The catagory for this entry should really be entitled, "Dumb Stuff"!
I have a subscription for the magazine Women's Health. Love it. It is very real. So many magazines that feature articles about health, nutrition, and fitness often seem too fantastic. "Get that 6 pack is 6 weeks!"
Okay, whatever.
Women's Health is obviously written by real women for real women who desire health and fitness and have real challenges getting there. The January issues is sporting (sorry for the pun) a new workout plan. I know this doesn't seem unusual but their plan is. It appears to be well-balanced and doable. The plan on their website offers a fitness test that you can print out along with suggested exercises for each level of fitness covering an array of fitness elements such as cardio, flexibility, strength, balance, and agility.
Hmmm. I was familiar with the first three pretty well. And, I knew about the balance thing because of my yoga classes, though this is the first time I'd actually seen balance rated equally with the first three in a pubished fitness plan.
But agility? What a joke. No wonder I've never heard of it. Don't have none!! And probably never did!! I won't go there on that test. My teens were laughing their butts off while I attempted it.
Now the lower body strength test was something I've done before and thought would be a breeze. I was supposed to stand in front of a 12" riser and decend into a squat hoving just above the riser and repeat as many times as I could in 1 minute. My husband timed me. I did 25. Not bad for somebody that's 49, right? In fact, the test suggested that my fitness level is at the intermediate level for this exercise.
Except that I couldn't walk for three days. I sat down immediately after the test and needed help to get back up. My legs quivered like a wet kitty in a snow storm for the rest of the day.
My husband wanted to know if I should take points away from my score. Funny guy.
Somehow we always seem to kid ourselves into thinking we are in better shape than we really are.
So true, Bogie, so true. But I'm definitely not ready to give in yet, though!
25? you did 25?! that deserves several cream cakes!
(Laughing at bod's comment!)
Gawd, sis....I envy you the 25! Bogie, I would have said that Nan is healthier than the average 49 year old, and I'm amazed that she didn't rate as more fit.
Tell what's his name that you should get MORE points for TRYING! Is he still up to snuff on fitness??
What's-his-name is doing as much whining about his fitness level as I am. And I'm fairly sure that he would be hard pressed to do 25 as well! He wanted to know if Men's Fitness had a similar test. They didn't and what they had in the way of a New Year's plan was much inferior (yea! women!).
Welll......I think you should just encourage What's His Name to give those squats a try. YOU can be the timer this time! And be sure the girls are present while he does them.
You're both comparatively fit people for your ages. I'm amazed and appalled that the test suggests that so much of the population is more fit. Should I now disreguard what the news has to say about the number of overweight (read: out of shape) people there are in the US?
Plan on it. Right after his nap.
I suppose we have to consider that the target audience for this magazine - Women's Health - is probably 20- and 30-somethings. The rest of us are suppose to be wise enough to either a)know better, b) modify tests and plans accordingly, or c) read Prevention.