Establishing a health and fitness baseline is an essential starting point for achieving health and fitness goals. Your movement assessment and baseline or starting point has two basic components. Existing illness, injuries, imbalances, and potential injuries, illness, imbalances.
A solid health and fitness routine should include “A Preventative Care Plan” with specific workouts, diets, stress management, lifestyle habits, ongoing movement assessments, and refinement, all personalized to a client’s biology.
Living a long, healthier lifestyle now and preventing health and fitness decline in the future is empowering. Take control of your health by being proactive and building confidence in your program.
It is important to have a clear and accurate assessment of your current health and fitness. Raise your hand if you could use some improvement!
Baseline Testing and Assessments can really clear up the confusion as to what you need to be working on. It will also keep you motivated as you see the changes, making it easier to keep a regular health and fitness plan in motion.
Improve what you can measure. Focus on what you can control.
Baseline testing will provide insight to make improvements not only for the quantity of life but the quality of life.
Fitness is a powerful marker of health. You can override your genetic code with diet, exercise, stress management, and yoga for mind-body.
Lifestyle vs Genetics
“A concept is known as “epigenetics” empowers people to take control of their health by making choices that may override their genetic code. Behavior and environment can affect how those genes are “expressed,” that is, how information in a gene gets translated and proteins.”
There is no time to waste. Things can change on a dime. For example, if you have been told you are borderline with high blood sugars, the switch can flip and you become diabetic. Or if your blood pressure is almost at the point of needing medication, get serious about meditation and diet.
Losing weight and increasing muscle can be assessed with a tape measure and a scale. You may not lose a pound on the scale but you are dropping your body fat by 10% by increasing muscle mass and are losing inches.
Assessment of your diet can be both painful and eye-opening. There is plenty of research linking good nutrition to good overall health. Food is medicine and a healthy diet is indisputable for optimum health. Making even small changes to your diet can have a big impact on your gut health, brain health, mood, energy levels, and quality of sleep, giving you the energy to maintain a regular exercise program.
Baseline testing provides context about the positive and negative effects of lifestyle habits, diet, and working out. Monitoring and tracking changes in your habits will show up in various ways:
Did your cholesterol skyrocket after being on the ketogenic diet?
Did your memory improve after you started practicing yoga and meditation?
Can you walk a mile faster? Feeling more efficient moving up stairs?
Did you eliminate the bloating by following the recommended foods and macros?
Is your gut health improving?
Are you sleeping 8 hours a night after adding a supplement?
Testing and Assessment is so much more than the reps, sets, and PRs.
Without baseline testing and reassessing, you are sailing without a compass, driving without a map, in the confusing, frustrating, dangerous, and expensive world of health. With your health at stake…
With your health at stake, testing and tracking is a small, important sacrifice for growth and change. Real change. Each time you repeat your assessment, celebrate your progress and adjust your fitness goals accordingly.
Train smart, and pay closer attention to those decisions you are making outside the gym. Start making conscious choices, and you can take control of your health and improve your quality of life.
Kathy Dolan, ACE Fitness Pro, Health Coach, Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor, is a self-employed business owner. Kathy Dolan is a master trainer with years of experience with the secrets to real results! You will find her teaching and training clients at a gym in the San Diego area or on the Class It Up Virtual Studio, and writing health and fitness programs for clients of all ages. She enjoys spending time with her three kids whether it’s in the mountains or on the seashore.