Testing your fitness is key to tracking progress and maximising results – and yet many of us don’t know how or when to get it done. From full-body scans to old school tape measures and stop watches, our experts reveal some of the fitness industry’s biggest secrets.
Ever noticed how family and friends gush over weight lost, shape created or just your ‘healthy glow’ long before you notice the changes yourself? Changes to body composition are so subtle they will likely go unnoticed given how often we stare into the mirror, and your 10km run will somehow always feel exhausting, no matter your fitness improvements. This is where testing your fitness or body composition progress is key.
While it’s all well and good to chase gains, want to strip fat or simply ‘get fit’, none of these goals are easily achieved without a solid plan. And part of a solid plan – both to identify the effectiveness of diet or training tweaks and for your own motivation – is understanding your progress; you need to know from where you are coming and to where you want to go.
“We must force adaptations and the best way to do this is by knowing the data and using it accordingly,” says trainer and owner of Fully Loaded Fitness, Ethan Hyde (ethanhyde.com).
“If you’re not assessing, you’re guessing.”
Too often, both Hyde and head trainer and owner of Personally Trained Andrew McKee (personallytrained.com.au), see women obsessing over the scales – a notoriously unreliable method for testing muscle to fat ratios.
“Your fitness journey is more than just losing kilograms on the scales,” says McKee.
“It’s centimetres off the waist, chest, hips, arms and face. It’s changes in body fat percentage and percentage of muscle mass. It’s an increase in your ability to complete tasks such as running distances, completing daily tasks with ease and even competing in aspirational competitions such as a half marathon, triathlon or similar.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2017 من Women's Health & Fitness.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 2017 من Women's Health & Fitness.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Uh Oh, Fomo
Do You Have the Uncontrollable Need to Attend That Party Even Though You Can’t Stand the Host? Can’t Commit to the Gorgeous Guy You’ve Been Dating Because There May Be Someone Even Better Around the Corner? Are You Mad With Jealousy Over a Friend’s Holiday Facebook Snaps? Are You Just Not Happy Until You Buy That New Dress/phone/bag/pair of Shoes? You Could Have a Bad Case of Fomo (Fear of Missing Out). Fortunately, You’re Not Alone.
Wonder Woman
Kathy Freeman, Marilyn Monroe, Your Superhero of a Mum – All Female Icons and All Play a Part in Inspiring You to Be Confident in Your Own Skin. But How Does Female Empowerment Relate to Overall Good Health – Both in the Gym and in Life?
The Fine Line
You can shed the kilos via skipping lunch, but if you reduce calories without excercise it could come back to bite you, and if you train without adjusting your food intake you will quickly reach a plateau. Welcome to the diet v excercise debate – all the more important come social season, when time is scarce and (high-energy) food is abundant. Help to mitigate the damage of extra race-day canapes with these training tweaks.
Let's Talk About Sex Ed
Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby…or Rather, Let’s Talk About Stis and Stds. Sure, Sexual Health Can Be a Taboo Topic, but With Reports Showing That Hundreds of Thousands of Australian Women Are Living With a Sexually Transmitted Infection That Can Lead to Infertility – and They Don’t Even Know About It – It’s Important to Pay the Issue Adequate Lip Service.
Sweat vs Squat
Lifting Is All Well and Good Until You Want Six-pack Abs, and Spending Too Much Time in Hiit Classes Won’t Necessarily Have You Running a Marathon. Understanding When to Squat and When to Sweat Could Be Your Answer to Accelerated Results.
brooke stacey
self-love is so huge! it can start at a young age and grow with you or it could have never been established and you have to find it and create it.
Bare-Faced
Demand for facial hair removal is driving the trend for dermaplaning, but should you shave your face? The girl-tache is nothing new, but in the era of xxx Brazilians, women are bringing facial hair out of the shadows.
OMG Omega
Recent studies show that these fatty acids could reverse the ageing process. We do the math.
Food v Pharma
Forget Pharmaceuticals. We Get Diet-nostic With Food-based Solutions to Common Physical and Mental Health Dilemmas.
Energy Field
In the Era of Macro Counting, Energy Has Become Synonymous With Carbs. But Feeling Your Best and Functioning Optimally Demands a Balanced Diet of Food and Movement.