what's your body age?

i recently joined a fitness center, and have been trying to work out three days a week. so far i’ve done fairly well. when i signed up, i was given the opportunity to have a fitness evaluation taken, as well as an appointment or two to learn how to use any of the machines that scare me. (for me, this is almost anything related to weights.)

my fitness evaluation took place this past wednesday evening. after filling out a form telling them that i haven’t worked out in, oh . . . five years . . . and that there is a history of heart-related deaths in my family, and that i am starting to work out primarily to tone up, lose weight, boost energy, and just be more fit over-all, i was introduced to mathias, who brought me into a room with a scale, an enormous body-fat-discerning machine (eek!), and a computer. he inputted all my basic information, took my resting pulse and my blood pressure, measured my height (i’m only five-six-and a half? i was sure i was five-seven!) and weighed me (like i’m gonna tell you that), and then had me do three exercises.

first, i had to stand on the scale again, and he handed me a handlebar attached to the scale by a cord. i had three tries to pull up as hard as i could on the bar. my highest number was my best score. i thought that was odd. why wouldn’t it be an average of the three? no idea. anyway, this tested my bicep strength. i was just slightly above average.

second, i had to sit on the floor with my legs outstretched in front of me, and he handed me another handlebar, this one attached to a zip-line of sorts, leading straight in front of me. i again had three tries, but this time i had to lean forward as far and as fast as i could without bending my knees. this tested my flexibility. again, i was above average.

finally, he gave me the option of running or walking a mile as fast as i could, followed by the taking of my active pulse. i chose to walk the mile—twelve laps around the track—and did so in thirteen minutes.

after all was said and done, he gave me a printout of my results. according to that piece of paper, i have a “body age” of twenty-five as compared to my chronological age of thirty-three. while i am very quick to correct anyone who says this means i have the body of a twenty-five-year-old, i’ll take it!