President's Adult Fitness Challenge

Remember the fitness tests in phy ed from way back in grade, middle, and high school?  I do...in fact...I think I remember it way too much!  It was such a source of stress for a chubby little kid like me.  When I say stress, I mean from the moment that I heard that the fitness tests were coming, I would think about it all the time and wonder how horrible I would do that time around.  1-mile run?  Yeah, it was more a walk.  Shuttle run?  Not too horrific.  Curl ups?  Always semi-okay here.  But, flex arm hang?  HA!  I still can't do that even with working on my upper body strength all summer.  I was always so jealous of the kids who could do well and always felt horrible when I didn't get a medal. 

So I was thinking about this tonight (I can honestly admit that I have no clue what triggered this), I started wondering if there was an adult fitness test similar to what we were subjected to as kids.  Sure enough...there is!  And, oh it is so much easier!  Well, I mean, at least they don't expect me to do the flexed arm hang anymore!

So, I was pretty bored tonight as the semester has not yet started and I am out of books to read.  I figured I might as well give this a go.  Now, I kind of cheated a little here.  I used my average mile walk time and heart rate after one mile from the gym yesterday when I walked 4 miles on the treadmill.  Otherwise, the other components are the sit and reach (ugh...), 1/2 sit ups, and pushups.  Here's my results:

The results here are kind of funny as they are so similar to where I remember being as a chubby kid.  I probably could walk faster but I thought my heart rate wasn't too bad.  Aparently, I'm not up to par with the rest of my age group though!  BUT!  Heck yeah!  I crushed the sit-ups and push-ups!  Oh yes, my strong exercises as a kid are still strong as an adult (and I would argue they are much stronger than when I was a kid).  Flexibility was so-so.  I know I'm not the most flexible at the moment, I didn't need the President's Challenge to tell me that!

Final thoughts on this?  Basically, I am only 1/2 way to my weight loss goal and my overall score is in the 57th percentile.  I'm good with that right now, especially since I'm fighting a cold right now.

On another note, I was finally getting used to the cooler weather and getting super in the mood for fall and...wham.  Hot weather!  I'm not looking forward to baking in my extremely sunny, non-air conditioned office tomorrow, especially since I'm pretty congested with this cold/sinus infection/thingy.  I've decided to try to think of it as a free sauna!  Two more days of hot and then cool fall weather will be upon us.  I even saw some low temperatures in the 40's for next week!  Perfect weather for the start of September!