Not that I am there yet but at 34, I am very much aware that my body is not getting any younger. So if you’re in your 40’s or beyond, you should take a good look at your current health status and assess what can be done to improve your positioning. Making sure that you’re doing everything possible to keep yourself in top shape will be important so that you can enjoy all the years to come. As part of the process, assessing where you currently stand and then taking a good look at what you can do moving forward to improve your positioning will be important.

Let’s have a quick peek at the top methods that you can use to gauge your fitness level.

Your Body Fat Percentage

The very first test that you’ll want to take is a body fat percentage test. So many men get hung up on their BMI, but this value can be highly misleading if you have a high degree of lean muscle mass tissue. Instead you want to focus on looking at how much pure body fat you have as this is the tissue that you need to worry about most.

… Aim for a body fat percentage of no higher than 15-18% ideally … if it is too high, lose weight!

Your 1KM Run Time

Next, also take your 1km run/walk time test. For this test, all you do is simply run or walk a mile as fast as possible and time how long it takes you. At minimum you should be able to walk a km in under 10 minutes and even better is if you can run a kilometer in less than 7. Those who are able to beat the 7 minute km past the age of 40 would be considered to be in superior fitness condition.

Sit And Reach Test

The sit and reach test is another good fitness assessment to use and is going to measure your flexibly level.
For this test you’ll simply sit down flat on the floor with the legs straight out in front of, you knees straight and toes relaxed but pointing upwards.

From there, bend over at the waist and while thinking of keeping the back as flat as possible, reach forward to the toes.
If you can touch your toes with your fingers, you’re considered to be in good flexible condition. If you can go past, you’ll have hit the superior mark and if you can’t even come close to reaching your toes, your flexibly is something that you should be focusing on.

Push-Up Test

Finally, the last test that you’ll want to take to measure your fitness level is your push-up test. Push-ups are a great exercise for total upper body strength development, so getting good at them will really help you take your fitness up a notch. Try and perform at least 20 full push-ups to be in good shape. If you can do beyond, you’ll be doing very well for your age while if you can’t do 20 to start with, you should be devoting more time to a strength training regime.

…if you can’t do 20 push-ups to start with, you should be devoting more time to a strength training regime….

So there you have four great fitness assessment methods to use to figure out your starting point. Use these every 2-3 months and you should have no problem evaluating your progress.