How to Monitor Exercise
- 1). Monitor your level of aerobic endurance, which is your body's ability to deliver oxygen, by performing the mile test. This involves walking for one mile as quickly as possible. When finished, check how long it took you to complete the walk, as well as determine your pulse rate. Each time, you should be able to complete the walk in less time and your pulse rate should lower.
- 2). Monitor your body composition, which is the amount of fat compared to the amount of lean muscle. The best way to test your body composition is to determine your body mass index, or BMI. A score of between 18 and 25 is considered normal, while over 29.9 is a sign of obesity. To calculate your BMI, determine your height and weight and plot the results on the chart located at the National Institutes of Health website (see Resources).
- 3). Test your muscular strength and endurance by performing half sit-ups. These differ from full sit-ups in that the body is not raised to the full up right position, but only halfway. The more of these you are able to perform each time, the better your strength and endurance.
- 4). Flexibility is the ability of your body to move its joints through the complete range of motion and affects your ability to walk, bend, kneel and lift objects. Test your flexibility by using the sit and reach test, which involves sitting on the floor with your legs fully extended, then leaning forward and seeing how far you can reach.
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