- If you’re over 50 or have health issues — like high blood pressure, heart problems, dizzy spells, or arthritis — talk to your doctor first.
- Keep in mind that balance and strength decrease as you age. This can limit your ability to exercise or make injuries more likely, and harder to heal. But, by exercising with caution and a little guidance, you can improve these things through exercise.
- When in doubt, talk to a physician. Your physician can indicate any activities you should steer away from.
Test your current fitness level. Basic fitness is a mix of four things: cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and flexibility.[3] How do you measure up? Test yourself to see where you’re fit and where you stand to improve. You’ll need a watch, a measuring tape, a yardstick, tape, and a scale.[4]
- Take a brisk 1 mile (1.6 km) walk to test your cardio health. Before you start, take your pulse rate in beats per minute and record the time. Take your pulse again afterwards and note how long it took you.
- To get your pulse rate, just put your index and middle fingers on the side of your neck. Count the beats for 10 seconds and multiply by six.
- To test muscular strength, count how many push-ups you can do until you are unable to perform any more push-ups with correct form. If you are a woman, you can do modified push-ups (bend your knees) or classic push-ups. Men should do classic push-ups from the plank position. Record the number.
- For flexibility, secure a yardstick to the floor with some tape at the 15 inch mark. Sit next to the yardstick, with your feet roughly even with the tape. Reach forward as far as you can, holding the position long enough to note how far you were able to reach. Do this exercise three times, recording your farthest reach.
- Now for body composition: waist and Body Mass Index. First measure and record your waist circumference around the body at the level of your bellybutton — where your waist is most narrow. To get your BMI (a rough indicator of body fat percentage), use an online calculator or divide your weight in lbs. by your height in inches, squared, times 703. If you're using metric, BMI = (Weight in Kilograms / (Height in Meters x Height in Meters))
Test your current fitness level. Basic fitness is a mix of four things: cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and flexibility.[3] How do you measure up? Test yourself to see where you’re fit and where you stand to improve. You’ll need a watch, a measuring tape, a yardstick, tape, and a scale.[4]
- Take a brisk 1 mile (1.6 km) walk to test your cardio health. Before you start, take your pulse rate in beats per minute and record the time. Take your pulse again afterwards and note how long it took you.
- To get your pulse rate, just put your index and middle fingers on the side of your neck. Count the beats for 10 seconds and multiply by six.
- To test muscular strength, count how many push-ups you can do until you are unable to perform any more push-ups with correct form. If you are a woman, you can do modified push-ups (bend your knees) or classic push-ups. Men should do classic push-ups from the plank position. Record the number.
- For flexibility, secure a yardstick to the floor with some tape at the 15 inch mark. Sit next to the yardstick, with your feet roughly even with the tape. Reach forward as far as you can, holding the position long enough to note how far you were able to reach. Do this exercise three times, recording your farthest reach.
- Now for body composition: waist and Body Mass Index. First measure and record your waist circumference around the body at the level of your bellybutton — where your waist is most narrow. To get your BMI (a rough indicator of body fat percentage), use an online calculator or divide your weight in lbs. by your height in inches, squared, times 703. If you're using metric, BMI = (Weight in Kilograms / (Height in Meters x Height in Meters))
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