how it works?

THE UNIVERSAL FITNESS TEST

– how it works –

 

The Universal Fitness Test is a premier test of overall fitness. It’s a simple assessment, suitable for school children, ‘regular folks’, sports people and elite force groups. The test in this version is suitable for very fit people, particularly elite sport and elite  force personnel. Future versions will be tailored for ‘regular folks’ and school children.  

The test is designed to provide participants with a picture of all-round fitness – aerobic fitness and strength. Future editions will include to measures of flexibility.

It’s based on a range of objective health and fitness tests, the aim being to provide a reliable and valid measure of body system health, physical fitness and operational function.

The Universal Fitness Test is a field test, which means that it is expected that people will strive (to push themselves) to achieve their best results. It’s not a set of sub-maximal tests conducted in a laboratory.

The tests which form the basis of the assessment have been chosen because they

• use the smallest number of tests which make a good, all-round assessment of physical condition.
• will be familiar to people who train regularly
• are simple and safe to do
• can be administered by groups of people at the same time
• take the shortest possible time to administer
• don’t require a lot of scientific equipment
• are easy to replicate in a training situation
• provide reliable and valid measures of the factors of fitness they purport to measure
• provide people results they can meaningfully understand and standards they can improve in their own time at home.
• give a discriminating range of scores
• sort the fit from the unfit.

FIT-FOR-SCHOOL   FIT-FOR-WORK    FIT-FOR-LIFE

The Universal Fitness Test was originally designed to help corporate organizations:

• keep track of the personally-generated metabolic, musculo-skeletal and psychological dysfunctions of their staff that may contribute to higher levels of absenteeism, presenteeism, workers compensation and staff turnover
• encourage employees to keep themselves fit and healthy to the best of their ability
• determine which staff have the physical competence to do exceptionally demanding work, especially that required in elite forces 

In most occupations, people need a minimum of aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility to do the job without breaking down, to do the job that normal fit and healthy people take in their stride. Even sitting on a chair all day requires a certain amount of fitness, without which, over the years and decades, people become dysfunctional and in pain.

The fitness focus of the Universal Fitness Test is aerobic fitness and strength – though it also includes two optional flexibility tests (hamstring and buttock) and a percent body fat test.

From the workplace the Universal Fitness test has become just that, a universal test of physical fitness that is also appropriate to children, sporting teams and adults of all ages.

Any medical check up that doesn’t also include and assessment of fitness is seriously deficient.

However, you don’t need a doctor or fitness practitioner to supervise the test. You can do it yourself in your own home.

The good thing about it is that the tests are based on common fitness exercises. The more you practice them the better your performance in the test.

The 20m run test is the gold standard aerobic fitness test.

THE AIM

For the community at large, the aim of the Universal Fitness Test is to: –

• elevate the conversation about physical fitness in the community and letting people and their doctors know that there was a simple test that they could do at home – or out the back of the surgery – to measure it

• inspire and motivating people to keep themselves fit and healthy to the best of their ability. If everyone did that there would be a dramatic reduction in visits to surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals
• reduce the individual and public costs associated with medical treatments
• enhance the status of the fitness industry
• assisting corporate organizations to reduce and better manage the risk of absenteeism, presenteeism, workers’ compensation and staff turnover
• assisting organizations to select suitable staff for strenuous work.
• encourage schools to regularly measure the fitness of students.
• create a universal fitness data base. Generally speaking, ‘fitness’ is excluded from the parameters included in statistics relating to the health of the nation – adults and children. When it comes to health, ‘fitness’ is the word that dare not speak its name.

 

FACTORS OF FITNESS MEASURED
BY THE UNIVERSAL FITNESS TEST

 Aerobic fitness

It’s a fact of life; if you’re not in great shape aerobically, you’re probably not all that healthy either. It’s as simple as that. In fact, your level of aerobic fitness is probably the most important general measure of how healthy you are. Aerobic fitness is the principal driver of metabolic health and a significant factor in mental health.

It’s strange then that few doctors will take their customers out the back and measure how aerobically fit they are. You’ll find out a lot more about your health by doing the 20m run than you will sitting in a dark room attached to a sphygmomanometer!

If you’ve got any of the epic metabolic dysfunctions a regular and systematic aerobic fitness training program is an essential ingredient in the process of restoring poor function to good. It beats any pill known to man.

Here’s what the US Surgeon General said in 1979.

 ‘You, the individual, can do more for your own health and wellbeing than any doctor, any hospital, any drug, any exotic medical advice.’

Strength

If your muscles are not strong enough to keep your body in alignment and not strong enough to do the lifting, pushing and pulling tasks required of a normal life, then you’re in big strife.

You can quickly improve your strength in a fitness centre using free weights or machines, or you can do simple strength exercises at home – situp, pressup, squat, Superman back arch.

In the Universal Fitness Test, we measure front of body strength, arm strength, leg strength and hand strength.

Percent body fat

While not really a fitness test, excess body fat is an indicator of poor metabolic health – and the fact that people aren’t getting enough vigorous physical exercise. Percent body fat is a more accurate method of computing body fat content than body mass index (BMI) particularly when it applies to very muscular people.

Flexibility

In the next version we’ll have two optional extra tests that involve testing hamstring and buttock flexibility. Our research shows that tight hamstring and buttock muscles are key drivers of lower back pain.

