Are you in shape?

[Rain Man]

http://health.msn.com/fitness/articl...24488&GT1=8199

Are You in Shape?


Take this fitness test to gauge your muscle power
by Lara Rosenbaum, Men's Health; Photography by Piotr Sikora

Right now, you probably do two types of training: strength and cardiovascular. Great if you want to look ripped and run long, but lousy if you want to be able to legitimately call yourself fit.

If you build your workout around these five pillars—strength, cardio, flexibility, agility and power—you can reach your peak fitness years.

First step: Pull out a Sharpie or other fine writing implement and take our fitness test. It'll help you design a five-tool workout that can get you in your best shape ever this year, and this lifetime. And that's cause for celebration (with no penalty).

Directions: These tests will assess your baseline fitness in the five core areas. When you're finished, write down your results. That'll guide you in putting together your custom workout. Retest yourself every four to six weeks to see where you're moving and where you're still mired. Then make instant adjustments to kick-start your fitness.

1. Strength

Pushups: Drop and give us as many as possible until failure. Maintain proper form throughout. If you cheat, you're done.

Scoring: Top army recruits do 68 pushups in two minutes. Your upper body is buff if you can grunt out 40 to 50 in that time.

Situps: Lie with your feet flat on the floor, your knees bent 90 degrees, and your hands resting on your thighs. Curl your torso up, sliding your hands toward your knees, then lower yourself back down. Perform as many as you can in one minute, while keeping your feet on the floor.

Scoring: A score of 40 repetitions per minute (rpm) is a sign of a solid core. The average for most men is 35 rpm.

Squats: Keeping your knees behind your toes and your torso straight, bend your knees and lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Slowly stand back up and repeat. Continue until failure or until you break form.

Scoring: Do the old up-and-down 31 to 34 times and your leg strength is average. Close in on 45 times and it's excellent.

2. Cardiovascular Fitness

Three-Minute Step Test: Find a 12- to 18-inch step or sturdy box. Keep a consistent four-beat pace while you step up and down for three minutes straight. Rest for one minute and then take your pulse for 30 seconds. Now multiply the result by 5.6 and divide this into 18,000 (the duration of exercise in seconds multiplied by 100). This is your step-test score.

Scoring: The higher your step-test score, the more efficient your body's blood pump. Anything between 60 and 100 is considered fit.

3. Flexibility

Sit and Reach: Put a 12-inch ruler on top of a box so that half of it is hanging off. Now sit on the floor with your legs extended and your bare feet flat against the front of the box. (Your feet should be on either side of the ruler.) With hands overlapping and legs straight, lean forward as far as you can. Hold your stretch and note the distance between your fingertips and toes. (Negative numbers if you stop before your feet, positive if you reach beyond.)

Scoring: If you can stretch two to six inches past your feet, you're flexible. More than six inches and you're downright elastic.

4. Agility

Shuttle Run: Place two strips of tape three yards apart and set two light books beyond the far strip, which we'll call "mark #2." Standing on mark #1, time the following sequence.

1. (Start watch) Sprint to mark #2, grab a book.

2. Sprint back to #1 and place the book right behind the tape.

3. Sprint back to #2 to grab the second book and return to #1, stopping your watch as you pass it.

Scoring: Under 10 seconds is speedy. Under 9 seconds is practically supersonic—the fastest men run the shuttle in 8.7 seconds.

5. Power (Plyometric Ability)

Vertical Jump: Wet the fingers of your right hand and stand with your right side touching a wall. Reach up with your right hand and mark the highest point you can touch. Now rewet your fingers and stand next to the wall again. This time jump with both legs and extend your right arm to touch the wall. Jump three times and note your highest mark. Your vertical leap is the difference in inches between your standing reach and your top jump mark.

Scoring: The magic number is 20 inches. Fly that high and your springs are in great shape.

[Donger]

I almost read through the entire thing, but I got winded about 3/4 of the way through, and quit.

[Fish]

I'm big boned Rainman!! It's not my fault, my dad made me butter my bacon!!!

[Katipan]

I did 20 push ups before I had to stop. 47 crunches. And when I tried to do the vertical jump thing my hand almost punched through the ceiling.

Now I'm tired. Hurt. Hungry.

**** you Rainman.

[Inspector]

Is round a shape?

[Fire Me Boy!]

Round is a shape, no?

[Radar Chief]

Sure, I’m in shape.
The shape of a pear but that’s still a “shape”.

[Fire Me Boy!]

Dammit. Too late.

[Rain Man]

Strength

I know I can do 40 to 50 pushups because I gave it a try a couple of weeks ago, though I'm not sure about the timing.

I doubt that I can do the situps. I'm the Pillsbury Doughboy right now.

I'm not sure about the squats, but I have legs of steel. I rock at the leg press at the gym.

Cardiovascular

I do this kind of elliptical-like device at the gym, but I do it slowly at a very high resistance. I know that I'm not in good cardio shape.

Flexibility

Ha! I'm moderately flexible in most dimensions, but my aforementioned legs of steel are tight as drums. I can barely touch my knees if I'm bending straight down.

Agility

No idea. I'm going to have to try this when no one's looking.

Vertical Jump

I used to have a great vertical leap due to the aforementioned legs of steel. Time and extra weight have taken their toll, though, so I'm pretty sure that I'm several inches away from a 20-inch vertical now.

[Donger]

That was fun. I still suck at vertical leaps, though. I love doing pushups and situps.

[Inspector]

The push-ups and sit-ups are pretty easy to reach their goals. I'm an old(er) guy and I can do those without much trouble, they should be harder.

I didn't reach the goal with squats. My knees are pussed out.

The jump thing I'm not doing here.

The stretch thing I'll try later at home.

The running and getting books thing is way to complicated. I'll need a butterfingers first.

Or maybe a Reeces.

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by Katipan

I did 20 push ups before I had to stop.

You should know that the stated standard of 40-50 pushups, and 68 max, is for men. The military standard for women is ‘bout 1/3 that, so 20 pushups isn’t too bad.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

You should know that the stated standard of 40-50 pushups, and 68 max, is for men. The military standard for women is ‘bout 1/3 that, so 20 pushups isn’t too bad.

I hear that Katipan has a powerful chest, so no surprise there.

[Katipan]

Not having a chest helped with the crunches.

[chagrin]

I got as far as "pull out a Sharpie" and that was it for me