Fitness Tools to Test your Health and Fitness
We have been very busy this year creating our fitness tools for you to use. Our heads have been well and truly buried over the last 5 months creating a one stop shop for you to check and monitor your health and fitness.
Why use our fitness tools
For people who have signed up for our Beeble’s Fitness for Life you will already know that we provide you with a monthly exercise program for free. However if you have just been using your scales to judge the change in your body then you just might be missing out on some more accurate ways of measuring your progress. Every month when you receive your new exercise program go through our calculators one by one and note down all your results. This way month by month your training will progress as will your knowledge of your achievements.
What fitness calculators do we have for you?
Lets go through them one by one with a brief description of each.
Body Mass Index
Also known as BMI it has the ability to test if you are a healthy weight for your height. It is one of the quickest and simplest ways to detect your health and is used by many Doctors and health professionals. It has been in the news, on and off, about its reliability to give an accurate result and whilst there are maybe more accurate tests like body fat % they are more complicated and take time to get a result. We have written a post on BMI and our thoughts on it here.
Max Heart Rate and Target Heart Rate
Also known as MHR and THR this calculator works out the maximum your heart should beat per minute and then from this result it can calculate what your THR should be to get the best results from your training. You can then take this information to the gym and make sure you are pushing yourself hard enough by either using your own heart rate monitor or the ones that are built in to many of the exercise machines these days. Have a read of our Target Heart Rate post here
Basal Metabolic Rate
Also known as BMR (seeing a pattern yet with these abbreviations – Beeble) it is able to calculate how much energy your body uses in calories when at complete rest. This information helps you if you are trying to lose weight or gain weight as if you know the amount of calories your body uses then you can monitor the amount of calories you consume to achieve your goals.
Basal Metabolic Rate with Body Fat %
Or BMR with BF is a more accurate way of measuring your BMR. If you know your body fat % the calculator can more accurately work out how much lean muscle mass your body has. This is important because the muscles are the biggest contributor to energy usage, therefore the more muscle you have the more calories your body uses. So type your details into this calculator and you will quickly see how much of an energy using machine you are.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure
Guess what this is also known as? Yes have a gold medal; it is also known as TDEE and this helps with estimating how many calories you actually use. The previous two fitness calculators told us how many calories you use when completely at rest, the problem is that for the majority of us it is very rare that we are at rest. Okay so it is fair to say that some are more restful than others but even the most rested of us is using up more energy than we think. So the TDEE calculator takes the result from your BMR or BMR with BF test and asks you a simple question; how active are you during a normal week? You have 5 options ranging from a sedentary lifestyle to the next Olympian and once you have chosen the option that fits you the best it calculates how many calories your body actually uses per day (it maybe more than you first thought – Beeble). It also works out how many calories you need to lose weight or to gain weight. Armed with this knowledge you can make sensible choices with your diet making sure you have exactly the right amount of calories to achieve your goal.
Hip to Waist Ratio
I’m not going to play the game any more. No more guessing the abbreviation because there is no need. We don’t abbreviate this calculator and before you ask, I have no idea why. The Hip to Waist Ratio calculator is probably one of the simplest, yet most underrated fitness calculators there is. It simply takes your hip measurement and your waist measurement puts them through our simple calculation and comes up with an answer that enables you to see how much risk of coronary heart disease you have. The larger your tummy in comparison to your hips the higher the chance you have of getting some heart related illness. This is not some far fetched theory either, but actual fact experienced by many heart surgeons and specialists alike. See how healthy your heart is today by using our Hip to Waist Ratio calculator.
Body Fat Percentage
The Body Fat Percentage calculator or BF (yes we are playing that game again – Beeble) is a great way for you to learn how much fat your body is carrying as a percentage. There are not many body fat percentage calculators out there because you need some body fat calipers and usually someone else to measure you. There are weighing scales that can measure your body fat % but in my opinion and in the opinion of many other fitness professionals the scales are not as accurate as the calipers. Our BF calculator gives you the option of using 8 different measuring techniques and this is important as not everybody is going to be easily able to read all of the measurements available. The most accurate calculator we provide for measuring your body fat percentage has 7 points to measure. And the quickest and simplest calculator uses just two readings. Which ever you choose to use make sure you continue to use the same one each time as it will more accurately show your improvement.
Beep Test
The Beep Test or Shuttle Run is a great way to workout your VO2 max without a lot of expensive equipment. VO2 max is a measurement of how efficient your lungs are at taking in oxygen and utilising it. Improvements in your VO2 max is a sure sign of an improvement of your fitness and that is why this is such a good calculator to use. With this, not only have we provided you with a calculator but we have also provided you with an MP3 sound track you will need to perform this test. We have written a whole post on the Beep Test here, have a read and then have a go with our Beep Test calculator.
Summary
If you want to achieve your goals it is essential that you take regular measurements not only to see how well you are doing but also where perhaps you are failing. By learning about your short comings you will be able to adjust your lifestyle to help your body progress. Have a go with our fitness calculators here and keep taking the tests once every month. Good luck and if you have any questions please leave a comment below.
