• Aerobic fitness – the heart and lungs
• Resistance fitness – muscular strenght
• Flexible fitness – flexibility

Aerobic Fitness

Aerobic fitness refers to how high your heartrate goes when you exercise, and how long it takes to return to normal afterwards.

Take your pulse for twenty seconds and then multiply it by 3 to get your heartrate in beats per minute. You should be between sixty and ninety beats per minute.

Now find a step and do step-ups for 3 minutes at the rate of about one second per step-up and step-down. Then take your pulse for another twenty seconds and multiply by three to find your new heart rate.

Heart rate results:

160+ = poor
140-159 = fair
125-139 = good
125 or less = excellent

Also note how long it takes for your heart rate to return to normal. The fitter you are, the faster it will be for your heart to return to normal.

Resistance Fitness

For this type of fitness you need to do exercises for the upper body, abdominals, and lower body.

Push Ups

Start with doing as many push ups as you can in one go. Make sure your body is straight and hands under or slightly wider than your shoulders. Go down until your nose is nearly touching the ground.

0-12: poor
13-29: fair
30-45: good
46 plus: excellent

Abs – Crunches

Again, do as many of these in one go as you can. Lie on your back with your knees bent, hands at your temples and elbows out to the side. Gently curl up.

0-15: poor
16-30: fair
31-40: good
41 plus: excellent

Lower Body Strength

Stand against a wall with your legs at ninetly degrees and see how long you can do it.

Flexible Fitness

It is hard to measure this type of fitness. The testing of this type of fitness are weather you have a full range of movement of the limbs and spine.

To find your training heart rate zone, you need to subtract your age from 220, then calculate 65% of this amount for the lower end of your training zone and 80% for the upper limit.

220 – age * .65 = lower limit
220 – age * .80 = upper limit

To find your pulse rate, you will need a watch with a second hand. There are several points at which the pulse can be felt easily: the neck on either side of the Adams apple; the writs. Apply light pressure to find the pulse. Taking your pulse for 10 seconds and multiplying it by 6 is an optimum way to measure whilst maintaining the intensity of training. It is best to take a measurement after each 10-15 minutes of exercise.