Miller 20m Run test of aerobic fitness

20m run aerobic fitness test

AEROBIC FITNESS

Your level of aerobic fitness is the symptom of the efficient function of all the major body systems which are dedicated to maintaining healthy cellular function, including the lungs, the blood, the heart and the systems involved in elimination.

Aerobic fitness is the body’s mechanism for:

	getting oxygen into your lungs, trnsferred into your blood stream, pumped around by your heart and distributed to every cell of your body

	removing the waste products of metabolism out of every cell of your body, into the blood stream and out of your body - via the skin, lungs, bowel and bladder.

Aerobic fitness is, along with the fuel you put into your body and the efficiency of your exhaust system, one of the key drivers of healthy metabolic function.

Let your aerobic fitness run down and you can be pretty certain that sooner or later you’ll start experiencing some of the symptoms of metabolic dysfunction. You stack on weight, your blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol levels go up. You feel tired and depressed …

This is what the backside of the Western world is starting to look like, a sure sign of lack of regular, vigorous physical activity.

Aerobic fitness exercise is the body’s ‘turbo-charging’ mechanism designed to make sure that all the trillions of cells in your body are getting the oxygen (and nutrients they need to work efficiently.

It is the mechanism for boosting the various elimination systems, including the lymphatic system, the blood, liver, kidneys, bowel, skin and lungs.

THE BETTER THE CELLS WORK THE HEALTHIER YOU ARE

It devalues the concept of aerobic fitness to describe as its main benefit your ability to do more vigorous, muscular, physical activity for longer periods of time. Sure that is what happens, but it is a by product, a symptom of the fact that a range of metabolic health systems are working more efficiently, not just your muscles.

We all know that the mind is connected to the body; eg when we get anxious we may exhibit physical symptoms (headaches, sore shoulders, high blood pressure, crook guts …). This is known as the psychosomatic effect.

What is less well known is the somato-psychic effect, where once the body is stimulated into action through an aerobic exercise program there is an impact on the mind – you feel better.

THE METABOLIC HEALTH DEFRAG

Have you every watched your computer defrag?

You may well ask, 'What is a defrag?'

Well, to keep a long story short, and in layman's terms, when your computer saves information to the hard disc it can tend to do it in a chaotic fashion. Bits of the one document can be saved in different places on the disk.

The net effect of this chaotic placement of data is that it slows down the retrieval of the information. It takes a long time for documents to open up. Over the weeks, months and years the ghosts in the machine appear to be slowing it down.

Microsoft describes it thus:

The Disk Defragmenter consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk, so that each occupies a single, contiguous space on the volume. As a result, your system can gain access to your files and folders and save new ones more efficiently. By consolidating your files and folders, Disk Defragmenter also consolidates the volume's free space, making it less likely that new files will be fragmented.

Here's what the defrag process looks like on your computer:

before ...

… after

Here’s what it does to you:

● Blood pressure returns to normal
● Blood sugar levels return to normal
● Cholesterol and tri-glyceride levels return to normal

● You get back closer to your ideal weight
● Homocysteine and C-reactive protein levels return to normal
● Mood changes – for the better. A year’s supply of daily vigorous

aerobic physical activity trumps a year’s supply or Prozac.

THE AEROBIC STANDARD

Of all the measures of how well your body is working, your level of aerobic fitness stands out head and shoulders above the rest, much more so than blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood glucose. You can still have normal blood pressure long after the efficiency of the major body systems has decreased.

In this respect, a drop in aerobic fitness is the first of the warning signs that the metabolic health system function is being compromised. An elevation in blood pressure may not occur for years and then the systems may be so far ‘gone’ that the situation can be irretrievable. You’ve got permanent body system dysfunction and you’re destined to be on one or more of the symptom-masking pharmaceuticals for the rest of your life.

Having said all that, it’s usually the case that when we talk about aerobic fitness we start talking about our ability do things that require physical effort – whether it’s walking to the end of the street, walking up a couple of flights of stairs, going on a hike, playing a game of tennis…

Wouldn’t it be awful to restrict your choices in life because you hadn’t bothered to keep yourself fit enough to do them?

As we get fitter we can do more and we can do it for longer.

THE GREAT HEALTH TRAGEDY

One of the great heath tragedies is that 'fitness' is the word that dare not speak its name in doctor's surgeries.

- a Miller Health Pty ltd program -

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