What is Fitness Testing and Why is it important?

What is fitness testing and why is it important?

If you want to get fitter or better in your chosen sport, you need a way of measuring where you are now, and where you want to be.

Which is why we fitness test.

Fitness testing is a great tool to help target your training and nutrition from a specific outcome.

From specific fitness testing, we can:

1. Get a baseline score

As part of the Box Nutrition testing framework, it is essential to understand where you are right now. Initial fitness testing gives you a benchmark figure for your health and performance.

2. Identify your strengths and weaknesses

What makes a good runner or cyclist? Understanding how you stack up against industry norms or ideals helps identify where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Do you need to work on your efficiency or your power at higher intensities? VO2Max fitness testing can show you. VO2Max testing can help dictate how to build your training plan and what parts of your training to focus your attention on.

3. Monitor your training effectiveness

By comparing your original baseline numbers with future tests, we can identify if you’re improving. Retesting also enables you to alter parts of your training and nutrition plan to ensure you continue to progress.

4. Create training and nutrition guidelines

Fitness testing like VO2Max testing can measure how many kcals and carbohydrates you burn at different intensities, helping to devise your fuelling plan. VO2Max testing can also pinpoint your training zones to help put together specific training sessions for your goal.

At Box Nutrition and Performance, we follow a 5 Step Process to make fitness testing work for you.

1. Where do you want to be?

We start by delving deeper into your goals and what you’re looking to achieve. Understanding your goals helps gives us a destination to work towards when developing a plan.

2. What’s important in your sport?

What makes a good runner, boxer or cyclist? Understanding key areas for performance in your sport helps build a roadmap of what you need to do to improve.

3. Where are you right now?

Using VO2Max testing, we then build your metabolic profile to establish your health and fitness benchmarks.

Once we have built your metabolic profile, we can then compare you to where you need to reach your goals. What is your VO2Max? Are you producing enough power at your Anaerobic Threshold to hit your triathlon race time? We can accurately identify your strengths and areas you need to improve.

4. Create a plan

From your initial fitness testing, we can provide training and nutrition recommendations based on your results. Our post-test debrief, and the report includes:

Training zones (power and heart rate).
A fuelling plan (carbohydrates needed at different intensities).
Recommendations for areas that you need to improve.

5. Monitor and adjust

Training and nutrition are a fluid process whereby you must adjust things over time based on performance and body composition changes. This is why future testing is necessary to monitor your training and nutrition plans effectiveness. As you improve as an athlete, you will also need to realign your training zones and fuelling strategy.

At Box Nutrition, we offer various fitness testing that incorporates VO2Max, metabolic testing (RMR) and body composition analysis (body fat). Whether you’re a sportsman or woman, want to get fitter or even lose weight, our VO2Max fitness testing can help maximise your results in the most efficient way.