from bone or muscle injury will be asked to lift weights in order to find out the degree of healing.
Schools have been carrying out these tests to help them design fitness programs that would suit the particular conditions of students.
They need it to check also the limitations of students with ailments and avoid including them in exercises that could worsen their situation.
The practice has become more important nowadays since the incidence of obesity has been rising among pre-teens and teens.
Fitness programs are necessary to combat this among the youth and to introduce them to a fit and healthy lifestyle early on.
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