The Fit Test

This week I joined the Gold's Gym near my house. I went to Gold's in Augusta when I still lived in Georgia and enjoyed it. Their facilities are nice and usually pretty solid

Pros

• Seems to have a good free weight section that is laid out slightly better than Augusta was.
• Has an actual free ROOM for body weight exercises, throwing medicine balls around, kettlebells, bands, boxes, etc. There wasn't as much room or variety of resistance equipment in Augusta
• Monkey bars with alternating heights!
• Sauna and steam room!

Cons

• No climbing ropes
• Uses a huge amount of space as a t shirt display
• No open concept, eveything is sectioned off while Augusta was one huge open space with high ceilings
• No assisted pull up machine
• More expensive. I had the deluxe membership in GA so I could bring a friend ($19), however their membership here is $18 biweekly so $36 a month. Not killer but I was expecting to pay $9 a month for their basic membership

So on Friday I went to the gym to do my HIIT strength training session. I had been seeing signs all over the gym about the Fit Test. Basically you take the test to see how fit you are and where you stack up vs others. And I gotta admit, I was really curious to see how I would do. So I did my 5 minute warm up run and instead of doing my workout I spontaneously decided to ask if I could do the fit test. I walked on the treadmill for 10 minutes while I waited for their trainer to finish with his client. He came over and got me so we could get to work.

As many reps as possible in 1 minute

• Squats - The trainer seemed pleasantly surprised at my ability to squat. Not sure what he's used to seeing but he seemed impressed and said my form was good. 45 in 1 minute.
• Push Ups- This is where I think I blew him away. A goal of mine is to get good at push ups so I've been working really hard on them. Last time I did them I maxed out at 20 (but then did 2 more sets). Today I did 30. 
• Sit Ups - I never do these, in fact I can't remember the last time I did them. I do other things to work my abs and core. A bit out of practice but I managed to get 43 reps.
• Bent Arm Hang - This was hanging from the pull up bar with a wide grip and arms bent at the elbow. Wide grip is something I rarely work on and it's the hardest grip. I got 31 seconds, looking back I think I could have held on just a little bit longer. If it was regular pull up grip I probably could have gotten close to a minute.
• Step Up Test - Step up onto a 12 inch box and step back down with both feet. This is a test of your cardiovascular health and it really sucks. I got 60 steps per foot so 120 total per minute.

I think I really surprised the trainer. He said I've done better than most of the other women who have taken the test so he put me on the leader board. Wasn't expecting that at all. Evidently I'm one of the fittest chicks at this gym. Of course this is out of those who have taken the test but apparently alot of people have taken it. I would think if you really care about being in good shape you'd be curious to see where you're at, right?

I'm at the bottom... Second place in a few areas and even beat some of the boys at a few things. I guess I could work on sit ups and squatting faster. The gym manager who signed me up came over and said "...You did 30 push ups?" Heck yeah. 

This made me feel pretty awesome. Not long after the test ended I proceeded on to my workout, followed by a 20 minute incline walk on the treadmill. It made for a great gym session.

Yesterday's long run proved to be slightly faster than my previous runs - including the fact that I had to slow down for half of it because there was slush and ice on the trail. And today I'm resting up after a week of hard effort in the gym and on the trails.