IN GENERAL TESTING WILL...
1. Identify your weaknesses early on before higher intensity training is required
- To help place you in the appropriate training group or program for off-season (transition period) or pre-season (initial stages) training.
- To target the training approach or sequence that best meets your needs at the time
2. Monitor progress
- Testing outcomes serve as valuable indicators of your training adaptation and effectiveness (i.e., the training effect).
- You can monitor your progress during your current exercise plan to insure that you are getting the optimal effect from your training and you can also monitor your changes from season to season by comparing base, build and transition fitness levels over time (i.e., “the ladder effect”)
3. Provide feedback
- Testing can indicate the optimal training stimulus from your unique physiology
- It can provide legitimate measures of improvement
- It enables your coach to assess the success of his/her training program
4. Educate athlete or coach
- The right testing information and a solid understanding of it, can work to encourage compliance to progressive and appropriate challenges in your training.
- Learn more about your physiology which will provide greater confidence in and reinforce compliance to suggested training practices.
5. Predict future performance
- Testing can provide information to help us create realistic expectations for the NEAR future so as not to be too badly discouraged if we don't meet long term goals right away.
More Specifically ...
If a test is sport specific
(i.e., designed to assess an athlete's fitness for the activity in question), valid (i.e., test what they propose to test), reliable (i.e., capable of consistent repetition) and objective (i.e., produce a consistent result irrespective of the tester) then there are tremendous benefits from regular testing. For example:
Why TEST your "Cardio" Fitness
Why TEST your Body Composition
Why TEST your Resting Energy Expenditure
Why TEST your Strength and Muscle Function
Why TEST your Blood
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The Cardio-Metabolic Exercise Profile |
The Lactate threshold provides perhaps the best index of exercise intensity by which to prescribe guidelines for endurance training. This and other threshold markers can provide a means for optimizing your training intensity. Appropriately regulated intensity can prevent under-training, overreaching and overtraining.
The purpose of pre-season testing is to identify, early on, your endurance strengths and weaknesses and then identify very specific training progressions and guidelines to map out a training plan that will optimize your peak training effect when it is most needed.
The purpose of early season testing is to see if the training guidelines have indeed caused the correct training effect that will ultimately prepare you for the rigors of in-season training so that they can reap the best adaptations possible. A higher training effect happens because you are quicker to recover from hard training and are not fatigueing quickly or struggling to carry any extra weight while performing the more intense training regimens.
The purpose of late season or post season testing is to see how the rigors of in-season training have affected your fitness so that you can respond with an appropriate off-season focus. See http://www.fitstop-lab.com/SampleCM.htm#cmprofile for a sample profile report.
Note: Off-season can mean anytime in your training that you cut back or transition away from high volume or regular training.
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The Body Composition Profile |
Your body weight and composition are critical components to your health and performance. Excess weight can often limit your sustainable power and predispose you to health risks. Evaluating your body fat% and lean body weight regularly can identify what types of training loads and fuel requirements work best at optimizing your composition.
For example, if you are a triathlete or cyclist your power to weight ratio on the bike is critical to your performance, especially on hills. Cyclists will often try to get as light as possible while avoiding losing too much muscle (power). Body fat testing will provide the athlete a goal weight based on how much body fat they actually have to lose. If their body fat levels are extremely low they may not realistically have much weight to lose without losing some lean (muscle) weight which could affect their power output potential. Additionally, by comparing their known composition with power testing on a bike they can conclude what composition works best for them.
Accurate body composition testing is also the best way to know if your weight management program is working. Measuring only weight loss may not show true composition changes where some individuals may not lose the weight they were shooting for from exercise but a body composition profile may show them that there were significant losses in body fat and compensatory increases in lean muscle (i.e., more muscle). See http://www.fitstop-lab.com/SampleCM.htm#bodyfat for a sample profile report.
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The Resting Energy Expenditure Test |
Resting energy expenditure (REE) is the amount of calories needed to maintain the body at rest. REE typically comprises 60-75% of your total daily calorie expenditure. REE is also sometimes referred to as Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) or Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). REE can be calculated with lots of convoluted equations, usually determined from changes in body weight or lean body weight. By directly measuring your oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide production a more accurate metabolic rate that is sensitive to current fitness levels and physiological changes can be determined. This information from your REE can provide useful information to help you balance your caloric needs (dietary) against your expenditure (BMR + activity). It also provides a marker for assessing the impact of your diet and exercise program.
This evaluation is recommended annually and provides information critical to mapping out your daily energy (fuel) requirements. Whether for weight or energy management, creating an optimal balance can have a tremendous effect on success of your training.
See http://www.fitstop-lab.com/SampleCM.htm#ree for a sample report.
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The Strength & Function Assessment |
This is a 1-hour assessment which profiles your range of motion (flexibility), core stability, posture, functional strength and muscle endurance. Muscle function and core stabilization training have been proven to be a valuable asset in improving the strength, power, endurance, balance and agility. It is a fundamental element in sports conditioning and training. It is also a primary tool in the prevention of musculoskeletal injuries, particularly repetitive stress injuries. It is the hallmark of rehabilitation programs. Muscle function training can play an important role in improving posture and balance. It has become an essential ingredient of weight control programs. And in older adults, muscle strength helps determine how functional their life can be based upon their ability to do everyday tasks easily. See http://www.fitstop-lab.com/SampleCM.htm#muscle for a sample report.
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The Blood Profile Screening for Health & Performance |
The Full Blood Profile provides critical information for your health risk appraisal which includes your cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, glucose, electrolyte balance, and various liver and kidney enzymes. Additionally the blood profile can provide important information related to your recovery from severe short-term stress such a running a marathon or there are blood markers that can be done in 6-8 week intervals to evaluate your ability to adapt to long-term stress. Knowing your normal baseline levels for your white and red blood cell levels, hemoglobin values and hematocrit ratio, and other blood markers can be used to compare the same levels during training stress to evaluate your training status and defend against overtraining.
More Reasons Why
- To identify your weeknesses and turn them into strengths
- Testing can identify Health Risk
- Testing provides fitness markers that can help motivate change
- Fitness testing will quantify your current fitness status (where are you?)
- Testing can identify contraindications to training (signs of risk?)
- To compare past performances and predict future performance
- Prescribe training prescriptions and progressions
- To educate yourself
- To generate your individualized heart rate training zones
- To help generate specific critical power zones (cyclists)
- To evaluate and track your:
