4 simple exercises that will show you how strong you are. If they’re going well, keep it up! If they don’t work, you should train regularly.
There are two possible cases: a person thinks he is much fitter than his age, or he just feels that he is not strong enough, despite the fact that he trains a lot. Those who have played sports and moved all their lives experience that their fitness changes with age, it is more difficult to develop, their muscles decrease, and regeneration slows down.
But this should not take away our desire to exercise, as it is at least as important to live actively in old age as it was when young. Regular exercise has many benefits: it helps prevent dementia and diabetes, improves your sense of balance, and ensures better and more sleep.
Playing sports ensures that our blood circulation, metabolism, and digestion are better, and it helps the joints to get used to it and not hurt. As long as we are able to, it is worth exercising three times a week, even walking, jogging, swimming, hiking, dancing, but there are already plenty of age-appropriate group training sessions.
We are at our peak physically until we are 30 years old, and from then on our body slowly transforms:
the renewal of cells slows down, the condition of the blood vessels can also deteriorate, which is aggravated by sitting a lot, the metabolism also starts to slow down. Over the age of 40, this process accelerates, and in women, the hormonal transformation also occurs. A large proportion of the discomforts associated with aging can be avoided with regular exercise, so don’t be shy, let’s see how fit you are.
Test how fit you are with 4 simple exercises!
Fitness tests
THE Wall Street Journal in a long article, he details how easily we can measure our state of fitness, how much oxygen is needed for all of this – we will briefly outline what you will need for the measurement: nothing! Dress up in comfortable clothes and shoes and go for it!
1. Aerobic fitness: 12 minutes of jogging or 1.6 km walk
Are you familiar with the Cooper test? We “loved” this running exercise at school, and now we can use it to measure whether we are fit enough as adults. The essence of the test is how far we can cover in 12 minutes. If some illness prevents us, or our joints and limbs are not healthy, then jogging can be replaced by walking.
A performance of 2,500 m for men aged 40-49 and above 2,300 m for women is already excellent, but a performance of 1,700 m and below for men and 1,500 m and below for women is considered a poor result – with such endurance, it is worth asking for the help of a professional trainer to improve the condition. Over the age of 50, the minimum required distance is reduced by 100-100 meters.
There is a simple balance exercise that shows how well you can coordinate the important function of your body.
Jogging 12 km a day is already enough for better health or 10,000 steps if you walk (Photo: Getty Images)
2. Can you handle yourself? Your recliner will show it!
The push-up is a very simple test because it is easy to measure whether you can support and move your own body weight. It is considered a complete exercise if you can keep your torso straight, your buttocks do not hang or push up, and your arms form a right angle at the elbows when lowering.
Between the ages of 40 and 50, 18 push-ups or less for men means poor fitness, a lot of training would be needed to stay fit (over 35 indicates very good strength).
For women, this is the required minimum of 7 push-ups, if it doesn’t work, you should train more.
Over 15 push-ups are already considered very fit. Over the age of 50, the minimum is 10 push-ups for men and 5 for women, but even this does not mean sufficient fitness.
3. Trunk muscle strength: lateral plank
It seems like a simple task, but it’s not! Those who regularly do sedentary work, spend a lot of time in cars and do not exercise regularly, probably cannot hold this pose for more than a few seconds.
To test your core strength, lie on your side with your legs crossed, knees together, one elbow on the floor and the other arm raised. The more difficult version, when the lower arm is also straight:
If you can hold this pose for a long time, your core muscles are very strong (Photo: Getty Images)
If you can hold this side plank for more than 45 seconds, your strength is above average. Between 20 and 45 seconds is also good, but if you fall to the ground before that, regardless of gender or age, it is a sure sign that you need to work on strengthening your core.
4. Mobility and stability: Stand up without help!
The older we are, the more difficult it is for us to stand up from the ground without leaning or holding on. The entire exercise consists of unassisted standing up and sitting down. Sit cross-legged, then stand up with your body weight shifted to one side, then sit down and do the same with the other side if you can. Have a chair or wall nearby that you can hold on to if it doesn’t work out.
We have written in detail about this mobility measuring exercise and its background.
According to international recommendations, a healthy adult needs at least 150 minutes of exercise per week to stay fit. This means only 30 minutes 5 days a week, which is really not much. If the test showed that you are not fit enough, you can improve your endurance to a suitable level in 6 months with the exercises listed above.
Featured image: Getty Images