THE TESTS

The Universal Fitness Test includes 5 fitness tests plus an assessment of percent body fat.

1.   20 metre run

– number of 20m laps in 5 minutes This is the classic test of aerobic fitness, superseding the ‘beep test’.

One foot must go beyond the line at the end of each lap. It may take you several attempts to work out the best speed to start off with. You can walk, shuffle, jog or run. If you’re running and you run out of puff you can slow down to a walk. If you’re in very poor metabolic heath, start off with a slow walk and over the weeks and months gradually pick up the pace. Consult your physician if you feel you may be in very poor cardio-vascular health and request a ‘proper’ cardio-vascular fitness test.
2.   Situps – consecutive number of situps until exhaustion – feet held, hands clasping opposite shoulders, coming up so elbows touch the knees, upper back (not head) ‘hitting’ the ground. With feet held, the test becomes a front of body muscle test. Leg muscles, hip flexors and abdominal muscles are all involved in the situp process.
3.   Pressups – consecutive number or pressups until exhaustion – men on toes, women on lower part of the thigh and not on the knees. Women make sure that your knees, bottom and shoulders are in a straight line. The classic upper body and trunk strength exercise. Pressups incorporate the plank exercise –  in motion.
4.   Squats – consecutive number of squats until exhaustion. Bottom must go down to at lease the crease at the back of the knees. Most people will need to use a heel raise (5cm or so) to successfully complete the test. This is the classic test of leg strength.
5.   Arm hang – hanging from a bar until exhaustion. Hang with palms facing away from you. A large proportion of people are unable to support their own weight at all so be careful and be ready to land safely on your feet if your hands fail to support you. The classic test of hand strength. No need of a grip strength machine, just you knowing how long you can support your own weight with your hands. (If you don’t have a bar to hang on, just ignore this test.)

 

 

 

 

6.   Percent body fat The gold standard for body composition is percent body fat. Theoretically, there is no need to measure how fat people are because generally speaking the fitter they are the closer they will be to their ideal weight.  But having said that, it’s a useful metric to include in a fitness assessment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADMINISTRATION

The Universal Fitness Test is easy to administer.

The strength tests are the same tests as you’d use to improve your strength at home.

The aerobic fitness test requires participants to see how many laps of a 20m course they can complete in five minutes.  You can make ‘the course’ out at a local park or on the street in front of your house.

The 20m run is an adapted version of the ‘beep’ test, equally reliable and valid, but easier to administer. All it needs is two lines , 20m apart, marked on the pavement.

Whilst the ‘beep test’ works well for people who are well trained, it is not sufficiently a discriminating test for people with low levels of aerobic fitness. A high percentage of ‘regular folks’ exit the beep test in under 2 minutes which is not enough time to get a good assessment of aerobic fitness – and metabolic health.

Going continuously to 5 minutes gives people a very good idea of just how much their aerobic fitness has declined over the years.

It’s important you do the tests in the order recommended. Do the 20m run test first, then the situps and pressups, followed by the squats and arm hang. If you do the squats before the situps you’ll compromise your situps’ score.

UNIVERSAL FITNESS TEST
SCORING AND AWARD SYSTEM

The award is based on the lowest points scored for a particular test item. For example,’ if you’re a woman and complete 38 20mrun laps, 30 pressups, 15 situps, 25 squats and hang onto the bar for 30 seconds, the 15 situps count as the lowest score and you qualify for the ‘green’ award.

When completing the test, your award score will automatically appear in the Award column of the scoring table.

POINT SCORING SYSTEM

You can also score points based on the level achieved for each test item.

Points received in the example above are:

 

STANDARDS

Fit-for-work

We believe the Universal Fitness test should be part of a pre-employment medical exam. The Fit-for-Work standards can be matched to suit the nature and demands of the job. They also provide benchmark information that can be used to monitor work health and safety risk.

The gold standard is readily achievable by anyone who has a regular aerobic fitness and strength training program.

The platinum award is readily achievable by people who are highly trained and in excellent physical condition, particularly people in elite forces. Having said that, it’s a tough assignment.

Fit-for-school

The standards in the test are suitable for high school students. Those who are in good shape will readily attain the Gold standard. In future versions of the test, standards will be set appropriate to the year level of the students.

With training, children from 8 years old (grade 4 in Australian schools) will be able to do this test.

If every student left school with a Gold Standard Award, that would provide them with a good start toward navigating the wilds of a sedentary, high-energy intake, mobile phone obsessed culture.

Having their scores (and a photo) recorded by national digital health agencies would provide both individuals and the health system with valuable information.

 Fit -for-life

This is the fitness test that every doctor, fitness practitioner, physiotherapist, nutritionist and counsellor should be administering so that individuals can have a clear idea of just how physically fit them are. Taking blood pressure and a host of pathology tests doesn’t isn’t a sufficient means of gauging how fit and healthy people are.

The Universal Fitness test gets to the core of health, fitness and wellbeing. It’s a test everyone can do at home or in a local park.

Percent body fat scales are an essential heath tool. Every home should have one. Fitbit Aria Scales sync to the Fitbit app on a smart phone will provide you with a daily record of your weight and percent body fat. It’s a life time investment.

YOUR ACHIEVEMENT RECORD

 

Keep track of your fitness. If you have a regular and systematic aerobic fitness strength and flexibility training program you‘ll be able to do the test at regular intervals – every month – and record your scores on the Universal Fitness Test website.