For those of you looking to test/assess your fitness here’s a fairly broad way to do it. Alternatively, you could turn to one of the fitness tests for the military branches. And here is a little bit of fitness philosophy and a take down of a silly fitness test.

I’m unconvinced there is any one right way to test for fitness. There are dozens of different dimensions to fitness so I’m skeptical anything less than a comprehensive battery of challenges can really test you. There are also many confounding factors like age and injury.

I suppose the military tests have at least some connection to functional fitness for the average soldier, sailor, airman, or marine. Glib veterans I’m curious to know if that’s true.

The first test seems, um… unscientific. Most of the exercises make some sense and do test your physical condition. But what the hell does the Wet Footprint Test reveal about your fitness? I understand you may be able to make a lay diagnosis of a foot problem. But, again, what has that got to do with fitness? The two flexibility tests seem incomplete. You have an entire body. Testing flexibility in two parts tells you about those two parts. I get the sense someone needed to pad out an article.

I don’t have any one test I can recommend. My feeling is you must determine what matters to you. It can certainly be a combination of things. You must measure those things. Only then will you know if you are meeting your own standards.

This week’s music.

Weekly cuteness.

A programming note for next week (Aug 29), GlibFit is taking a day off, but will return for the Labor Day weekend / pre-High Holy Days post.