FITNESS SPORT No 1 year 2007

BASIC FITNESS TEST MEN WOMEN

cessfully (with a lot of fun and profes sional all-round support) in our gyms instead.

EXERCICE

COMMENT

I

NEW: Basic Fitness Test The test for beginners

Based on experience gained over the past months several interesting find ings have emerged: ✗ Athletic trainers and customers often fail the cardio test: This is fre quently due to training which focuses solely on strength with the stress and relaxation capacity of the cardiovas cular system exhibiting clear deficits. ✗ If professional instructors and course leaders fail in strength exer cises such as chin-up, dip or push-up the reason for this is often too much emphasis on gymnastically oriented endurance training. ✗ If the problems become apparent after the first three strength test exer cises and continue to manifest them selves as co-ordination problems when carrying out the step test then it’s either due to the local muscles of the athlete becoming fatigued or to a general ‘centralised fatigue’. ✗ With the cardio test too, which amazingly was the biggest obstacle for a surprising number of test ath letes, deficits in the ability of the car diovascular system to relax are high lighted. In all of these cases, causes and meaningful training recommenda tions can easily be established: Reg ular comprehensive fitness training focussing on any deficits established will lead to significant improvements within a few weeks and success at the next test is almost always guaranteed. Nevertheless we have found that many customers and also potential customers (at shows or town events) rate the Strenflex test and its require ment to fulfil the prescribed targets for all six test exercises as non-achieva ble. Many look at the exercise boards then decline to take the test, often for

Push ups

3

3

II

Abdominal crunches

2x10

2x10

III

Sit & reach Flexibility is demonstrated with this exercise. Here, the fi ngertips must touch the tiptoes

yes

yes

All exercices must be done without breaks in the movement flow

reasons of “saving face”, because no-one wants to disgrace oneself publicly. In order to make the initiative “Get your fitness badge... in your gym” accessible to a wider public we have devised a spe cial entry level test based on the Strenflex fitness test with the aim of facilitating the beginning of a successful fitness career for (almost) anybody. I wish you and your team a success ful year! Make the most of the strongly

improved outlook of our industry, retain as many members as possible for another year and try to persuade many new ones to start their fitness training at your gym. If we have succeeded in persuading you of the benefits of the Strenflex concepts then call me. We are here to help you. Yours, Dr. Rolf Krempel General Secretary Strenflex Sports Organisation 

12 STRENFLEX fitness sport 12